In ledger-mode, how can I specify custom tabstops?

[dersuchmann]

Hello there, I've just started to work with ledger a week ago and am now switching to emacs for a couple of reasons.

For my personal ledger workflow, there are two things I would like to acheive, the second one of which I'm addressing in this topic.

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How can I adjust tabstops in ledger-mode? I'd like to have different columns for the amounts so I can use the tab key to jump to the first amount column, then use tab key again to jump to the second amount column. The reason is that I would like to visually separate the two sides of the double accounting that ledger encourages. (In my case there will be 3 columns because I'll also apply some custom tweaks... but yeah) It would be best if I could just manually adjust the columns with the tab key.

I found this for text mode, but I'm not sure if this can be easily adjusted to be used in ledger mode.

https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/TabStopList

Any help is greatly appreciated!

[Joost Kremers]

On Tue, Jun 09 2020, dersuchmann wrote:
> How can I adjust tabstops in ledger-mode? I'd like to have
> different
> columns for the amounts so I can use the tab key to jump to the
> first
> amount column, then use tab key again to jump to the second
> amount column.

I'm new to ledger and ledger-mode myself, but AFAICT you should be
able to achieve this by setting `ledger-mode-auto-align` to `nil`
to keep ledger-mode from auto-aligning transactions, and
`tab-always-indent` to `nil` to ensure that the TAB key inserts a
TAB character (or an equivalent number of spaces) when the cursor
is not at the beginning of the line. A quick test suggests that it
honours `tab-width` or `tab-stop-list`.

That way you could keep two amount columns, though you'll probably
have to do some manual work to make sure columns are aligned on
the decimal separator.

HTH

--
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments