Tabs, CSS, Text Editor, Options Dialog Box

Article
09/30/2015

This dialog box enables you to adjust default settings for indenting and tabs in the CSS editor.

To access this dialog box

In Microsoft Visual Web Developer, click Tools, and then click Options.

The Options dialog box opens.
In the left panel, expand the Text Editor node, expand the CSS node, and click Tabs.

If you have configured your environment settings for Web development, this element is not available unless you select the Show all settings check box. For more information about environment settings, see .ec70b520-a3e3-43c9-929b-bdc732cd2147

Note

Additional cascading style sheet (CSS) options can be found under the HTML Designer node, which is visible if the Show all settings check box is selected.

For more information about style sheets, see Working with CSS Overview.

Tasks

Working with CSS Overview

UI Elements

Indenting

None
When this option is selected, new lines are not indented. The insertion point is placed in the first column of a new line.
Block
When this option is selected, new lines are automatically indented. The insertion point is placed at the same starting point as the preceding line.
Smart
When this option is selected, and with the Formatting Style option in the Format, CSS, Text Editor, Options Dialog Box set to Semi-expanded or Expanded, new lines are positioned to fit the code context. For example, lines enclosed between an opening brace ({) and a closing brace (}) are automatically indented an extra tab stop from the position of the aligned braces.

Tabs

Tab size
Sets the distance in spaces between tab stops. The default is four spaces.
Indent size
Sets the size in spaces of an automatic indentation. The default is four spaces. Tab characters, space characters, or both will be inserted to fill the specified size.
Insert spaces
When selected, indent operations insert only space characters, not tab characters. If the Indent size is set to 5, for example, then five space characters are inserted whenever you press either the TAB key or the Increase Indent button on the Formatting toolbar.
Keep tabs
When selected, indent operations insert as many tab characters as possible. Each tab character fills the number of spaces specified in Tab size. If the Indent size is not an even multiple of the Tab size, space characters are added to fill in the difference.