wjh+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Fred Hansen) (06/08/90)
Does anyone else think that tabs are too wide on the display?
To study tabs I created a file with the following three lines:
012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
9.5 8.6 8.2 7.5 7.0
| | | | | |
The first line is just a list of digits.
The second line is a sequence of tabs followed by numbers, where the
number is the digit under which the tab falls. That is, the 9.5 starts
on the display just beneath the boundary between the 9 and 0 on the
first line and the 8.6 starts just between the 8 and 9 on the first line.
The third line is a sequence where each element is seven spaces followed
by a vertical stroke. These strokes line up under (approximately) 3, 6,
0, 3, 7, 0, 4
When I preview the file, these problems are apparent:
1) A tab is nothing like seven (or even eight) spaces.
2) The positions in the second line do no line up as they do on the
screen. The items in the second line appear squearly under 8, 6, 4, 2,
and 0--just as though a tab is really eight digits.
3) The vertical strokes are further apart, lying under 3, 7, 1, 5, 9, 2, and 6.
Two questions are evident:
Can we do anything?
and, if so, what?
The answer to the first would be no if there were some isgnificant body
of material for which a change of tab size would be a great disaster.
Note that text that just uses tabs at the beginning of lines should be
relatively unaffected if the text is just marginally less indented.
My own preference would be for tabs of about half there present width.
I don't really see what purpose is served by having such huge tabs.
(Please note, I do not speak for the ITC in this matter.)
What do you think?
Fred Hansen