RFC: Markdown Table Syntax

[Michel Fortin]

Le 2009-02-26 à 19:54, David E. Wheeler a écrit :


> <http://www.justatheory.com/computers/markup/markdown-table-rfc.html>

>

> [...]

>

> Those refinements, in a nutshell, are, simply:

>

> * Implicit cell alignment using space characters, rather than

>  the explicit formatting hints in the header lines

> * Cell content continuation using : for succeeding lines

> * Stricter use of space, for proper alignment in plain text (which

>  all of the MultiMarkdown examples I’ve seen tend to do anyway)

> * Allow + to separate columns in the header-demarking lines

> * A table does not have to start right at the beginning of a line


Perhaps you should mention that you're now forcing a table cells to be  
properly aligned using a monospace font. This in fact makes the syntax  
impossible to use in a proportional font context.

While it's true that many people use a monospace font and that in a  
text editor you can change the font, I'd like to mention that Markdown  
is also used for writing comments and blog posts in textareas not  
formatted with a monospace font, and for which it may not be easy to  
change the font. Forcing proper alignment makes the table syntax  
unusable in these situations.

Now, given that cell continuation using colons relies on that proper  
alignment with a monospace font feature (or else you risk mistaking  
colons in the text for column separators), I don't find that syntax  
very satisfying.

Allowing `+` as column separator in the header underline looks like a  
good idea though.


-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin at michelf.com
http://michelf.com/