Can you change default editor behaviour on GitHub?

GitHub Help How to use Git and GitHub
#1

When editing a Markdown file on GitHub using its own editor, does it always use tabs with 8 and soft wrap

While I don’t mind the two last options that much is the tabs option a constant annoyance to have as it constantly messes up any formatting I have.

For example would a list with indends show like this:

- Entry 1
	- Entry 2 # Tab
  - Entry 3 # Actual space

I also have this image here showing how much work this causes me to do:
image

Is there any way for me to change the default editor settings used so that I don’t have to constantly change them followed by correcting annoying tab-inserts?
Why is that even a default setting for markdown to begin with?

#2

Hi @andre601 :wave:

Thanks for stopping into the community with this question.
I am sorry to hear that the default formatting does not work well with your writing style. There is no option to override these spacing settings, however.

I think a possible alternative would be GitHub Codespaces. You can spin up a Codespace in a browser, and take advantage of the VS Code editor. That way you can make edits to the settings.json file or add the linter of your choice as an extension.

If that solution doesn’t work for you, we’re always working to improve GitHub and the GitHub Support Community, and we consider every suggestion we receive.
You can do so by submitting this through our official product feedback form so that our product team can track your request.

You can also keep an eye on our Changelog as well as the GitHub public roadmap to see features we are working on.

#3

Hey phillips,

Thanks for the answer. Unfortunately will I probably not use Codespaces for two reasons:

  1. It seems to be in limited beta/requires signup for it, which seems rather pointless in my case as I wouldn’t use it that much.
  2. Is it guaranteed to work with Markdown files? If not would this be a huge drawback for me to have.

I’ll make a suggestion as you recommendet and hope for a possible (and quick) implementation.
Looking at a suggestion I made a while ago do I honestly have my doubts on a quick implementation (Although the suggestion is of a rather minor importance tho).

#4

We don’t have any plans to change the formatting of the editor UI at this time.
Keep an eye on the changelog and the roadmap as suggested previously. This feature behavior may change in the future.

For now, it is probably best for you to take advantage of your favorite code editor to create markdown files, as you can customize it to your preferences.