[quirk] Spaces used for list indents when spaces disabled

[Ryan Williams]

Even if 'convert tabs to spaces' and 'use tabs for indents' are enabled in the preferences, using the WeBuilder list icon to make a bunch of lines into a list uses spaces to indent them and ignores the preference for tabs to be used.

Since I uniformly use tabs throughout my document and not spaces this ends up breaking consistency and I have to edit them again afterwards.

I assume this isn't intended behaviour as the option implies stuff like this will honour the preference. If it is intended, by all means take this as a suggestion.

[Ryan Williams]

FYI this is still a bug as of the latest version.

[JoeC]

It's a bit strange actually. You can click in the middle of a tab with the mouse, and even select half a tab (obviously, this is being done in spaces).

If you go to the start/end of a tab then use the keyboard it treats them as tabs.

[Ryan Williams]

Is this still a problem with the latest version, or does telling WeBuilder to use tabs instead of spaces now affect everything?

[Ryan Williams]

Just downloaded the demo, looks like it's still an issue. A bit disappointing.

I definitely think this should be addressed. It makes no sense to have everything indented with tabs except list items. The tab/space issue in general seems to strangely conspicuous considering how mature an application WeBuilder is. Even with 'contrain text to cursor' enabled you can still click in the middle of a tab, which can screw up using the add/remove indent functions.

IMO if 'use tabs instead of spaces' is enabled then there should be absolutely no cases of tabs being treated as if made of spaces, including when clicked on with the cursor.

[chrisjlocke]

Although not confirmed, this could be more due to limitations in the text editor control used for the application. It has its little quirks, which while some are easy to code around, some are not.
But again, this is just my assumption.

[Karlis]

You CAN put cater in the middle of a tab, BUT it does not mean that there are space characters. If you press TAB a tab will be inserted. You can put caret in the middle of a tab so that you would be able to start typing exactly there at once if you want so. Also you can make sure that in Options Convert Tabs to spaces is turned off, so with this setting off Tabs will be used for all the indenting operations.

Click Options -> Show Hidden Characters and see for yourself where are tabs and where are spaces.

[Ryan Williams]

But why would you ever want to start typing in the middle of a tab if you don't use spaces for tabbing? Doing this creates space-based tabs, meaning you end up with a horrible combination of proper tabs and space-based tabs regardless of whether or not you have 'convert tabs to spaces' turned off.

It's obvious you've done this intentionally, but I don't see the logic behind it. If I'm using tabs to organise my document I cannot think of a single scenario where I'd want the odd line here and there to have text beginning from the middle of a tab. I'd always want the text/code snapped to a tab, and I hate the fact that it's very easy in WeBuilder to accidentally introduce a bunch of empty spaces even if you have 'convert tabs to spaces' explicitly disabled.

Indeed, the way it currently works actually adds an extra step if I do want to start typing from somewhere in a bunch of tabs, because I'll have to use the left/right arrow keys to move the cursor to a tab after clicking the line. In other editors it just snaps to the closest tab ā€” even in Notepad.

And again, whether or not you have 'convert tabs to spaces' turn offed, spaces are still used to indent list items if you use the GUI to create a list from a bunch of lines. This is a bug I reported last June in this very thread.