#557 General text editor options vs Pydev options (tab size, etc.

[Anonymous]

Eclipse 3.3 / Pydev 1.3.8

Pydev provides the options "Tab length" and "Replace tabs with spaces when typing?" which have equivalent options in General -> Editors -> Text Editors ("Displayed tab width" / "Insert spaces for tabs").
It is not entirely clear to the user whether these options should actually be the same (i.e. if the general ones should affect Python editors as well or not).

Activating the general "Insert spaces for tabs" option (while the Pydev equivalent is off) does affect the Python editor but behaves incorrectly. It alternately inserts tabs and spaces.
Other options on the general tab such as "Show whitespace characters" do have an effect on the Python editor.

From a users point of view I think the best solution would be either be to remove those duplicate options from the Pydev settings or have them be aliases for the general options (i.e. when I change the Pydev setting I automatically change the general setting as well).

- Matthias -

[Matthias Baas]

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Meanwhile I think the best option would be if the general options would be the "global" options that the Python editor uses by default and that I can override these settings in the Pydev option settings.
Rationale: When working with different languages it might happen that things like company standards require one file type to contain spaces and another one to contain tabs for indendation. So it would be useful to be able to specify that on a file type basis (i.e. that each language plugin can have its own settings).

In the Pydev options GUI all the options that are also available in the general settings could be gathered somewhere and only get enabled when an appropriate "override general settings" checkbox is checked. Then it would be clear to the user that those options also exist somewhere else and that they are being overridden for Python source files.

- Matthias -

[Fabio Zadrozny]

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I'll take a look at the 'insert spaces for tabs'. Note that the 'displayed tab width' is not the same as the 'tab length' pydev gives you (one controls the visible size of a tab, and the other the number of spaces that should be used when you make a tab be replaced by spaces.

Cheers,

Fabio

[Fabio Zadrozny]

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Ok, pydev will totally ignore the general settings (this is made clear in the pydev preferences page).

Fixed for 1.3.11.