Emacs cc-mode tab behavior

Question

Pressing tab multiple time doesn't move text to the right. Is there is a way to make it behave like Visual Studio's smart indent? First tab indents, subsequent tabs move text to the next tab stop. Thank you.

Answer 1

Something like this?

(defun even-more-tabby-indent (&optional arg)
  "This indent function tries to be more like Microsoft's IDEs
than `C-INDENT-COMMAND' and does the following: If we're at the
beginning of the line or `C-TAB-ALWAYS-INDENT' is true or `ARG'
is non-nil, indent like a sensible text editor. Otherwise the
user probably WANTS MOAR TABS. So call `C-INSERT-TAB-FUNCTION'."
  (interactive "P")
  (if (or c-tab-always-indent (bolp) arg)
      (c-indent-command arg)
    (funcall c-insert-tab-function)))

You'll then want to bind tab insertion with something like

(defun setup-tabby-indent ()
  (local-set-key (kbd "<tab>") 'even-more-tabby-indent)
  (setq c-tab-always-indent nil))

(add-hook 'c-mode-hook 'setup-tabby-indent)

I haven't used MS Visual Studio in many years, so I'm not sure whether this is exactly what you're after, but hopefully it's pretty clear how to modify.

Answer 2

M-i (tab-to-tab-stop) takes you to the next tab stop.