equivalent of indent-region?

[Matthew Woehlke]

On 19/09/2019 11.06, hw wrote:
> Which [indenter] should I use [for perl]?  I'm assuming that "normal"
> means that an indentation is being used which is suited to the
> contents of the buffer.
That is not correct. The indenter is very much like the highlighter;
katepart¹ chooses *which* indenter based on its guess at the file type,
but the indenter does not (necessarily²) change what rules it uses based
on the buffer contents.

The "normal" indenter is a fairly generic indenter that is more or less
aimed at plain text. I believe it mostly amounts to "indent the same as
the previous line".

I don't believe katepart *has* an indenter specifically for perl at this
time. (Maybe you'd like to contribute one?)

(¹ Note: "katepart" is the text editor component used by, at least,
kwrite, kate, and kdevelop.)

(² I suppose someone *could*, in theory, write an indenter that tried to
intelligently guess what rules it should use based on the contents of
the buffer, but it would probably not perform well.)

> Why shouldn't I use KDevelop?  It seemed to me that KDevelop is like an 
> adorned version of kate in that it has added features some of which could be 
> useful.

True. If what you're working on has a concept of "building the project",
KDevelop can be useful. (For example, writing a novel using Sphinx...)

-- 
Matthew