bug#71325: 30.0.50; multiline entries in tabulated-lists are left-aligned

bug#71325: 30.0.50; multiline entries in tabulated-lists are left-aligned

[Andrey Listopadov]

Hello! I was working with tabulated lists, and noticed, that multiline
entries are not properly inserted, when the column is not the first
one. E.g. this multiline entry:

tabulated-list-format:
[("1" 3 t) ("2" 10 t) ("3" 4 t)]

tabulated-list-entries:
((nil ["foo" "bar
baz
qux" "quux"]))

Is shown like this:

1   2          3
foo bar
baz
qux            quux

moreover, I can't set the second column's width to 3, as with the rest
ones, because it will truncate the string not accounting to multiline
widths:

1   2    3
foo bar… quux

What I'd like to see instead is:

1   2   3
foo bar
    baz
    qux quux

I've made a quick prototype, changing the tabulated-list-print-col
function to handle multiline strings:

From 583367791aa6f2f87984331f370be01dcba31971 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Andrey Listopadov <andreyorst@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2024 15:54:52 +0300
Subject: [PATCH] preserve column offset when printing multiline strings

---
 lisp/emacs-lisp/tabulated-list.el | 30 +++++++++++++++++++++++++-----
 1 file changed, 25 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/lisp/emacs-lisp/tabulated-list.el b/lisp/emacs-lisp/tabulated-list.el
index c86e3f9c5df..3e24c823f9e 100644
--- a/lisp/emacs-lisp/tabulated-list.el
+++ b/lisp/emacs-lisp/tabulated-list.el
@@ -608,8 +608,16 @@ tabulated-list-print-col
     ;; and has some space left, truncate to `available-space' instead.
     (when (and not-last-col
 	       (> label-width available-space))
-      (setq label (truncate-string-to-width
-		   label available-space nil nil t t)
+      (setq label
+            (if (string-match-p "\n" label)
+                (string-join
+                 (mapcar (lambda (row)
+                           (truncate-string-to-width
+	                    row available-space nil nil t t))
+                         (string-split label "\n"))
+                 "\n")
+              (truncate-string-to-width
+	       label available-space nil nil t t))
 	    label-width available-space))
     (setq label (bidi-string-mark-left-to-right label))
     (when (and right-align (> width label-width))
@@ -619,9 +627,21 @@ tabulated-list-print-col
         (setq width (- width shift))
         (setq x (+ x shift))))
     (cond ((stringp col-desc)
-           (insert (if (get-text-property 0 'help-echo label)
-                       label
-                     (propertize label 'help-echo help-echo))))
+           (let ((label (if (string-match-p "\n" label)
+                            (string-replace
+                             "\n"
+                             (concat
+                              "\n"
+                              (make-string (save-mark-and-excursion
+                                             (let ((pos (point)))
+                                               (beginning-of-line)
+                                               (- pos (point))))
+                                           (string-to-char " ")))
+                             label)
+                          label)))
+             (insert (if (get-text-property 0 'help-echo label)
+                         label
+                       (propertize label 'help-echo help-echo)))))
           ((eq (car col-desc) 'image)
            (insert (propertize " "
                                'display col-desc
--
2.44.0

It handles truncation on per-line basis, and pads the string in a
probably wrong way (I don't know how it should work with right padding
and all)..

There's probably a better way of doing it though, and if possible I'd
like to preserver columns following that on the same line as other
columns. I.e. instead of

1   2   3
foo bar
    baz
    qux quux

I'd like to see

1   2   3
foo bar quux
    baz
    qux

The patch above is merely a POC, mayve someone with better elisp skills
and knowledge of tabulated-list-mode would be able to tackle this problem?



In GNU Emacs 30.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version
 3.24.41, cairo version 1.17.8) of 2024-05-12 built on toolbox
Repository revision: dcb6a9ebcbf92a4ca7c0e2c393d7a8dd9b1d351e
Repository branch: master
System Description: Fedora Linux 38 (Container Image)

Configured using:
 'configure --without-compress-install --with-native-compilation=yes
 --with-pgtk --with-mailutils --with-xwidgets
 --prefix=/var/home/alist/.local'

Configured features:
ACL CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GPM GSETTINGS HARFBUZZ JPEG
LCMS2 LIBOTF LIBSELINUX LIBXML2 MODULES NATIVE_COMP NOTIFY INOTIFY
PDUMPER PGTK PNG RSVG SECCOMP SOUND SQLITE3 THREADS TIFF
TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER XIM XWIDGETS GTK3 ZLIB

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: ELisp/d

Minor modes in effect:
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Load-path shadows:
/var/home/alist/.config/emacs/elpa/transient-20240509.1849/transient hides /var/home/alist/.local/share/emacs/30.0.50/lisp/transient
/var/home/alist/.config/emacs/elpa/modus-themes-20240505.331/theme-loaddefs hides /var/home/alist/.local/share/emacs/30.0.50/lisp/theme-loaddefs

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Memory information:
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--
Andrey Listopadov

bug#71325: 30.0.50; multiline entries in tabulated-lists are left-aligned

[Andrey Listopadov]

Additional info. With the solution above, if there are multiple multiline 
columns the result will be like a staircase:

1   2   3    4
foo
bar baz
    qux quux
        quuz quuuz

Instead, I'd expect it to be displayed as

1   2   3    3
foo baz quux quuuz
bar qux quuz

However, I couldn't find a proper way of keeping the vertical position 
while inserting columns.

P.S. I don't seem to get the acknowledgement mail in my inbox, neither in 
the spam folder. I see the Acknowledgement Sent message on the tracker 
though. Did something break with gmail?