7

Whenever I type multi-line comments in Mathematica, the standard editor automatically performs indentation. I find the indentation rather curious and annoying, with some example frustrations posted below:

enter image description here

(note that I did not add any tabs or spaces in the top comment, and that there is NO linebreak after the comma in the bottom comment).

What is the reasoning behind this convention for formatting / indenting? Are there any best practices for writing comments/documentation that actually use the automatic indenting in a useful way?

Alternatively, is there a way to toggle the indentation off for comments, while keeping indentation for regular code?

(related: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica/_mVsK6hDPao)

Koen
  • 171
  • 1
  • 1
    The notebook approach favors putting long descriptive comments into text cells next to the input cells they document. – John Doty Jan 16 '19 at 13:47
  • 3
    You can use Code cells, no auto indentation no problem. – Kuba Jan 16 '19 at 15:56
  • 1
    Or you use the standard Wolfram code editor for larger code, the so-called Wolfram Workbench. Again, nearly no pain there (well, at least with comments). – Rolf Mertig Jan 16 '19 at 16:30
  • Or use @halirutan's lovely plugin for IntelliJ. Or use a "Package" notebook. Best practice for the FE, I'd say use a package notebook and use some kind of block indent scheme. – b3m2a1 Jan 16 '19 at 19:48
  • Thanks for the useful comments! I figure the main conclusion is that 1) thanks to Code Cells (either in "Package" or regular notebooks) and Text Cells, multi-line comments in regular Input Cells should rarely pop up. And 2), whoever is still unhappy with the current behaviour could use a different editor. – Koen Jan 17 '19 at 17:02
  • Another way to cheat the auto-identation is ending every line with a semi-column (;). That way the next line will not be automatically indented. – giulio bullsaver Mar 01 '21 at 10:18

0 Answers0