More mature indent

[aaFn]

Hello, I am a Firefox plugin developer and recently upgraded from eclipse "javascript-latest-released" 2020-30 to 2020-06 = apparently Wild Web Developer has now replaced the old Javascript editor. Apart from the fact that this required me to install node.js (which I don't care about 🙄 ), I get now painful regressions on editing code with indentation.

1. I indent code by 2 characters: there is no option in Window->Preferences->General->Editors->.. to set indent to 2 characters, and then each time I open a new block like an "if" statement, it forces the indent of 4 characters which I have to correct
2. WWD doesn't support a mix of tabs and spaces in indents, like many editors do
   • Whenever I press enter at end of a line indented with for example 1 tab and 2 spaces, no indent is inserted on the next line, so I have to manually add it ☹️
   • In fact, as soon as there are spaces in an indent, WWD does not reproduce them
3. When pressing tab at begining of an already indented line, it only inserts a tab
   • In previous eclipse version it was converting my leading indent to an optimal combined string of tabs and spaces representing the same amount of characters, which was very handy (and the minimum of what I expect of a code editor).
   • Even better, it was aligning the indent on the line to the one of previous line with code, or more exactly to the correct one in the block. Now, this does not happen, and I have to do it manually.

This is really making things painful on my existing code. And I do not want to configure tab as being 2 characters since most of the editors set it to 4 characters.

This is making me consider to switch to another IDE, but before I do that, I want to see with you if

• there is a way to configure things somewhere else for WWD to work better on indentation ?
• or if I am missing something ?
• or if indeed you can consider improving the indent function in WWD ?
• and if there are workarounds on the above that you see ?

Thank you much, aaFn.

[jabby]

Hello @aaFn

Thanks for your report. As you are a Firefox plugin developer can you confirm that the most important files are :

• css / less / sass
• js / jsx / ts / tsx

Is there other file where you see this problem in your daily work?

To anwer your questions:

there is a way to configure things somewhere else for WWD to work better on indentation ?

Actually I am not aware of a configuration that can help you. I understand the fact you don't want to modify all editors configuration.

or if I am missing something ?

I don't think so.

or if indeed you can consider improving the indent function in WWD ?

I think we should improve how indent / formatting works.

and if there are workarounds on the above that you see ?

Maybe there is a way with a formatter like prettier. @AObuchow do you think it is an option to add prettier support?

See #38 for css format.

[mickaelistria]

Thanks for the report

I indent code by 2 characters: there is no option in Window->Preferences->General->Editors->.. to set indent to 2 characters,

Yes, you can configure tab width to be 2 and enable "insert spaces for tabs"

I do not want to configure tab as being 2 characters since most of the editors set it to 4 characters.

I don't get it. What would be wrong if you set tab width to 2 ? How tabs are actually rendered is a user preference; how they are inserted as well. So I don't see what's bad with changing tab width.

Whenever I press enter at end of a line indented with for example 1 tab and 2 spaces, no indent is inserted on the next line

That's a bug in the generic editor. I opened https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=564723 . A contribution to fix that would be really welcome.

When pressing tab at begining of an already indented line, it only inserts a tab

That's a missing feature in the Generic Editor as well. However, I believe that fixing the above would make it way less interesting, so I suggest we do not focus on it at the moment.

[aaFn]

Hello @jabby , thanks for your quick return.
Yes, my important files are .js, .html, .css and of course .json (for manifest.json for example)

Ok, I see in https://github.com/vvakame/typescript-formatter#read-settings-from-files that there is an option
"indentSize": 4,

Does that mean there could be a way to do what I want ? I didn't find that in Window->Preferences->General->Editors->.., but maybe I can modify it in the background in some place ?

If so, do you hapen to know where I could find some docs about these parameters and their possible values ?

  "baseIndentSize": 0,
  "indentSize": 4,
  "indentStyle": 2,

[AObuchow]

@aaFn see this comment/issue: #225 (comment)

If that doesn't give the expected/desired results, I can try helping you setup prettier in your workspace to get auto-formatting

[aaFn]

@mickaelistria , well yes I thought about the workaround you mention on setting tabs to 2 and converting all to space, but then this is increasing my .js files by a significant unuseful amount .. trying to be optimal here on size, but not at the cost of code readability of course.

Thanks for opening the bug. Just surprised this is not working anymore while it was working with previous Eclipse 2020-03 version though (with JSDT as I get it).

[aaFn]

@AObuchow , thank you, I will have a look at it tonight then to see what I can do with that

[mickaelistria]

then this is increasing my .js files by a significant unuseful amount

Usage of spaces is the root issue. The right model for an indent is 1 tab, and then users are given the choice of how to render this tab (can be 2 or 4 or 8 spaces, and even some dynamic width if editor supports it). If you change the tab size without using the "insert spaces for tabs", then your tabs a less wide and take only 1 byte.

[mickaelistria]

One issue comes from TM4E instead of Platform actually: eclipse-tm4e/tm4e#264

[timw2]

I'm getting the issue where a new line isn't indented at all after a line indented with spaces and as far as I can tell I don't have TM4E installed at all. It formats correctly on ctrl + shift + f. I'm seeing this in a .js file in the generic text editor. Our tsfmt.json includes:
"baseIndentSize": 0,
"indentSize": 2,
"tabSize": 2,
"indentStyle": 2,
"convertTabsToSpaces": true,
etc.