Re: tab character

["Andreas Röhler" <andreas.roehler@easy-emacs.de>]

Am 27.10.2011 17:05, schrieb Rustom Mody:
> On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 8:01 PM, Ludwig, Mark<ludwig.mark@siemens.com>wrote:
>
>> If you just want it to insert a TAB character every time, just map the key
>> to self-insert-command.
>>
>
> Yes I gathered that this is the only way (or  C-q TAB).  Seems fairly
> low-level for such a basic usage...
>
>
>> Are you familiar with M-i that runs tab-to-tab-stop?  That might be what
>> you want, too, especially if you want spaces inserted to 'equal' what the
>> TAB character would do on a typewriter, for instance.
>>
>>
> I need tab to be entered as tab without any questions or ambiguity (think
> makefiles?)
>
>
>> Hope this helps,
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+ludwig.mark=siemens.com@gnu.org [mailto:
>> help-gnu-emacs-bounces+ludwig.mark=siemens.com@gnu.org] On Behalf Of
>> Rustom Mody
>> Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2011 8:45 AM
>> To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
>> Subject: tab character
>>
>> The tab-always-indent docs say:
>>
>> -----------------------------
>> Controls the operation of the TAB key.
>> If t, hitting TAB always just indents the current line.
>> If nil, hitting TAB indents the current line if point is at the left margin
>> or in the line's indentation, otherwise it inserts a \"real\" TAB
>> character.
>> If `complete', TAB first tries to indent the current line, and if the line
>> was already indented, then try to complete the thing at point.
>>
>> Some programming language modes have their own variable to control this,
>> e.g., `c-tab-always-indent', and do not respect this variable."
>>    :group 'indent
>> --------------------------------
>> Why is there nothing stronger than nil? IOW why is it so hard to just have
>> tab be tab with no conditions?

Hi,

think you are perfectly right to ask that.
A design flaw IMHO.
Think it's worth a bug report or a post to emacs-devel.

Andreas