Re: Tab questions

[Umesh P Nair]

>>>>> On Mon, 11 Nov 2002 09:48:53 -0600, "ToddW" == Todd Wylie
>>>>> <twylie@watson.wustl.edu> said:

 ToddW> Hi-

 ToddW> I have a couple of questions about tab stops.

 ToddW> 1: Is there a way to load edit-tab-stops from the .emacs file?
 ToddW>    Or must I M-x edit-tab-stops each session?

 ToddW> 2: I'm not too clear on how tabs are working. If I
 ToddW>    edit-tab-stops from 8 characters to 5 for the first tab
 ToddW>    stop and then use C-f it will traverse all 5 spaces for the
 ToddW>    first tab stop -- however, it will jump all 8 spaces at the
 ToddW>    same time at the next (unedited) tab stop. Are edited tab
 ToddW>    stops akin to untabifying tabs (i.e. literal spaces)? I
 ToddW>    have the O'reilly GNU emacs book but his section isn't very
 ToddW>    helpful... thanks.

May not be the answer to your question, but I use the variable
tab-stop-list for this purpose.

The following crude function (wrote a while back.  Never tried to make
it better.) sets the tab stops at places in the interval 2-120.

I have bound it to a key and a menu item.

(defun upn-set-tab-stops (spaces)
  "Sets tab stops at fixed intervals."
  (interactive "nSize of interval: ")
  (if (or (< spaces 2) (> spaces 120))
      (princ "Arg should be in the range 2-120" (active-minibuffer-window))
    (setq tab-stop-list nil)
    (let ((cur-column spaces))
      (while (< cur-column 121)
        (setq tab-stop-list (append tab-stop-list (list cur-column)))
        (setq cur-column (+ cur-column spaces))))
    (princ "Tab stops are set at " (active-minibuffer-window))
    (pp tab-stop-list (active-minibuffer-window))))


- Umesh

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Umesh P Nair
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