Text editing tab stops

hey guys,

currently I am trying to write a short project description including a summary in rhino but tab stop of text editing seems not to work properly.

tap stops in the editing window seems to be not existent.

tabstopps.3dm (32.8 KB)

cheers Ben

btw: when trying cut and paste text from layout to model text disappears.

pls fix the layouts, this is annoying. I imported a layout and rhino imported ALL LAYERS from the drawing including blocks…

Why are tabs converted into spaces?

i dont know, text editing in rhino is really apita

Probably because Rhino doesn’t know what a tab is…

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Helvetosaur, but it should know! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

there are so many bugs atm.I have to go for a run … need fresh air

Maybe we need to inform it. How long is a tab, exactly?

what do you mean “how long is a tab”? do you want to write a macro or something?

No, I mean what is the exact length of a tab (in file units)?

Hi,
The bug has been logged.
Thank you for reporting it.

2 Likes

@Alain , @Benjamin_Schnei
That still gets back to my original question - which was actually serious and has two parts…

  1. There is currently no definition I can find of how big a space a tab stop should be. In word processing programs the default length (width) can be user-defined as a specific length in whatever the file units are - i.e. there is no defined “standard” length setting for a tab.

  2. Given the fact above, if the tab (ASCII 009) character is to be accepted in Rhino - it appears that it is not currently - then there needs to be a place in the annotation style definition where the default length can be defined. Plus some way to locally override this for a specific item.

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@Helvetosaur interesting question, nevertheless I’ve never tried to understand anything like that.
I thought every kind of text editor has a basic underlaying structure including a tab stop. I mean for sure there is an standard variable like 10 spaces or something (you can fake tabbstops with spaces). my (short) web research didn’t bring any useful results.

edit: in word a standard tab stop is 1,25 cm.

thanks for your analytical approach! :face_with_monocle:

cheers
Ben

@Alain thank you, I reported exactly the same issue about a year ago.
If there is any chance by helping you with the verification of other bugs, I made a short list:

cheers,
Ben

no you cannot. It never lines up perfectly

10 spaces are 10 spaces, arent they?

well, probably you are right.

Because indenting is very important in programming, code editors often let you configure what gets encoded into the file (tabs or spaces) and how much space is used on the screen when you press the Tab key but in this case, because the editing control generates RTF, pressing the Tab key inserts \tab into the Rtf string and shows it on the screen using a certain amount of space. Both of those attributes don’t seem to be configurable which is not surprising or expected for a such a text editing control. Another example is Notepad (plain text editor). Pressing the Tab key encodes an ascii tab character in the text and draws 8 spaces on the screen. The 8 spaces (also not configurable) have nothing to do with what gets stored in the text (file).

The bug here is that even though \tab is inserted when the Tab key is pressed it gets remove at some point as the string is passed around in Rhino. I hope that makes sense.

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Thanks for the explanation, Alain.

I’ve recently had to export a lot of layouts and DXF files with parametrically generated text. In the beginning I tried to use text fields with tab stops but gave up and I’m creating most charts as multiple columns. No tab stop, no problem

short list:

I can’t promise anything but now that it’s logged it shouldn’t be too long.

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@Alain thank you :sparkling_heart: