Re: trouble with tabs [Re: Trouble with global-set-key to map meta-g with 'goto-line]

[Barry Margolin]

In article <mailman.751.1145667494.9609.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
 Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> wrote:

> Sven Urbanski <inf8237@fh-wedel.de> writes:
> > No, it uses 8. The problem is the combination of a character (in this
> > example a space) and a tab. That combo produces a tab which is only 7 chars
> > long (because the space is also taken into account).
> 
> Why is there a problem?  Stefan's (space-only) text took that effect into
> account, so in his post things line up perfectly.
> 
> Of course in the _followups_ to Stefan's post, which quote the whole
> mess, things aren't lined up correctly (because the extra quotation
> prefix shifts his space-space only text, but not the preceeding
> tab-using text) ... but that's presumably not what Barry was complaining
> about.
> 
> To be honest I don't know what Barry was complaining about, unless it's
> perhaps "This damn MUA uses non-fixed-width fonts!"  That's a complaint
> I also have with e.g. gmail, but surely the answer is "fix the MUA."

I'm using MT-Newswatcher, and I have it set to display in a fixed-width 
font (Monaco 10).

I've figured out the problem.  It displays TAB as a single space, rather 
than indenting to a tab stop.  I had no idea that the single line of 
code was indented with a tab rather than a space -- I had to cut and 
paste from MT-NW to Emacs to see this.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
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