Terry J. Reedy added the comment:

I agree that this is an issue, and I believe others have made similar comments 
or requests, but I cannot find an existing issue for this.

By experiment, it is possible to tag a tab and change the background color for 
the spaces a tab is visually converted to.  

import tkinter as tk
root = tk.Tk()
text = tk.Text(root)
text.pack()
text.insert('insert', 'a\tb')
text.tag_add('TAB', 1.1, 1.2)
text.tag_config('TAB', background='#ffd')  # light yellow, or
text.tag_config('TAB', background='#eee')  # light gray

http://infohost.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/tkinter/web/text-methods.html
The other tag configuration options that refer to text, such as overstrike and 
underline, have no visual effect. Neither does non-zero borderwidth.

I am reluctant to add visible characters. The need to delete them would 
complicate converting tabs to spaces and saving files.  Since Idle normally 
converts tabs to spaces on input, they are not common in edited files.  The 
main issue, as you mention, is code imported from elsewhere.

Some issue remain.

1. Tagging tabs: I presume this is no problem, but will not know until there is 
a patch.

2. The priority of the TAB tag relative to others. The importance of this 
depends on the next question.

3. Should tab space in comments and strings be shaded?  I think so.  If so, 
should the shading match the comment/string foreground color?

----------
nosy: +terry.reedy
stage:  -> test needed
title: Highlite tabs in the IDLE -> Idle: highlite tabs
versions:  -Python 3.1, Python 3.2, Python 3.3

_______________________________________
Python tracker <rep...@bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue22354>
_______________________________________
_______________________________________________
Python-bugs-list mailing list
Unsubscribe: 
https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-bugs-list/archive%40mail-archive.com

Reply via email to