Bug 97918 [formatter] tab policy and indentation policy: indent on column
I would like a smarter tab policy. In code formated like this: class Example { Example(int arg1, int arg2, int arg3, int arg4, int arg5, int arg6) { this(); } Example() { } } I would like to have a mix of tabs and spaces like this: class Example { <tb>Example(int arg1, int arg2, <tb> int arg3, int arg4, <tb> int arg5, int arg6) { <tb><tb>this(); <tb>} <tb>Example() { <tb>} } If the code it is formated like this then it looks good whether a editor is using 4 or 8 space tabs. I called this a smarter tab policy because it means the code that implements the tab policy needs to know more than just a column number. It needs an indentation level and column offset. This could be configured by setting the tab policy to "mixed" and then have a check box that says "use spaces for column alignment" Or it could be configured by a new tab policy called "portable mixed", and in that case only the tab size field is needed. On another note it is bad that the Constructor Declarations->parameters example in the code formatting dialog uses the word "Example" which happens to be 8 chars. So in "tab only" tab policy with tabs of 2,4, or 8, the example doesn't show what will happen when "indent on column" is set. The method declarations->parameters example makes this clear.
org.eclipse.jdt.ui/ui/org/eclipse/jdt/internal/ui/preferences/formatter/IndentationTabPage.java
/*******************************************************************************
 * Copyright (c) 2000, 2005 IBM Corporation and others.
 * All rights reserved. This program and the accompanying materials
 * are made available under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0
 * which accompanies this distribution, and is available at
 * http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
 *
 * Contributors:
 *     IBM Corporation - initial API and implementation
 *     istvan@benedek-home.de
 *       - 103706 [formatter] indent empty lines
 *******************************************************************************/
package org.eclipse.jdt.internal.ui.preferences.formatter;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Observable;
import java.util.Observer;
import org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Composite;
import org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Group;
import org.eclipse.jface.text.Assert;
import org.eclipse.jdt.core.JavaCore;
import org.eclipse.jdt.core.formatter.DefaultCodeFormatterConstants;
public class IndentationTabPage extends ModifyDialogTabPage {