Gtk_Text customization?

[Some Guy <guy mikepery pr mcs net>]

Hello

I was playing around with the text widget and thinking about making a
C/C++ IDE in Gtk(--).  I have two ideas for it that would require the
text widget to be more customizable (I think, unless it has features I
don't know about).  Here are my ideas:

- adjustable tab length: I hacked my text editor (pico) for this, and
    it's my favorite feature. All this is is just how many spaces are
    placed for a tab character (ex: i set the tab length to 4, and
    whenever a tab shows up, it takes up 4 char lengths, as opposed
    to 8). This is not substituting spaces in place of tabs, its just
    how long each tab character is displayed as.
- comment links: I've never actually tried this, but in theory I think
    it would be neat if you could put comments in links to text.  It
    would be a hotlink just like in an HTML browser, and when you click
    on the text, the comment pops up (it could be embedded in the source
    code in the for of a comment like /*@link@(<x>, <y>) <comment> */)

Is the text widget capable of handling these features? Or do I have to
extend it and add these features myself? If so, how easy would that be
(using gtk--)? If anyone has any ideas on how to implement these two,
please tell me.

Thanks.
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Matt Perry [guy@mikepery.linuxos.org]

I'd rather just believe that it's done by little elves running around.
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