Tabs in String not disaplaying correctly

[Jeepers]

Folks,

For me, tabs that appear between non-whitespace characters on a line appear as blocks (whereas leading and trailing tabs appear correctly as tab whitespace.)

Here is javascript example:

** This:

function helloWorldWithTabs
{
<tab>document.writeln('<tab>Hello World.<tab>');
}


** Should appear like this (assuming 3-space tabs):

function helloWorldWithTabs
{
document.writeln(' Hello World. ');
}


** But instead, appears like this (where # represents a block) -- the trailing tab appears correctly, but those bound by non-whitespace characters are blocks:


*function helloWorldWithTabs
{
document.writeln('#Hello World.#');
}



How might I correct this so that all tabs regardless where they are positioned in a line appear, well, as tabs? (Note - this occurs when I have all syntax definations turned off, as well as when using javascript syntax definition.)

Thanks in advance.

Jeepers