[Scribus] Survey: using tabs when alignment is other than 'left'

Gregory Pittman gpittman
Thu Dec 14 02:42:35 CET 2006


avox wrote:
>
> Gregory Pittman wrote:
>   
>> Peter Nermander wrote:
>>     
>>>> I've a question for the users: how should tabs work in justified,
>>>> right-aligned or centered paragraphs?
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> This really depends on how you use tabs. Some people use tabs a lot to
>>> acheive
>>> intented paragraphs etc, which I think is an incorrect way of using it.
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>> I agree with this. The question comes down to, not so much how the tab 
>> function should work, but rather what is the end purpose for creating 
>> spacing in a line that a tab or something else accomplishes.
>> What I look for sometimes are some features of line spacing that I have 
>> in LaTeX, like 'hspace{}', or 'hspace*{}', or '\hfill', or '\hdot', 
>> which are very handy things, the nice thing being that you can use these 
>> anywhere in the line and know exactly what you're going to get. 
>>
>>     
>
> I plan to implement a special "space" object in Scribus which would be
> configurable
> in that way. 
>
>
>
>   
>> the '\hspace' functions are something like tabs usually function, but (I  
>> think) not quite the way tabs originally were implemented (on
>> typewriters).
>>
>>     
>
> IMO \hspace is quite different to tabs, since tabs use *absolute* positions,
> whereas
> \hspace is just a kind of elastic space.
>   
I agree, that's the way it should be.
I wonder about the difficulty of having tabs operate off what we might 
think of as a special vertical grid line inside the text frame (that you 
could turn on and off like other grid lines). That way you could see 
where your tab stops are in case you might want to line up some other 
object with them (trying to think "outside the box").

Greg



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