See MS VC editor for working example.

If below is the tab scheme:

.....x.....x.....x (tab stops)

Then:

a...bb....x.....x

adding adding another 'a' after the first will NOT move the bb's position. Got it?

This small change will make a BIG difference in ease of editing/formatting.

Thanks,
Zany Dog

Naturally, I dot't get you.
Could you please denote tabs and spaces (if any) with some symbols, for example tab with x and space with dot (.) ? Then please show me what was typed in the editor before, what you typed, what you got as a result and what you expected to get.

Thanks.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was using. But to explain another way:

Before:
a...b..... ( the 'b' is in column 5 - first tab stop)

Now we will add another 'a' right after the first one

Here's how it works now:
aa...b..... (the 'b' moves forward one to column 6, one past the first tab stop)

Here's how it should work:
aa..b..... (after the 'a' is typed the 'b' STAYS in the same position, column 5, the first tab stop)


Hope that makes since. If you have MS VC, .net, or Dreamweaver (and I'm sure a lot of others), you can test it there, as this is exactly how it works. Try formatting some code in it, you will see what a difference it makes.

Thanks,
Zany Dog

If you entered spaces between a and b, I don't known any editor that would correct number of spaces. If you entered tab symbol, you'd get behaviour exactly as you described. Don't forget to check "use tab character" in the settings for the editor. Otherwise phped inserts spaces.

ummmm. ok that was easy. Didn't there was an option for it. Now it works as mentioned above. Wish I had known about that earlier!

I guess my only other suggestion, would be to have it default to on for dummies like me.

Thanks!
Zany Dog

Yes I agree! I was really getting ticked off at the tab feature until I found this post and now it works as expected.

The DEFAULT should be ON (tab char) because if I hit tab, I WANT A TAB NOT A BUNCH SPACES!! Otherwise I'd hit space bar a couple of times

Still defaults to OFF.

Well, on the other hand you might say that "off" is a reasonable default. E. g. the PEAR project coding standards (http://pear.sourceforge.net/en/standards.php) require you NOT to use the tab character.