I'm working with an open-source Java project that uses the so-called "mixed" mode for indentation. This is the convention popularized by Emacs where indentations are (say) 4 spaces but tab characters expand to 8 spaces. Unfortunately, TextMate does not support this mode, as discussed previously [1]. There is a script that converts between mixed mode, but it appears to be manual [2], which won't work in my case. (I'd have to run the conversion every time I open and save a file.)

So, I need a better solution to get around TextMate's lack of support for mixed mode. I was thinking about submitting a patch upstream that would simply get rid of mixed mode and instead use Java's standard convention [3], but then I noticed that it apparently recommends mixed mode!

"Four spaces should be used as the unit of indentation. The exact construction of the indentation (spaces vs. tabs) is unspecified. Tabs must be set exactly every 8 spaces (not 4)."

Am I reading that right? Does Java's coding standard recommend mixed mode indentation? What are TextMate users to do in this situation?

Trevor

[1] http://comox.textdrive.com/pipermail/textmate/2004-December/ 002053.html [2] http://comox.textdrive.com/pipermail/textmate/2006-November/ 015565.html [3] http://java.sun.com/docs/codeconv/html/CodeConventions.doc3.html