Feature request: HTML table formatting

Feature request: HTML table formatting

[Daniel J. Sinder]

Generally, I like the latest incarnation of HTML table formatting,
in particular because I can control the presence of horizontal
lines.  But, now I'm spoiled and would like to do the same for
vertical lines -- on a table-by-table basis.  With the rules=groups
attribute (already the default with org-mode), this can be
accomplished in HTML using the COLGROUP element.

What about a new column delimiter (e.g., '!') to indicate column
groups in addition to columns?  My hope is to have something like
the following be possible:

!        !  Col A  |  Col B  |  Col C !
!--------!---------|---------|--------!
!  Row 1 !    A1   |   B1    |   C1   !
!  Row 2 !    A2   |   B2    |   C2   !
!--------!---------|---------|--------!

The '!' lines would appear in the HTML rendering, while the "|"
lines would not.  Or, as an ASCII export:
|-------+---------+---------+--------|
|       | Col A   | Col B   | Col C  |
|-------+---------+---------+--------|
| Row 1 | A1        B1        C1     |
| Row 2 | A2        B2        C2     |
|-------+----------------------------|


Dan

Re: Feature request: HTML table formatting

[Carsten Dominik]

I don't like the idea of another character having
special meaning in tables.  We would have to find
a different way to specify this.

- Carsten

On Apr 12, 2007, at 1:17, Daniel J. Sinder wrote:
>
> The '!' lines would appear in the HTML rendering, while the "|"
> lines would not.  Or, as an ASCII export:
> |-------+---------+---------+--------|
> |       | Col A   | Col B   | Col C  |
> |-------+---------+---------+--------|
> | Row 1 | A1        B1        C1     |
> | Row 2 | A2        B2        C2     |
> |-------+----------------------------|

Personally I think that also in this case, but generally in most cases,

          Col A    Col B    Col C
--------------------------------
  Row 1   A1       B1       C1
  Row 2   A2       B2       C2

looks much better.

- Carsten

Re: Feature request: HTML table formatting

[Matej Cepl]

Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl> writes:
> I don't like the idea of another character having
> special meaning in tables.  We would have to find
> a different way to specify this.

To the presentation of tables I would strongly suggest reading
http://tug.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/booktabs/booktabs.pdf
-- whenever I broke rules set there, I regreted it later.

Best,

Matej

Re: Feature request: HTML table formatting

[Scott Otterson]

I'll agree with Daniel that sometimes, it's useful to have vertical 
table separators.  Here's how I kind-of do it:

| asdlfj |   | alsjfdas |
|--------+---+----------|
| alsdjf |   | aqsljf   |
| asdljf |   | asldjf   |

This is visible enough inside of org-mode and it yields a widish gap in 
exported html -- it's a horizontal screen space waster, though.  I 
suppose one way to denote a vertical separator without adding an extra 
symbol would be to allow tables in org-mode that look like this:

| asdlfj || alsjfdas |
|--------++----------|
| alsdjf || aqsljf   |
| asdljf || asldjf   |

The exporter could then detect '||' and convert it to a vertical html line.

Scott
> Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 06:23:16 +0200
> From: Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl>
>
> On Apr 12, 2007, at 20:48, Daniel J. Sinder wrote:
>   
>> >
>> > I think rejecting vertical rules as a matter of style is a mistake.
>> >  Whether you consider org-mode tables to be a markup or a
>> > spreadsheet, it's peers -- HTML, LaTeX, Gnumeric, Excel, etc. --
>> > will all produce tables with vertical rules if asked to do so.  I'm
>> > wary of tools that enforce style.  I'd prefer to read the style
>> > guide and then decide for myself (that is, use it as a *guide* not
>> > an edict).
>>     
>
> Fair enough.
>   
>> > However, if vertical rules are too clunky, difficult,
>> > time-consuming, or low priority to implement, that's an entirely
>> > different matter that I can fully understand.
>>     
>
> As I said, I don't want to have a special separator for this,
> implementation would be very cumbersome and I'd like
> to be able to have ! as a character in a table field.
> Maybe something like a special #+FORMAT line above the table
> to set special formatting directives.
>
> - Carsten