emacs and tab stops

emacs and tab stops

[tano]

Hello,
I used to run emacs always in fundamental mode, because I do not
like automatic indentation, so I put a line in my .emacs file
like (setq auto-mode-alist nil) to leave my tab stop every 8 chars.
However with new versions of emacs seems that things are changed.
Even if I run fundamental mode, tab stops does not follow the standard
indentation every 8 chars, but goes in the first char after a space
on the previous line, for example.
How can I set up things so that it work as I want?
The previous answer talk me about setting tab stops, but
looking at the tab stop variable all seems to be set correctly,
every 8 chars, but however I do not get what I want..
Thanks,
tano

Re: emacs and tab stops

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: tano <gaetanoortisi@yahoo.it>
> Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:14:26 +0000 (UTC)
> 
> I used to run emacs always in fundamental mode, because I do not
> like automatic indentation, so I put a line in my .emacs file
> like (setq auto-mode-alist nil) to leave my tab stop every 8 chars.
> However with new versions of emacs seems that things are changed.
> Even if I run fundamental mode, tab stops does not follow the standard
> indentation every 8 chars, but goes in the first char after a space
> on the previous line, for example.
> How can I set up things so that it work as I want?

What does "C-h c TAB" display?

And what version of Emacs is that?

Re: emacs and tab stops

[Kevin Rodgers]

tano wrote:
> Hello,
> I used to run emacs always in fundamental mode, because I do not
> like automatic indentation, so I put a line in my .emacs file
> like (setq auto-mode-alist nil) to leave my tab stop every 8 chars.
> However with new versions of emacs seems that things are changed.
> Even if I run fundamental mode, tab stops does not follow the standard
> indentation every 8 chars, but goes in the first char after a space
> on the previous line, for example.
> How can I set up things so that it work as I want?
> The previous answer talk me about setting tab stops, but
> looking at the tab stop variable all seems to be set correctly,
> every 8 chars, but however I do not get what I want..

1. In Fundamental mode: C-h k TAB

2. In *Help* buffer: follow the link for indent-line-function

3. C-h f indent-relative (I don't know why this isn't a link)

That suggests to me: (setq indent-line-function 'tab-to-tab-stop)

That by itself may disable automatic indentation, so you can
leave auto-mode-alist alone and get all the other benefits of
the various major modes.

-- 
Kevin Rodgers
Denver, Colorado, USA

Re: emacs and tab stops

[tano]

I'm going to try it. Thanks!!

Re: emacs and tab stops

[Gareth Rees]

tano wrote:
> I used to run emacs always in fundamental mode, because I do not
> like automatic indentation, so I put a line in my .emacs file
> like (setq auto-mode-alist nil) to leave my tab stop every 8 chars.
> However with new versions of emacs seems that things are changed.
> Even if I run fundamental mode, tab stops does not follow the standard
> indentation every 8 chars, but goes in the first char after a space
> on the previous line, for example.

This is because the TAB key is now bound to the function 
`indent-for-tab-command'.  (When did this change? I don't see anything 
in NEWS about it.)

The command you are looking for is `tab-to-tab-stop', which you can run 
by typing M-i, or you can bind it to the TAB key with something like

(global-set-key (kbd "TAB") #'tab-to-tab-stop)

-- 
Gareth Rees