Re: mc editor shows

[Theodore Kilgore <kilgota banach math auburn edu>]

On Sat, 30 Oct 2010, Kevin Wilson wrote:

> Hi,
> I am using mc 4.7.4 which I had built from source code.
>
> When I navigate to folders which contains file of "C" language source code
> and edit *.c or *.h files with
> F4 (mcedit), then almost all lines of the file start with:
>
> <-------->
>
> I made a check, and this is as a result of a tab in the beginning of a
> line, which is thus displayed in mcedit.
>
> Is there any way to avoid this ?  I want to be able to see no special
> sign where there is a tab (or when there is no tab).
> I am willing to confugure and build again the source code; I will
> appreciate if somebody can tell me what should I do to avoid this.

Here are some additional comments from another user

Even better would be:

Is it possible to toggle this feature on and off? It has its good aspects 
and its bad aspects.

The good aspects include the fact that to start an indented line with a 
tab is a different thing from starting the indented line with eight 
applications of the space bar. There are in fact differences in the file, 
and the diff and patch commands, for example, can produce something a 
little bit messed up. And some take this very seriously, such as the Linux 
kernel development team. They don't want any indentation of code to be 
done with spaces, in whole or in part. Tabs only, thank you very much. Or 
else your code is sent back to you for fixing.

The worst bad aspect, as far as I can see, is that the mouse sees the 
arrow characters and takes them literally, as arrow characters. This makes 
it quite nasty to copy a block of code from one window to another; every 
copied line of indented code now starts with a literal "<------->" which 
has to be repaired by hand. This is a real mess.

Thus, there are advantages both ways. I agree in wishing that we had more 
flexibility.

Theodore Kilgore