[Geany] Problem: about tabs and indentation.

[Joerg Desch]

After using Geany for a while, I run into trouble with the Geanys philosophy of indentation.

Geany use the tab key and tab character to do its indentation. The tab with is setup globally for all types of files.

Whats the reason for using a tab to indent a line?

I must say I hate it and it is really hard to live with it.

Is it possible to tell Geany to indent using an "indent width" (on a filetype base!) and than (optionally) replace multiple spaces with tabs?

I'm a long time emacs user and its auto formatting capabilities are unbeatable. So it's really hard to switch...

[Nick Treleaven]

On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:25:11 +0200

Post by Joerg Desch
After using Geany for a while, I run into trouble with the Geanys
philosophy of indentation.
Geany use the tab key and tab character to do its indentation. The

You can also use Ctrl-I/Ctrl-U - see the keybindings preferences.

Post by Joerg Desch
tab with is setup globally for all types of files.
Whats the reason for using a tab to indent a line?

Under Edit->Preferences, editor tab, indentation frame, set Type to
Spaces and this should do what you want. The 'Tab width' pref should be
renamed to 'Indent width', as it works for spaces too.

Post by Joerg Desch
Is it possible to tell Geany to indent using an "indent width" (on a
filetype base!) and than (optionally) replace multiple spaces with
tabs?

We could add a filetype-based indent width, a project-based indent
width, and maybe an auto-detect indent width preference. Patches
welcome.

In SVN there's a 'Document->Replace spaces by tabs' option.

Regards,
Nick

[Joerg Desch]

On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:15:14 +0100

Post by Nick Treleaven
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:25:11 +0200

Post by Joerg Desch
After using Geany for a while, I run into trouble with the Geanys
philosophy of indentation.
Geany use the tab key and tab character to do its indentation. The

You can also use Ctrl-I/Ctrl-U - see the keybindings preferences.

Yes, I know. Using Ctrl-I insert a tab width. This is, because I'm forced
to use a tab width of 8, because all other developers (me too) in our
company are using the "official" tab width.

Post by Nick Treleaven

Post by Joerg Desch
Whats the reason for using a tab to indent a line?

Under Edit->Preferences, editor tab, indentation frame, set Type to
Spaces and this should do what you want.

Partly, because of the tab width of 8.

Post by Nick Treleaven
The 'Tab width' pref should be
renamed to 'Indent width', as it works for spaces too.

Not only this, IMO it is necessary to distinguish between tab width and
indentation width. Does Scintilla support this differentiation?

Post by Nick Treleaven

Post by Joerg Desch
Is it possible to tell Geany to indent using an "indent width" (on a
filetype base!) and than (optionally) replace multiple spaces with
tabs?

We could add a filetype-based indent width, a project-based indent
width, and maybe an auto-detect indent width preference. Patches
welcome.

Ok. ;-)

I've started to play with Lua to implement Emacs/Vim like modelines. This
would be a good reason to start with Geany patches.... ;-)

Is the support for "tab width" and "indentation width" a different
Scintilla configuration? Or is it necessary to add this to the Geany core?

To obtain tabs (if enabled) it would be good if 8 (or x) spaces are
replaced with a tab right after the indentation (Ctrl-I). What is the
right way to do this? Can you point me to an file/function which should
be patched?

Thanx for your answer.

[Nick Treleaven]

On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:00:51 +0200

Post by Joerg Desch
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:15:14 +0100

Post by Nick Treleaven
The 'Tab width' pref should be
renamed to 'Indent width', as it works for spaces too.

Not only this, IMO it is necessary to distinguish between tab width
and indentation width. Does Scintilla support this differentiation?

There's SCI_SETINDENT vs. SCI_SETTABWIDTH, but I haven't tried it:
http://scintilla.sourceforge.net/ScintillaDoc.html#SCI_SETINDENT

Post by Joerg Desch
Is the support for "tab width" and "indentation width" a different
Scintilla configuration? Or is it necessary to add this to the Geany core?

What should the difference be?

Post by Joerg Desch
To obtain tabs (if enabled) it would be good if 8 (or x) spaces are
replaced with a tab right after the indentation (Ctrl-I). What is the
right way to do this? Can you point me to an file/function which
should be patched?

