From: David G. <go...@py...> - 2004-05-31 20:54:27
|
David Priest wrote: > Having just spent hours doinking with tables and getting nothing but > annoyed at how damn picky the syntax is, Yes, this is an oft-heard complaint. 2D text editing can be painful. > I've decided I need to invest some time into creating > Comma-Separated-Values support in DocUtils. ... > Whatchall think? Why CSV? Seems a bit clunky, when there are better alternatives out there. Line wrapping seems a significant issue (on the "Crunchy Frog!" row). Have you seen the proposal for a "list-table" directive? (<http://docutils.sf.net/spec/notes.html#body-list-table>; just updated.) This is what it might look like: .. list-table:: * - Treat - Quantity - Description * - Albatross! - 299 - On a stick! * - Crunchy Frog! - 1499 - If we took the bones out, it wouldn't be crunchy now, would it? * - Gannet Ripple! - 199 - On a stick! Notice how easy it is to wrap a cell's text? The details haven't been worked out yet, like how to indicate that there's 1 header row (perhaps two lists?), how to indicate the column widths (a directive option? automatic defaults from the text used?), and how to handle row and/or column spans. YAML has been suggested as another alternative: <http://yaml.org/start.html>. If you decide to go ahead with the CSV idea, I suggest you first implement it as a directive. -- David Goodger <http://python.net/~goodger> |