Configurable tab width in code blocks

[kuro68k]

Describe feature

It would be very helpful to support tabs for formatting.

Some people make extensive use of tabs to format text, but few markdown variants support them. As well as being used to format new information, they are also useful when pasting in already formatted text.

Currently the tab key indents lines, it does not insert tab characters.

Additional Information

No response

[eliandoran]

@kuro68k , can you please offer more details? For which note type, text?

[kuro68k]

Apologies, yes for text notes.

Often when formatting notes in a text editor, the fastest way to organize information is with tabs. There's a key on the keyboard dedicated to them. But, most likely due to limitations of HTML, markdown implementations rarely support them in any meaningful way.

I'm looking at switching from Joplin because it is a bit limited when it comes to organizing notes, and Trillium Next seems much stronger in that regard. But in Joplin I often end up ignoring the rendered markdown for text notes, and instead look at the source which does support formatting with tabs.

A practical example would be pasting output from another app, e.g.

(text with tab formatting)

(Output when rendered as markdown)

Source (with tabs converted to spaces):

D:\Github\intpll\x64\Debug>intpll -f 1000000 77500
Best match:
        Input:          1,000,000 Hz
        Multiplier:     31
        Divider:        400
        PLL frequency:  31,000,000 Hz
        Output:         77,500.000000 Hz
        Error:          0.000000 Hz
        Error:          0.000000 PPM

[eliandoran]

A practical example would be pasting output from another app, e.g.

When you paste output in text notes, it's generally a good idea to simply use a code block (type ```). While in a code block formatting is preserved.

It's important to note that Trilium's main editor is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor (more like MS Word) rather than a Markdown editor, as such whitespace is much more semantic (newlines, paragraphs and not tabs).

If you prefer to create basic notes with only text, you can create a code note with plain text as the language. This will allow to input any preformatted text.

[eliandoran]

Code blocks, as described previously should be enough for text notes.

Closing as there is no feedback from the OP.

[kuro68k]

Apologies, this one got away from me.

If using a code block then the issue will be that the tab characters need to be converted to spaces for it to work in HTML. Is there a way to configure the tab size?

[eliandoran]

@kuro68k , that's a very good question.
It seems that the Tab inserts a tab character, since HTML does support it in preformatted code. But the spacing itself is not adjustable.

Technically speaking, we can adjust it to insert any amount of spaces if needed. Feel free to reopen the issue if this is the case.

[kuro68k]

That would be ideal, being able to configure the tab size and have tab characters automatically converted to spaces.

Does it not already do that for e.g. code that gets pasted in? Either way, configurable tab size would be useful.

I don't have permission to reopen the issue.

[FliegendeWurst]

It is possible to tweak the size of the tab character using CSS. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/tab-size