Tables

[Fletcher T. Penney]

(much snipping below)

On Nov 15, 2005, at 12:07 PM, John Gruber wrote:


>

>> And this one has two rows of header and some colspan in action.

>>

>>      [ Table 2: Test of a complex table                    ]

>>

>>      ||            || Imported      || Domestic           ||

>>      ||            || Beans | Peas  || Carrots | Tomatoes ||

>>      ||            || ----- | ----- || ------- | -------- ||

>>      || Wholesale  || $1.00 | $1.25 || $1.20   | $1.20    ||

>>      || Retail     || $2.00 | $3.00 || $1.80   | $1.80    ||

>

> Clever. I was going to say no, but I suppose that if I ever do want

> to use colspanning, I'd want this to be supported. I'm not sure

> though.


I prefer the colspanning syntax I used (that I copied from someone  
else - I'm not sure who originally came up with it).  Requiring that  
an entire column use double pipes seems to require too much  
planning.  And what about something like this:


|     Really long header     |||

|       |  Somewhat longer    ||

| Short | Another   | One more |

| ----- | --------- | -------- |


I'm not sure how to do this using the syntax above, but it is quite  
easy using the "cell by cell colspanning" syntax I copied and doesn't  
require planning out all of your nesting in advance.



>> I'm just not sure about the caption syntax (which could also be put

>> at the bottom) and how to best align text in cells that span on two

>> columns.

>

> I had a very similar idea regarding table captions. Do you think the

> "Table ___:" part should be mandatory? That would certainly avoid

> any ambiguity from a regular paragraph in brackets preceding the

> table.

>

> As for placement, my first thought was that the caption should be

> allowed to go either before or after the table. But then how would

> you tell which caption goes with which table if you have two more

> consecutive tables? Maybe in that case you'd use two blank lines to

> distinguish:

>

>     | header |

>     |--------|

>     | cell   |

>

>     [Table 1: caption]

>

>

>     | header |

>     |--------|

>     | cell   |

>

>     [Table 2: caption]



I do not allow blank lines between the table and caption in my  
syntax, which makes more sense.  Then, the only ambiguity is if  
someone just has a run-on "table-caption-table" with no blank lines,  
which is simply a violation of the syntax and would not be  
interpreted as a table in my implementation (but could be handled in  
a variety of ways.)

But as you mention, the decision to allow 0 blank lines is arbitrary,  
and could be changed to 1.  I chose 0 to prevent ambiguity (and  
because that was what Robert suggested to me in an email), but 1 is  
more aesthetically pleasing.

Fletcher



-- 
Fletcher T. Penney
fletcher at alumni.duke.edu

He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him
the spinal cord would fully suffice.
     - Albert Einstein


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