emacs with python mode

[Gerhard W. Gruber]

I'm using Xemacs 21.0 Beta (August 1998) on Win32 and it works quite
fine (is there a newer version out there?). Now my real question. When
I'm using Python emacs recognices the mode but it doesn't automatically
activate syntax highlighting, even though I activated it in the
preferences (same for C/C++ mode as well). Also I was wondering what to
do about the tabs. When I read in a file from the disk emacs showed it
in proper alignment. When I add new statements emacs automatically
aligns it but it doesn't care about blanks. So it looks on the screen as
if the statments are properly aligned but in truth it is not and python
complains about invalid indention. i.e. One line contains 4 blanks and
the next contains 1 tab instead. Since I adjusted tabwidth to 4 blanks
it looks ok, but it is not. I always have to look into another editor to
see if the indention is correct. How can I force emacs to expand all
leading blanks to the according number of tabs or vice versa. I don't
care wether I have tabs or blanks but I need to have the proper
indention, as you probably know this is a required part of the python
syntax.

Thanks.
-- 
bye,
   Gerhard
email: sparhawk at eunet.at
       g.gruber at xsoft.co.at