Insert TAB characters, but indent using spaces

[dserodio]

I like to indent code using spaces, but sometimes I want to insert a literal TAB character in the middle of the line. Is there some way to configure Sublime for this behaviour?

[adzenith]

The only way I know of is to turn off "translate spaces to tabs", hit tab, then turn it back on. If you really wanted you could write a plugin to run these three steps in sequence.

[Stefano.Rausch]

Looking at the default settings you'll find the following entry:

// By default, shift+tab will only unindent if the selection spans
// multiple lines. When pressing shift+tab at other times, it'll insert a
// tab character - this allows tabs to be inserted when tab_completion is
// enabled. Set this to true to make shift+tab always unindent, instead of
// inserting tabs.
"shift_tab_unindent": false,

HTH

[adzenith]

Unfortunately the tab that shift+tab inserts is still translated to spaces like any other tab.

[quodlibet]

If @adzenith 's advice works (I didn't test it), it should be very easy to create a macro with the three commands (rather than messing with python, if you don't want to), which you can then invoke by a keybinding, menu item or command in the palette.

Hope this helps,
Alex

[frogsmock]

What I end up doing in these cases, where I don't want to be bothered with toggling the setting, is to insert some odd character (like a backtick) into the doc where I want tabs, and then do a find/replace, replacing the backtick with \t (regex tab). This allows me to sneak the tab(s) in there.

[FichteFoll]

What about adding a keybinding that inserts the snippet "\t"?