It might be better to take more width parameters into account, as
tabulated-list-print-col does, but that seems rather more complicated
and I currently don't have time to pursue it.

> BTW, perhaps we should add unit tests for all this, since it seems like
> we have a fair amount of use-cases to think about.  Maybe that could be
> a good excuse to make tabulated-list-init-header a bit more functional...

For sure (but again, I currently don't have time for that).

>> In such cases it may be better to make the default width of such
>> columns wider, which is what my first patch did.  Then with the
>> current patch, it will still be truncated when the column is
>> sufficiently narrowed with `{'.
>
> Yes, the default width of such columns should also be made wider, I
> think.  But first we should probably make sure that the underlying logic
> here is sound.

I agree

> Thanks again for working on this.

I wish I had more time for it but at the moment I don't.

Steve Berman