It would be nice if IDEA could be more intelligent about how it handles tab
versus space settings. For example, I'd like it to work as so:
Here is the proposed configuration (b is boolean, # is number)
[b] use tab settings of edited file
(potentially other sub-options... threshholds... etc.)
[#] tab size (number of character lengths a tab key press moves)
[b] use tab character
[b] for beginning of line only
FYI, these settings could be per-project. Some projects I work on have
different settings.
The novel idea here is the first option. 'b' is my abbreviation here for
boolean option BTW. What IDEA could do is read the file, line by line,
looking for a line that starts with a tab character. It could begin this
search at the class declaration for .java files. If it finds one (or maybe
the criteria could be a certain percentage of lines that start with
white-space that is a tab) then tabs are to be used; otherwise spaces are to
be used. If spaces are used, IDEA will try to determine the tab size (# of
spaces equivalent to tab). It could also work, and this sounds really
great, by detecting the tab settings based on the vacinity of where the tab
key is pressed.
An additional feature would be to have the "layout code" feature have an
option "[b] just convert spacing to [tabs]/[spaces]".
A similar feature would be to automatically prompt me *upon file editing* to
convert spacing to one or the other *if the file has mixed leading
indentation*. There would be an option that says "don't ask this again for
this project" too, on this dialog that would map to something in the Project
Settings dialog.
Does this sound reasonable?
~ David Smiley
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