Re: Spaces rather than tabs by a major mode hook

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2022 08:57:54 +0000
> From: goncholden <goncholden@protonmail.com>
> Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> 
> Ok.  But it seemed to me that for fortran I am limited on what I can do,
> where the original developers did not.

No, you aren't limited, it's the other way around: you have the Emacs
power at your fingertips, while they used some simpler editor that
placed the burden of indentation on the user.

> For instance, how can I get the tab key to just make a tab and
> pressing it again to make another tab.  As I can do with spaces.

You shouldn't need this, not at all.  If you set the indentation
levels and variables for the style of these files, typing TAB will
insert as many TAB characters as needed to get to the correct column.
For example, if the line should be indented 3 tab stops, typing TAB
just once will insert all the 3 TABs in one go.

That is what Emacs indentation commands are about: they insert the
whitespace as necessary according to your settings, so that you never
again should need to count TABs or insert them one by one.

You should embrace this powerful feature instead of fighting against
it.  It does need some setup to adapt to a particular style of
indentation, but that is one-time only, so really worth it.