I don't know what you mean, I'm not sure why we need to replace
spaces/tabs.

Regards,
Nick

[Joerg Desch]

On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:00:38 +0100

Post by Nick Treleaven

Post by Joerg Desch
Not only this, IMO it is necessary to distinguish between tab width
and indentation width. Does Scintilla support this differentiation?

http://scintilla.sourceforge.net/ScintillaDoc.html#SCI_SETINDENT

Thanks for the link.

Post by Nick Treleaven

Post by Joerg Desch
Is the support for "tab width" and "indentation width" a different
Scintilla configuration? Or is it necessary to add this to the Geany core?

What should the difference be?

As I could read in the Scintilla docs (your link), Scintilla supports
both, real tab-width and indentation-with.

The difference is (or should be), that tabs are some kind of
"compression". Tabs are normally used without a special file type in mind.

Indentation is a more logical thing. The indentation depends on the file
type and the logical content (surrounding the cursor). So indentation
uses whitespaces (and so tabs) to indent the line to this logical
position.

For example: Writing a simple C-function, the indentation is a multiple
of 4.

void foo ( int i )
{
if ( i>0 )
....


Another example is Emacs. It uses indentation for "hanging arguments" too.

void foo ( int i )
{
if ( i>0 )
some_function_call(long_parameter_name_as_example,
second_long_parameter);


Pressing "indent" in Emacs at "second_long_parameter" indents the line
according to the first parameter. This is not a multiple of 4. Thats what
I mean with "logical thing".

When tabs are enabled, most editors I know uses tabs within whitespaces
to realise the indentation. In the above example, the indentation would
be done with three tabs and three spaces.

Post by Nick Treleaven

Post by Joerg Desch
To obtain tabs (if enabled) it would be good if 8 (or x) spaces are
replaced with a tab right after the indentation (Ctrl-I). What is the
right way to do this? Can you point me to an file/function which
should be patched?

I don't know what you mean, I'm not sure why we need to replace
spaces/tabs.

It's just for consistency reasons. If tabs are enabled, they should be used.


To resume this thread:

Geany currently configures tabs with SCI_SETTABWIDTH. To separate tabs
and indentation, the configuration dialog should ask for the indentation
width and set SCI_SETINDENT with this value. There must be a hook to
change SCI_SETINDENT for each filetype. Futhernore, it would be nice, if
the configuration dialog would support SCI_SETTABINDENTS(bool) too.

Thanks for your answers. I think I'll have a look at this as soon as I
have some spare time.

[Nick Treleaven]

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:04:42 +0200

Post by Joerg Desch
As I could read in the Scintilla docs (your link), Scintilla supports
both, real tab-width and indentation-with.
The difference is (or should be), that tabs are some kind of
"compression". Tabs are normally used without a special file type in mind.
Indentation is a more logical thing. The indentation depends on the
file type and the logical content (surrounding the cursor). So
indentation uses whitespaces (and so tabs) to indent the line to this
logical position.
For example: Writing a simple C-function, the indentation is a
multiple of 4.
void foo ( int i )
{
if ( i>0 )
[next_command]

OK, I think I understand. So if tab width is set to 8, then in the
example above it would use 4 spaces for the if command, but for the
next command it would use a tab instead of 8 spaces.

This seems to be what the GTK code does (e.g. gtkfilechooserdefault.c),
it looks like their indent width is 2 spaces, and tabs are equivalent
to 8 spaces (but sometimes they don't bother with tabs even though
there are >8 spaces).

Post by Joerg Desch
Another example is Emacs. It uses indentation for "hanging arguments" too.
void foo ( int i )
{
if ( i>0 )
some_function_call(long_parameter_name_as_example,
second_long_parameter);
Pressing "indent" in Emacs at "second_long_parameter" indents the line
according to the first parameter. This is not a multiple of 4. Thats
what I mean with "logical thing".
When tabs are enabled, most editors I know uses tabs within
whitespaces to realise the indentation. In the above example, the
indentation would be done with three tabs and three spaces.

Geany allows a mixture of tabs and spaces when tabs are enabled.

