OT editors, was: out of space on /root

[blind Pete]

Found this in my failed postings directory; header too long.  Apologies 
for being; late, off topic, and having possibly mangled headers.  

Xen wrote:

> Little Girl schreef op 15-03-2017 1:20:
> 
>> Which may or may not annoy or bother some users, depending on the
>> preference they would prefer.
> 
> That is taking it very far. In Vim, you have the choice of both, but
> because "0" is easier to type for me (takes you to the very first
> character position) than "^" (which is often hidden behind a "dead" key
> especially (or only) if you have international keyboard) (and the fact
> that it is sitting in the middle of the keyboard) --- and which would
> take you to the actual first character --- I generally use 0.
> 
> So I am accustomed to always going to position "0". That is not my
> preference but it doesn't bother me too much because since I always use
> Tabs if I do code, moving to the actual first character doesn't take
> long.

For Vim; "0w" will go to the first non white space character of the line. 

> However to say that moving to the first actual character is going to
> annoy a lot of people, is strongly said. The only reason to be at
> position 0 is because it is more useful for copying (cutting) lines of
> text.
> 
> Now in Vim you often do not need to be in that first position for that,
> but that is beside the point here :p.
> 
> You posit that the jEdit setting may annoy some users, but I think this
> is rather hypothetical.
> 
> Of course, I guess your point is that the thing should be configurable.
> But better have a good default than a bad default.
> 
>> And I'm the exact opposite, needing the characters to snug up to the
>> edge with no white space unless I put it there. A good text editor
>> should make it possible for both of us to be happy with it.
> 
> So you're telling me you have a white space of zero? That is hard to
> believe.

There is a UTF character of a zero width space, and lots of other 
very strange stuff, but I generally stick to ASCII.  

> On the KWrite screenshot there is a whitespace (to the left) of about
> half a character, same as many other editors I guess. The difference
> being that the KWrite graphical design is so bad (for me).
> 
> The vertical space is actually one pixel I believe, not zero.
> 
> On the screenshot there is already a gray "band" to the left; I think I
> have put it there myself, it would be the line number band or something
> like that. Without line numbers it would be sitting directly to the blue
> line to the left (just like on the top). At least, it's something like
> that.
>>> Now as you can see on this older screenshot:
>>> 
>>> http://www.xen.dds.nl/f/i/screenshots/kwrite-snapshot1.png
>>> 
>>> the vertical spacing is actually ZERO pixels. When I edited the
>>> margins it was just more agreeable to me:
>>> 
>>> http://www.xen.dds.nl/f/i/screenshots/kwrite-snapshot1_edited-margins.png
>> 
>> Of these two, I prefer the first one. With the second one, I'd
>> constantly be wondering if I'd put a space in accidentally.
> 
> I wonder what your use case is because ordinarily you would always know
> the left edge of the text due to the other text sitting there. You have
> a natural border, especially in monospace font, of every other line
> you've written, that is always sitting to the left. So I'm really
> curious how you can ever wonder about that left edge, unless you are,
> like the other person says, writing space-sensitive code like Python
> where you are /already indenting/ yourself to no extent ;-).
> 
> Basically in that case if most of your text is already indented, of
> course you have a whitespace border between the border and your text.
> Because most code is in functions and so most code would be indented
> already!!!!
> 
> And so you *would* have space between the left edge and the text!!!
> 
> I guess that could go for more code, but I was talking about ordinary
> text; not all text editors are only used for "code", that's the whole
> point of a desktop system, to do something else than code software!!!
> 
> This is why in general every word processor does have a "page layout" or
> space to the left, and no one every complains about it, that I was
> previously aware of. But I haven't seen the screenshot from Liam Proven
> yet ;-).

Word processors usually have an option to display white space 
unambiguously.  Not sure about Vim, but it can display most white 
space unambiguously.  Try, ":help list" and ":help listchars".  
If Python coding would benefit, and Vim doesn’t do it already, 
submit a feature request.  

What happens if you use Python syntax highlighting in Vim?  I don't 
know any Python, so I can't make sensible comments.  

Word processors do a different job from editors, although you 
could write code with MS Word I would not.  

> I just don't see how you can get confused about the first character of a
> line when there is other text sitting directly above and below that will
> tell you the first character of the line.
> 
> But maybe that's just me...

It's not just you.  

> In the case of KWrite the vertical margin can't be improved because the
> graphical rendering is line-based and as such only complete lines can be
> added to the magin for some reason, and not individual 'pixels'.
> 
> What bugs me not is the default (and bad graphical design of some
> editors, in that sense, for me), but the fact that I cannot configure
> it, in any of them!!!
> 
> Also if you are writing code and most of the code is indented by spaces
> or tabs, seeing or not seeing some extra space to the left is not going
> to make a difference. You aren't going to be calculating in your mind
> "Oh, that doesn't like like 2 exact tabs to me, but 2.1 tabs. There must
> be something wrong".
> 
> You know. Also, in most editors spaces fall away in tabs (especially in
> the beginning) so you _won't_ ever see additional spaces if you use
> tabs.
> 
> That means spaces can sit there forever and you won't notice (in most
> editors). Other than that, there are no editors that are configurable
> that I know of, so I don't know how you can say this (neither for you,
> and for me, I guess) because it is all hypothetical.

Is this what you are asking about?  From my ~/.vimrc 

" Show invisible characters$
  set listchars=eol:$,tab:>_,trail:_,extends:+,precedes:+$
" And actually turn them on$
  set list$

The trailing dollar signs are not real characters, they are dark blue 
indicators to show that an End Of Line is there.  

Any line that starts with a space then a tab is unambiguous.  

> You say "I would be constantly wondering" but what editor have you used
> that used spaces?
> 
> I mean what editor have you used that had whitespace to the left?
> 
> I'm curious, because I'd like to use it (in Linux). :).

Try reading _all_ of the documentation for Vim, but it might drive 
you crazy.  

-- 
blind Pete
Sig goes here...