bug#54908: Make tabluated list tables more readable by adding some light column color to even columns

bug#54908: Make tabluated list tables more readable by adding some light column color to even columns

[Denes Kis via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Since columns have no separating lines, nor different colors, tables are often hard to read when the values are close to each other due to column sizes:

                2m 26.0s       5m 0.0s savehist-autosave
             8h 8m 12.5s 1d 0h 0m 0.0s clean-buffer-list
            11h 8m 12.7s 1d 0h 0m 0.0s run-hooks
           18h 28m 12.5s 1d 0h 0m 0.0s recentf-cleanup
               59m 29.6s    1h 0m 0.0s url-cookie-write-file

Adding some light background color to even numbered columns could alleviate this, because then it's easier to see where a column ends and where the data of the next column begins.

bug#54908: Make tabluated list tables more readable by adding some light

[Denes Kis]

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Attached a screenshot of an old experiment of mine which puts a 0.1 width space between columns emulating the separator line of other apps. Rows use alternating colors.

This solution can work for tabulated list mode too to separate columns better. See attachment.

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bug#54908: Make tabluated list tables more readable by adding some light column color to even columns

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Denes Kis <laszlomail@protonmail.com> writes:

> Attached a screenshot of an old experiment of mine which puts a 0.1
> width space between columns emulating the separator line of other
> apps. Rows use alternating colors.

Looks very nice.  I was inspired to implement this for vtable (the
tabulated-list-mode alternative in Emacs 29), see

  https://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/2022/04/13/more-vtable-fun/

Implementing something like this in tabulated-list-mode would be nice,
too, but I think I'll leave that to somebody else.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#54908: Make tabluated list tables more readable by adding some light column color to even columns

[Denes Kis via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

>
> Looks very nice. I was inspired to implement this for vtable (the
> tabulated-list-mode alternative in Emacs 29), see

Interesting. I'll give that a try too.

> Implementing something like this in tabulated-list-mode would be nice,
> too, but I think I'll leave that to somebody else.

I guess with overlays it's just a matter of adding a 0.1 width space with  an after-string property to cells to make the separator lines appear properly. Assuming the table uses fixed-width fonts.