[texhax] XeLaTeX: Simulating tab character

[Donald Arseneau]

Ulrike Fischer <news3 at nililand.de> writes:

> Am 11 Apr 2011 23:43:32 -0700 schrieb Donald Arseneau:
> > tabto.sty
> 
> Neat, but it seems not to fulfill another wish of Peter: 
> 
> " Also, if the current line up to this point is wider than the tab,
> than the tab should effectively just act as a word separator."

Hmmmm.  I wonder if that is worth having in tabto?

I don't mean the case where just the tab character (or \tab 
macro) is used -- that doesn't fit in with tabto at all(1).
I mean with \tabto{pos} there are already two ways of acting
when we are already past the requested position: linebreak
or backspace; a third style could be added in which there is
no effect of the \tabto{pos} when we are past pos already.

Note1: Peter's request requires counting the tabs already
used on the line, and so it is more like tabular in that
way.  The tabs of tabto are for a free-form paragraph so
that counting per line is out of play.  In order to know
*which* tab stop is meant by each tab character there has
to be an argument (as with \tabto{pos}), or the tab-stop 
must be identified by the current position (as with \tab).

I think the solution to Peter's exact request requires 
line-by-line macro that takes each chunk as an argument
delimited by the tab.

-- 
Donald Arseneau                          asnd at triumf.ca