Support Tabs and Indentation in Expression Editor

[Mr._Jim]

In instances of nested expressions, it would be useful to be able to press tab to indent a line. I propose inserting "n" spaces when pressing tab.

Coding style of course varies, but for readability, I rather dislike the following

Trim(Locals.SomeLocal) == "" ? (Locals.SomeLocal = "foo",Locals.AnotherLocal = "bar", Locals.SomethingOrRather = "zoo") : False

 ...and much prefer this styling:

Trim(Locals.SomeLocal) == "" ? (
                Locals.SomeLocal = "foo",
                Locals.AnotherLocal = "bar",
                Locals.SomethingOrRather = "zoo" ) : False

...but at present the latter is tedious because one has to insert a lot of whitespace manually or worse yet, use another text editor and paste it into TestStand. It would be nice if TestStand's expression editor supported this basic feature available in almost every text editor or IDE.

Thanks,

Mr. Jim

[nclark]

This would be soooo helpful, especially when you're dealing with containers and your variable names start to get pretty long.

Readability is key to success.

[bienieck]

It would be great if the editor could also format (pretty print) expressions in a way similar to how code is formatted in C# within a typical IDE. Additionally, NI could fix the font mixing issue in the expression field. Ever since monospaced font support was introduced, I often find myself struggling with parts of the expression being displayed in the old font while other parts use the new one.

[Mr._Jim]

Hey there.

So, since I last posted this idea, I figured out that you can use ALT + "09" to insert a tab. I use the number pad and I haven't tried it with the numbers above the QUERTY. (I'd try it, but I'm typing on my phone in a waiting room)

ALT + 09 for the win.

I use it all day long.

It's definitely a clumsy interim solution, though.