Re: Variable-width font indentation

[Clément Pit-Claudel]

On 2018-03-05 14:58, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> How does it know that today, when we only support well the
> fixed-pitch fonts?  Or are you talking about a different problem?

A different problem, IIUC.  The problem is the following:

Assume you wrote the following C code, then changed to variable-pitch:

void pr () {
  printf ("hello, world\n");
}

int main (int argc, 
          char** argv) {
  pr ();
  return 0;
}

Depending on which font you use (and the width of a space in that font), the 
`char** argv' part will move right or left, instead of remaining aligned.  The 
usual solution is to proceed as Paul suggested:

> It assumes the input is fixed-width, and that leading white space is
> intended to indent with respect to previous lines.

IOW, you scale the spaces preceding `char** argv' to make the `c' of `char' 
line up with the `i' of int.

Applying this strategy to all lines doesn't work, unfortunately: it indents the 
`pr ()' and `printf (' lines differently, because the `in' of `int main' and 
the `vo' of `void' occupy different widths.

I don't know of a good solution to this problem: in general, there's not enough 
information to distinguish 'indentation' spaces (the two spaces before `printf 
(', `pr ()', and `return 0') and 'line-up' spaces (the spaces before `char ()').

I hope I'm missing something.

Clément.