VisualLineElementGenerator in AvalonEdit to skip tabs?

Question

I am writing a text editor using Avalon Edit.

I would like to replace tabs inserted within the text to be unselectable. For example, let's say I have the following line:

(tab)(tab)(tab)"Hi there!"

I would like the carret to skip the first three tabs and position itself directly before the start of the characters.

Is it possible to achieve such an effect using a VisualLineElementGenerator in order to replace tabs with some sort of hidden / unselectable character ?

In other words, I would like to be able to indent my text without being able to select the indentations.

Answer 1

This is currently not possible; all VisualLineElements are selectable.

AvalonEdit has the concept of a 'paragraph indentation' that is not selectable, but this isn't exposed in any public API (it is used for the word-wrap indentation).

You could try modifying the TextView.BuildVisualLine method to support customizable indentation.