Re: globally setting tab=4 spaces?

[cjw44@flatline.org.uk (Colin Watson)]

will trillich <will@serensoft.com> wrote:
>it's trivial to set
>
>	:set ts=4
>
>to have VI (vim) use every fourth console column for a tab stop,
>but displaying things via LESS or MUTT, everything is still at 8
>chars.
>
>is there a way to set TABS=4 globally? (badly-behaved programs
>may hardwire it into their code, but who, using debian, condones
>badly-behaved code? :)

I've always much preferred leaving tabs at 8 spaces (the one true tab
width), and setting softtabstop (sts) to 4 in vim (possibly shiftwidth
as well). That way you get 4-space tabs to all intents and purposes
while editing but you save files in such a way that other programs read
them as they were intended to look.

-- 
Colin Watson                                     [cjw44@flatline.org.uk]