Inconsistent interpretation of tabs in the forum post editor

To preface, I don't even know if this problem can be replicated by others. Across various Firefox-based browsers, the post editor has other problems (can't use arrow keys, occasionally refuses to wrap lines, etc), so maybe it's just broken for me. I'm throwing this out there anyway.

When using the post editor, tabs are inconsistently interpreted. A tab entered via keyboard directly into the message body is interpreted as 4 spaces. We can all argue about spaces vs tabs, but either way, it's 4 characters wide. If I paste a tab from the IDE, it pastes as a single tab character, since I have my preferences to use tabs.

% examples
    % tab entered via keyboard
	% tab pasted from IDE

While the editor is still open, both tabs appear to be 4 characters wide, but once the post is submitted, the actual tab character in the second line appears as 8 characters wide. Whether it's some part of CSS or the editor, if the convention is that tabs are 4 characters wide, it should at least be consistent. If this is happening to other people, then it might explain why so many horribly indented code snippets appear.

So, does anyone else observe the behavior, and is there a workaround other than search+replace every time I post code?

[dpb]

So here with Firefox 89.0.2 both of those show as 4(ugh!)* space indentions, not 4 and 8.

* "Everybody" knows that the proper tab/indention spacing for optimum compromise between visibile indention and conserving space is 2.

[DGM]

Interesting. I don't know of any browser preferences setting that would be changing that. ... at least I haven't found one yet.

I can replicate in Firefox 85 and 89, as well as other browsers -- all with no userstyles applied

For reference, this is how it shows up for me:

[Image Analyst]

@DGM, in your MATLAB/Home/Preferences/Editor/Tab settings, is the "Tab inserts spaces" checked? The default is checked but I don't like having to backspace 4 times if I want to undo a tab so I always uncheck that. I ask because I'm wondering if the tab you entered from the IDE is really a tab or was it automatically converted to spaces. If you backspace in Answers, does it jump back several characters (4 or 8) or just one?

I notice that when I paste a true tab into the Answers editor, it puts it in as a true tab but with a width of 8 characters, while in MATLAB I have the tab width set to 4 characters. But Answers can't ever know what your preferences (# of tab spaces) are in your MATLAB.

But that's only one Firefox problem. The biggest annoyance is not scrolling to the right place on the page if you click the "latest" link. Actually most times I get a totally blank page until I roll the mouse wheel one notch then suddenly everything appears instantly but it's scrolled way down the page and I have to scroll up a bit to see the actual place it was supposed to go to. I tried to get the developer at Mathworks to reproduce it (even with the zoom setting the same) but he couldn't so I guess that won't get fixed. It happens on two different Win10 computers. But today I just got a new computer and I'll try it on that one and see if it happens there too. If it does, that's 3 computers with the same problem and I'll contact the developer again. Maybe he can find someone local in Natick that can reproduce it if he can't.

[DGM]

Yes. My IDE is configured to use actual tabs instead of pretending that spaces are tabs, so the character that gets pasted is a tab. If you select it, you'll notice that it's still a tab even now. It's just that actual tab characters are rendered as 4 characters wide in the editor and as 8 characters wide after the post is submitted, which is confusing by itself and inconsistent with the 4-spaces-as-tabs convention used by the RTE.

I accept that the editor has no idea what the IDE settings are, but if its design asserts that an indentation tab is 4 space characters, then that's the width an actual tab character should be rendered as.

I'm beginning to think that this is an issue of either CSS or prevailing browser defaults. I can plaster over the issue by using a userstyle to set

* {tab-size: 4 !important}

but that doesn't convince me that my pasted code doesn't look like randomly indented garbage to everyone else.

If you want my "other site gripes" of the day, this is one of a growing number of sites where all the scripts simply break if you try to use the site on a slow connection. Things just start failing silently or disappearing below 1Mbps, and I've been stuck at 170-400 kbps up until the last few minutes. Every post over the last week has taken several attempts to post, multiple page reloads to get buttons to appear, etc. Dialup in the 90's was slow, but at least it eventually worked... I'd better post this while I can.

[dpb]

@Image Analyst -- I have been observing the same phenomenon of location of the window here as well. Annoying, indeed...this one is still Win7

[Stephen23]

"the proper tab/indention spacing for optimum compromise between visibile indention and conserving space is..." 3.14159

[DGM]

See, I would have thought that 2.718 would be the natural choice. Still, as much as debates about optimal indentation do go in circles, you may be on to something.

[Stephen23]

@DGM: snap! You are right, that is by definition the more natural choice :)

[Rik]

I once followed an R programming course where the instructor argued for 8 spaces. His main reason was that you should have a very good reason to indent more than 2 levels, and 8 space indents together with an 80 character limit forces you to do something about deep indentation. I personally prefer 4 spaces with 100 characters width.

@dpb, you will be happy to learn that the default in GNU Octave is 2 spaces (although the editor is only a slightly tweaked Notepad++, so there are limits to what it can do).