From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Elastic tabstops? Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:41:46 +0000 Message-ID: <20090226154145.GA3586@muc.de> References: <6f93bd5c-238c-4da2-9224-1a53074c3a28@o36g2000yqh.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1235661617 19508 80.91.229.12 (26 Feb 2009 15:20:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:20:17 +0000 (UTC) Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org To: egarrulo@gmail.com Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Feb 26 16:21:32 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1Lci3D-0000Na-7b for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:21:27 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:59156 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Lci1r-0005H0-U4 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:20:03 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Lci1V-0005Gj-MV for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:19:41 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Lci1U-0005GU-2F for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:19:40 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=32902 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Lci1T-0005GR-SM for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:19:39 -0500 Original-Received: from colin.muc.de ([193.149.48.1]:1760 helo=mail.muc.de) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Lci1T-0001oz-DP for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:19:39 -0500 Original-Received: (qmail 59424 invoked by uid 3782); 26 Feb 2009 15:19:35 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (pD9E514A3.dip.t-dialin.net [217.229.20.163]) by colin2.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:19:33 +0100 Original-Received: (qmail 7260 invoked by uid 1000); 26 Feb 2009 15:41:46 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <6f93bd5c-238c-4da2-9224-1a53074c3a28@o36g2000yqh.googlegroups.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.9i X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.5 (Fettercairn) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: FreeBSD 4.6-4.9 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:62405 Archived-At: Hi, On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 03:21:55AM -0800, egarrulo@gmail.com wrote: > Hello, > is there an Emacs mode which implements elastic tabstops (tabstops > that expand or shrink to fit their contents)? I've searched the > Internet and it seems there isn't. > Explanation of elastic tabstops with a Java applet demo: > http://nickgravgaard.com/elastictabstops/ I can't fully understand what you're saying in that webpage: we should say that a tab character is a delimiter between table cells in a manner more reminiscent of how they're used in tab separated value (TSV) files. is rather abstract. It says how we can think of a tab rather than its effect on displaying the text on the screen. What is meant, exactly, by a "table cell"? Is it a block of text 1cm wide, or something like that? The picture on the webpage looks as though it's using tabs to do the syntactical indentation from column 0, but spaces otherwise (e.g. for the space between a statement and a line comment). This isn't difficult to achieve for CC Mode's languages (e.g. C), being a ~25 line hack. If that's what you want, say so, and I'll hunt out the hack. > Thanks -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).