First of all - I do realize that you are not trying no re-invent MS Word or Open Office.
I also realize that I am not your most important user.
Nevertheless.
At the moment there is no kind of tabulator feature. You only have carat space insertion and half of the same. (Ctrl P).
Now I am trying to make up a table of the different types of pronouns - including English text, hieroglyphics ant transliteration. It is clear that this needs a table layout in columns. At the moment this is not really possible.
I am sure that an experienced Egyptologist will not be wanting to tabulate lists of pronouns. But on the other hand he might want to note down some vocabulary in list form. Here again, he might be wanting to put things in columns.
I am pretty sure that these types of requirements will crop up in any university course teaching hieroglyphics. You need vocab lists and a couple of tables. I think this would be quite a useful feature for students who need a rough and ready machine editable print-outs (via whatever) and do not immediately need the typographical perfection required for book publishing.
(One could argue, I suppose, that using JSesh in a course will prevent the students from developing a nice neat hand-writing of their own. On the other hand, writing is difficult for beginners because - apart from artistic ability - a beginner does not always know how much effort he has to put in to distinguish between similar looking signs - in particular birds. He simply does not know all the signs yet. Here your tool is great help because it produces an exact hieroglyph. I do not suppose that anybody has a problem writing fast versions of w, A and m which are all distinguishable and more or less universally readable. But I am not so sure that every student immediately realizes that tA and S need to be distinguished. And as you get into biliterals the bird thing takes on a othonological dimension. As a student one simply does not know what is important and what is not.)
If tabs are two difficult and go against the design of your layout module, being able to select a fixed width font for both English text and transliteration might be able to circumvent the problem. I am not sure whether the glyphs are all in carat or half-carat spacing or whether you are using completely variable widths. If I come to think about it, it's probably the latter. In this case, you really do need proper tabs. I
Is there a definition in MdC for a tab?
A standard set of tabs with A1 width spacing might be a good idea. The keys [tab] and [shift]+[tab] would tab forwards and backwards. These could even make sense when the user is writing vertically - in this case A1 height could be the appropriate tab spacing. .
Regards,
Simon
PS: Exporting as RTF and putting the tabs in afterwards is no go because of the export to clipboard "transliteration" problem I have just reported.