I’ve just been playing with the Elastic Tabstops plugin by Nick Gravgaard. I really like it. I like my code to look neat so when I write a block of code like this:

   $custFirstName = $_REQUEST['cust_first_name'];
   $custLastName = $_REQUEST['cust_last_name'];
   $custEmail = $_REQUEST['cust_email'];
   $custAddr1 = $_REQUEST['cust_addr_1'];
   $custAddr2 = $_REQUEST['cust_addr_2'];

I always try to neaten it up by adding spaces like so:

   $custFirstName = $_REQUEST['cust_first_name'];
   $custLastName  = $_REQUEST['cust_last_name'];
   $custEmail     = $_REQUEST['cust_email'];
   $custAddr1     = $_REQUEST['cust_addr_1'];
   $custAddr2     = $_REQUEST['cust_addr_2'];

Which is a little fiddly but I always do it because like I said, I like my code to look neat.

But now I have a tool which does it automatically. I’m very happy.

It will even handle proportional fonts so I’ve been experimenting with the decadent pleasure of coding in more beautiful type faces and still having everything line up.

Unfortunately it is only for gedit at this time (which is a fine text editor but just a text editor nevertheless). If this were available in Eclipse or MS Dev Studio, I’d be in heaven!