At 2025-02-09T03:48:33+0100, onf wrote: > On Sun Feb 9, 2025 at 3:20 AM CET, onf wrote: > > [...] > > TL;DR: > > With the default settings, a tab essentially translates into a > > horizontal motion. [...] > > This is because tab stops are related to the beginning of a paragraph > > rather than the beginning of an output line as one would expect. > > > > The desired behavior can be enabled with the request .linetabs, > > but this is groff-specific and not supported by other troffs. > > By the way, Branden, are you aware of any use case where the default > behavior is actually desirable? I am contemplating patching neatroff > to behave like groff with enabled linetabs mode outside compatibility > mode...
No, I'm not. If anyone has such a scenario, I'd appreciate hearing about it so I can add something like it to groff's Texinfo manual. I haven't thought about it deeply, let alone experimented, but the reason for the status quo might have something to do with the way leaders are handled. Recall that leaders by default are basically motions to the next tab stop that are made visible with repeated `.` characters. It then helps to recall the, ahem, leading use case of leaders. _Possibly_, things go wrong if you enable "line-tabs" mode and then try to set a multi-line table of contents entry. Perhaps it screws up as the line length varies. Just a guess, but it's the sort of scenario I'd poke at before deciding upon a reform of the default. Regards, Branden
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