On Sat, Mar 31, 2001 at 03:42:13PM +0100, Colin Watson wrote: > will trillich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >it's trivial to set > > > > :set ts=4 > > > >to have VI (vim) use every fourth console column for a tab stop, > >but displaying things via LESS or MUTT, everything is still at 8 > >chars. > > > >is there a way to set TABS=4 globally? (badly-behaved programs > >may hardwire it into their code, but who, using debian, condones > >badly-behaved code? :) > > I've always much preferred leaving tabs at 8 spaces (the one true tab > width), and setting softtabstop (sts) to 4 in vim (possibly shiftwidth > as well). That way you get 4-space tabs to all intents and purposes > while editing but you save files in such a way that other programs read > them as they were intended to look.
since figuring out that it's possible to change tab width, i've wanted to find the guy who set it at 8, hunt him down and hurt his dog. for hierarchical indentation, 8 is ridiculous, and sending four spaces to do the job of one tab -- times how-many-lines-are-in- your-source-code -- is for the birds. if you're bound and determined to have a huge source code file, then comment the hell out of it. three or four is my limit, for tabs. so. anybody know how to set console tabstops to a proper width, system-wide? -- does a brain cell think? [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://sourceforge.net/projects/newbiedoc -- we need your brain! http://www.dontUthink.com/ -- your brain needs us!