Indenting after newline following new indent level vim

Question

In vim, I just changed my tabs from 2 to 4 spaces. This works good - when I hit tab, it indents 4 spaces. When I am adding new lines that are the same indentation, it works. However - when I need a new level of indentation, and hit enter, it only indents 2 spaces.

previously fixed code{
    previously indented code;
    if (new amount of indenting should happen){
      only this much is given by vim;
        but hitting tab takes me here (where I want to be);
    }
}

Any idea what setting I might have to change to get this to work? I've tried every one I could find (autoindent, cindent, setting all kinds of tabstop type variables), to no avail.

is this any help http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10893676/why-doesnt-setting-ts-4-in-vimrc-work — Ian Kenney, May 23 '15 at 02:50
Yes it did - thanks a lot. ```:verbose set tabstop``` is what I was looking for. — Zambezi, May 23 '15 at 02:53
when change to new line and auto indent, the indent space used is option 'shift width' — SolaWing, May 23 '15 at 13:09
Possible duplicate of [Vim Auto Indent with newline](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4477031/vim-auto-indent-with-newline) — Eduardo Cuomo, Nov 27 '17 at 14:39

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered May 25 '15 at 15:33

When you check the help file by running :help tabstop, you willl get:

'tabstop' 'ts'      number  (default 8)
            local to buffer
    Number of spaces that a <Tab> in the file counts for.  Also see
    |:retab| command, and 'softtabstop' option.

    Note: Setting 'tabstop' to any other value than 8 can make your file
    appear wrong in many places (e.g., when printing it).

    There are four main ways to use tabs in Vim:
    1. Always keep 'tabstop' at 8, set 'softtabstop' and 'shiftwidth' to 4
       (or 3 or whatever you prefer) and use 'noexpandtab'.  Then Vim
       will use a mix of tabs and spaces, but typing <Tab> and <BS> will
       behave like a tab appears every 4 (or 3) characters.
    2. Set 'tabstop' and 'shiftwidth' to whatever you prefer and use
       'expandtab'.  This way you will always insert spaces.  The
       formatting will never be messed up when 'tabstop' is changed.
    3. Set 'tabstop' and 'shiftwidth' to whatever you prefer and use a
       |modeline| to set these values when editing the file again.  Only
       works when using Vim to edit the file.
    4. Always set 'tabstop' and 'shiftwidth' to the same value, and
       'noexpandtab'.  This should then work (for initial indents only)
       for any tabstop setting that people use.  It might be nice to have
       tabs after the first non-blank inserted as spaces if you do this
       though.  Otherwise aligned comments will be wrong when 'tabstop' is
       changed.

so put this in your .vimrc file everything is OK.

set expandtab       "Use softtabstop spaces instead of tab characters for indentation
set shiftwidth=4    "Indent by 4 spaces when using >>, <<, == etc.
set softtabstop=4   "Indent by 4 spaces when pressing <TAB>

set autoindent      "Keep indentation from previous line
set smartindent     "Automatically inserts indentation in some cases
set cindent         "Like smartindent, but stricter and more customisable

Indenting after newline following new indent level vim

1 Answers1