Post by Joerg Desch

Post by Nick Treleaven

Post by Joerg Desch
To obtain tabs (if enabled) it would be good if 8 (or x) spaces
are replaced with a tab right after the indentation (Ctrl-I).
What is the right way to do this? Can you point me to an
file/function which should be patched?

I don't know what you mean, I'm not sure why we need to replace
spaces/tabs.

It's just for consistency reasons. If tabs are enabled, they should be used.

This is the point that confused me before, Geany's tab Indent Type
setting makes tabs = indentation. You would want a different setting
which applies when the space Indent Type is enabled - something like
'Compress spaces to tabs'.

Post by Joerg Desch
Geany currently configures tabs with SCI_SETTABWIDTH. To separate tabs
and indentation, the configuration dialog should ask for the
indentation width and set SCI_SETINDENT with this value.

It might not be this simple, Geany's codebase expects tabs to mean
indentation width. But I think this is worth implementing. I'll add a
TODO item.

Post by Joerg Desch
There must
be a hook to change SCI_SETINDENT for each filetype.

This could be implemented, a filetype-based indent width.

Post by Joerg Desch
would be nice, if the configuration dialog would support
SCI_SETTABINDENTS(bool) too.

Why?

Post by Joerg Desch
Thanks for your answers. I think I'll have a look at this as soon as I
have some spare time.

Thanks for explaining this, I didn't understand it before ;-)

Regards,
Nick

[Joerg Desch]

On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:51:44 +0100

Post by Nick Treleaven

Post by Joerg Desch
void foo ( int i )
{
if ( i>0 )
[next_command]

OK, I think I understand. So if tab width is set to 8, then in the
example above it would use 4 spaces for the if command, but for the
next command it would use a tab instead of 8 spaces.

Right. That's it.

Post by Nick Treleaven

Post by Joerg Desch
It's just for consistency reasons. If tabs are enabled, they should be used.

This is the point that confused me before, Geany's tab Indent Type
setting makes tabs = indentation. You would want a different setting
which applies when the space Indent Type is enabled - something like
'Compress spaces to tabs'.

Right.

Post by Nick Treleaven

Post by Joerg Desch
Geany currently configures tabs with SCI_SETTABWIDTH. To separate tabs
and indentation, the configuration dialog should ask for the
indentation width and set SCI_SETINDENT with this value.

It might not be this simple, Geany's codebase expects tabs to mean
indentation width. But I think this is worth implementing. I'll add a
TODO item.

Thanks. That was my thought too. To start contributing to Geany, this
hack would be to big. I think I start with writing a plugin. ;-)

Post by Nick Treleaven

Post by Joerg Desch
would be nice, if the configuration dialog would support
SCI_SETTABINDENTS(bool) too.

Why?

Just be to compatible with the current way of doing indents.

[Nick Treleaven]

On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:23:53 +0200

Post by Joerg Desch

Post by Joerg Desch
would be nice, if the configuration dialog would support
SCI_SETTABINDENTS(bool) too.

Why?

Just be to compatible with the current way of doing indents.

I guess anyone with files with tabs in but Spaces Indent Type enabled
could set a tab width equal to the indent width for compatibility.

I think the SCI_SETTABINDENTS message just tells Scintilla to indent
instead of inserting a tab when the tab key is pressed, so this could be
left on for every case.
http://scintilla.sourceforge.net/ScintillaDoc.html#SCI_SETTABINDENTS

Regards,
Nick

[Nick Treleaven]

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:04:42 +0200

Post by Joerg Desch

Post by Joerg Desch
Not only this, IMO it is necessary to distinguish between tab
width and indentation width.

This is now implemented in SVN as a 'Tabs and Spaces' indent type
preference and per-document setting, plus a Tab Width pref (the old
pref is now called Indent Width). The main editing actions should
work as expected in the new mode, but some of Geany's code insertion
features (e.g. default file templates) might still use tabs. Feel free
to file bugs/requests to improve things further (or post here).

Post by Joerg Desch
would be nice, if the configuration dialog would support
SCI_SETTABINDENTS(bool) too.

Maybe you're aware that there's a hidden pref to enable this (see the
manual). I'm not sure why it's off by default? But maybe it needs a GUI
pref.

Regards,
Nick