Micro Focus Visual COBOL 2.3 for Visual Studio 2015 > Developing Applications in the IDE > Creating COBOL Solutions and Projects > Configuring the Project and File Properties > Global Options > Text Editor Tabs Options

Text Editor Tabs Options

You specify options for the indents and for the Tab key in the COBOL text editor in the Tools > Options > Text Editor > Micro Focus COBOL, and on the Tabs page.

Indenting

None

With Smart edit mode disabled, no indentation occurs when you press Enter. The cursor moves to column 1 at the beginning of the new line.
With Smart edit mode enabled, no indentation occurs when you press Enter. The cursor moves to the new line at the start of the current area. Any blank spaces between the cursor and the following text are removed. The Smart edit mode rules for indenting comments in the right-hand area apply.

Block

With Smart edit mode disabled, pressing Enter indents the text and positions the cursor on the new line in the same column where the preceding line starts. When you press Enter in the right-hand area, this moves the cursor to the new line in the same column where the preceding line starts - either in the A/B area or in the right-hand area.
With Smart edit mode enabled, pressing Enter indents the text and positions the cursor on the new line in the same column where the preceding line starts. Any blank spaces between the cursor and the following text are removed. The Smart edit mode rules for indenting comments in the right-hand area apply.

Smart

The Smart option only applies to the code in the A/B area. For the other COBOL areas the functionality is the same as when Block is enabled.

With Smart indenting selected, pressing Enter after an XML documentation comment (which starts with *>>comment) positions the cursor on the new line in the same column where the previous line starts, and starts the line with the tag for an XML documentation comment.

With Smart edit mode disabled, pressing Enter in the A/B area or in the right-hand area indents the text and positions the cursor in the same column where the preceding line starts.
With Smart edit mode enabled, pressing Enter indents the text and positions the cursor in the same column where the preceding line starts. Any blank spaces after the cursor are removed. The Smart edit mode rules for indenting comments in the right-hand area apply.

Tab

Tab and indent size: Defines the number of spaces inserted when you press Tab or Enter. When programming in COBOL, the Compiler expects the meaningful code to start from column eight. This is why it is convenient to have the tab character replaced by four spaces to reduce the risk of introducing compilation errors in the code.
Insert spaces: Replaces the tab character with the number of spaces specified in the Tab and indent size field.
Keep tabs: Inserts a tab character when you press Tab.