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[StrongED] Display of Tabs and Ctrls



Hi All,

Due to recent changes to StrongED's outline font handling, control codes
and tabs are now accepted when using an outline font. It's still work in
progress but it's definitely an improvement over previous versions.

This meant that a decision had to be made how to display control codes
when they are not shown as '[xx]'. For now I've chosen to use '@ABC..',
where '@' corresponds to ASCII 0, 'A' to ASCII 1 etc. using the fg & bg
colours for control codes.

I could have chosen '.' (used with system font) but felt that being able
to distinguish between different control codes was better. The downside
is that there are now 4 ways to display a control code depending on the
'Display Ctrl as [xx]' setting and which font type is in use. These are:

                |  Option on  |  Option off
 -------------------------------------------
  System font   |    [xx]     |   .
  Bitmap font   |    [xx]     |   special (depends on font style)
  Viewfinder    |    [xx]     |   special (depends on font style)
  Outline font  |    [xx]     |   @ABC..

Ideally I'd like to use the same options across all font types. This
means either reducing this to two options ([xx] + @ABC.. or '.'), or to
expand to 4 options ([xx], '.', @ABC.. and special). The problem with
the later is that the setting is currently stored as an On/Off value.
Moving to 4 options would mean that it'd have to be stored differently,
introducing an incompatibility with older Choices files.

Tabs also need considering. At the moment they can be displayed in the
following ways:

  - As Ctrl (the same as other Ctrls)
  - As spaces
  - As a dotted line

The first two options are no problem when using an outline font but
display as a dotted line is more complicated technically (as tabs must
then be handled separately).

It might therefore make sense to display the dotted line differently,
say as '---->', using normal characters but coloured as Tab. Perhaps not
as pretty but a lot easier to implement across all font types.

Before making a decision on this I'd like to get your opinion, what
would you prefer? If you have a completely different idea then that's
welcome too. Let me know what you think and I'll use your feedback to
decide which way to go.

Cheers,
Fred.


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