R Studio won't insert tabs, instead displays `(No matches)` - How to fix?

Question

I'm trying to pad my R Studio code with a bunch of "white space" between said code and comments. See the image below.

Every time I try to add padding by hitting Tab on my keyboard I instead get a (No matches) warning? How do I disable this behavior? Here's a repro:

library(ggplot2)                        # line 1
p1 <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(disp, mpg)) +  # line 2
  geom_point()                          # line 3

ggplot(mtcars, aes(mpg, disp)) +        # line 5
  geom_point()                          # line 6

10 + 10                                 # line 8    

Answer 1

tabs are usually used to complete the object name or function name. For example if I type library(ggp and press tab, it will complete it as library(ggplot). If you want tab space, go to new line and press tab and that will give you tab formatting.

This should hep you support.rstudio.com

Answer 2

I don't think it's possible, but you shouldn't disable it anyway. The tab key is used for code completion, which is far more useful for a programmer than a regular tab. If you hit the tab button a second time it should tab normally.

Whenever I want multiple tabs I just copy and paste, which can be much faster anyway because you can copy and paste multiple tabs at once. Also, you should know that tabs in RStudio are just four spaces, so you can also use the spacebar (plus copy and paste) and every chunk of four spaces will be treated as a tab.

One more thing: Your "comments" are superfluous because the line number is already there on the left. Any good IDE will have line numbers, so adding them isn't necessary. Inline comments should also be used sparingly.