thoughts on a table specification (short! 10 simple rules!)

[Bowerbird at aol.com]

wander said:

>    A few remarks... 


thanks for your feedback!      :+)



>    Using tabs to format tables 

>    will make your table look awful 

>    for people with different tab sizes.


yes, i get that.

but as i said, this is for my own system,
where i've programmed the viewer-app,
and that program sets all the "tab stops".

i didn't bother to say _how_ it does that,
but a short version is that it copy-fits the
table to look nice in the current view-port.

indeed, one description of how my viewer
earns its praise as an "intelligent" app is 
it copy-fits the entire book to the window.

one example is its widow/orphan control.
another is headings are sized to copy-fit.



>    If your table is so complex 

>    it needs stuff like cell merging


i mentioned cell-merging as a possibility,
and only a possibility.   it'll take examples
from the real-world to see if cell-merging
(a) is possible, and (b) is necessary...



>    Making row and column headers required

>    would annoy me greatly. 


well, i wouldn't want to "annoy you" at all,
let alone "greatly", so i would probably just
tell you that to signal a table, it is required to
put a space in column 1 and a dot in column 2,
_but_ that you could _skip_ the dot in column 2
if you wanted to put a row-header there instead.



>    The single to mark empty cells 

>    feels too magical for me. 


the whole thing should feel "too magical" for you.

but i'm going to make it work.   you just watch me.



>    Having to include images to make sure everyone

>    can read your Markdown document feels... wrong. 


it's not a requirement.   it's just a good suggestion.

my users are making e-books.   the hard part is the
writing and the editing and the polishing and all that.
creating a few images, to make sure that the content
is properly appreciated, is a very small price to them
for the peace-of-mind that the redundancy brings...



>    All in all, I wouldn't really like this 

>    going in mainline Markdown. 


i wouldn't either.   because then "jaguar" wouldn't be
so special, especially in comparison with markdown.

but elegance has a brilliance that spreads itself widely.

-bowerbird
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