Last modified: 2014-04-23 17:15:26 UTC
Tabs in code blocks should be rendered as four spaces, instead of the default eight, using the tab-size CSS3 property. Shorter tabs make most languages more readable, especially on smaller screens. Moreover, shortening the tabs would harmonize this feature with the CodeEditor extension, which displays tabs as four spaces and now binds the Tab key to the tab character. The following rule in MediaWiki core would primarily apply to stylesheets and scripts in the MediaWiki: namespace: .mw-code { -moz-tab-size: 4; -o-tab-size: 4; tab-size: 4; } It degrades gracefully in browsers that lack support for the tab-size property. (See <http://caniuse.com/css3-tabsize>.) Some caveats: * It doesn't cover Lua modules, because the Scribunto extension doesn't use the `mw-code` class (it probably should). * It doesn't match ordinary <pre> blocks. Alternatively, it might make sense to just select `.mw-code, pre`, and let extensions or individual pages override the rule if necessary. * The SyntaxHighlight extension seems to convert tabs to eight actual spaces, so this rule would have no effect on <source> tags. See [[Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#GeSHi tab size]] for more discussion about this proposal. The Vietnamese Wikipedia has used tab-size for awhile without complaints.
(In reply to comment #0) > * It doesn't cover Lua modules, because the Scribunto extension doesn't use > the > `mw-code` class (it probably should). Filed bug 57825. > * The SyntaxHighlight extension seems to convert tabs to eight actual spaces, > so this rule would have no effect on <source> tags. Filed bug 57826.
Is there a minimal testcase somewhere available?
How about [[mw:MediaWiki:Gadget-oldeditor.js]]? An example on a wiki that uses tab-size is [[wikt:vi:MediaWiki:Gadget-headers.js]].
I think it would be better to simply set the tab-size property to 4 on the entire document (the body element). Tabulations equivalent to 8 spaces are never desirable, so I can't think of any reason to not set it to 4 on everything.
tab-size is still a CSS3 draft. There is no support in IE (not even 11). Such a rule would cause some inconsistencies across browsers.
There’s already an inconsistency in every browser between the view and edit actions, which leads to confusing indentation in scripts and modules. In IE and older versions of Safari, tab-size degrades gracefully, in that tabs continue to appear eight spaces wide. I wouldn’t consider that a regression.
(In reply to Erwin Dokter from comment #5) I think that would be a problem if it caused a regression, but, as Minh Nguyễn mentioned, it degrades gracefully since it does not cause problems. That it is inconsistent is not really a problem: it is still an improvement to have a decent tab size on modern browsers even if the old behavior is kept on browsers that do not implement it.
