JavaFX text layout is missing support for a tab policy beyond fixed tab size added in JDK-8130738.

Ideally, a TabStopPolicy should support features present in the common RTF editor such as TextEdit (see the screenshot), and possibly go beyond:

- fixed tab size (for a monospaced font use case only)
- fixed tab size policy (N, 2N, 3N, ... pixels)
- arbitrary set of user-defined tab stops
- left tab stop (default)
- center tab stop
- right tab stop
- decimal tab stop

The tab stop policy API may need to support variations, such as locale-specific decimal point for decimal tab stops, or how the tab stops are generated once the text goes beyond the last defined tab stop, i.e. whether it should use a fixed number of pixels, or some other logic.

It's also worth noting that MS Word adds a bar tab stop and a number of leader options (see the screenshot).

Unlike tabSize property, the TabStopPolicy property is paragraph-based, so likely to be a part of TextFlow.

https://github.com/andy-goryachev-oracle/Test/blob/main/doc/TabStopPolicy/TabStopPolicy.md
(updated 2023/12/11)

edit 2025/05/19: this ticket will add a TabStopPolicy which allows to set the tab stop positions only, plus the default tab stops.