On Wed, 17 Sep 2003 14:27:10 +0200, Magnus Manske magnus.manske@web.de gave utterance to the following:

Erik Zachte wrote:

...

Magnus, I do agree that most <tr..> options are redundant.

However I did find some that may qualify (there will be more but this is what I found in half an hour). Most address alignment. (<table align=..> has a different purpose)

OK, I'm convinced! :-)

TR will be implemented within the hour, like this: |- align=top

I will also integrate <caption> better, and change it to '|+' !

...

The option most used for table cells by far is align=... What do you think? Would a wiki shortcut for this be useful? If so, some suggestions for syntax, shown in this order: left,right,center. (align=left for completeness sake, left is default)

IMHO we shouldn't mess with the attributes at all. Too much wiki markup might turn out to be more confusing then HTML.

Especially since those are all deprecated attributes in the newer standards.

So, you want an unordered list of tables, right? But what, exactly, makes that different from a single table? You'll have table rows stacked upon each other either way; the only difference would be getting rid of the bullet things, which doesn't strike me as particularly bad in this context.

It will also make the wiki source more readable.

Magnus

David Friedland wrote:

I was experimenting with the table markup on test and ran into a situation which I didn't seem to be able to solve using the table markup.

There is a page I have been working on [[List of words of disputed pronunciation]] onto which I have put pronunciations in IPA and SAMPA. The way I have them now is just one after another, separated by nubers in parentheses (as a label for each pronunciation) and commas.

After some discussion on talk, it seems there needs to be different versions of each pronunciation, IPA vs. SAMPA, AmE vs. BrE, etc. Such a matrix of pronunciations is tabular information perfectly suited for a table. Unfortunately, each word is in an unordered list (lines starting with *) and the syntax for those lists requires all text for each item be placed on one line. Thus it seems impossible to mix the wiki syntax for unordered lists and for tables.

So:

(1) Should there be a way to mix lists and tables using wiki syntax? (2) Should a different approach to organizing this page be taken?

I suppose it would be possible to put everything in a giant wiki table, but that would be using tables for layout and not for just tabular information, which seems like the wrong approach.

• David [[User:Nohat]]

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David Friedland wrote:

Not quite what I was thinking: What I want is an unordered list with a mix of text and a table in each item. Something similar to this:

• apricot +-----+---------------+---------------+ | | AmE | BrE | +-----+---------------+---------------+ | (1) | ["{.pr@.kAt] | ["{.pr@.kQt] | | (2) | ["eI.pr@.kAt] | ["eI.pr@.kQt] | +-----+---------------+---------------+

  Both (1) and (2) are standard and are listed in most dictionaries.

• arctic +-----+------------+------------+ | | AmE | BrE | +-----+------------+------------+ | (1) | ["Ar.tIk] | ["A:.tIk] | | (2) | ["Ark.tIk] | ["A:k.tIk] | +-----+------------+------------+

  The debate is whether or not the <ct> cluster is pronounced [kt] or just [t]. M-W lists both, with (1) first, but OED only lists (2). Generally, the same pronunciation for the <ct> cluster is used for both ''artic'' and ''antarctic''. However, M-W lists (2) first for ''antarctic''.

OK, so why not like this:

+-----------+------------------------+---------------------+ | Word | Americal English | British English | +-----------+------------+-----------+---------+-----------+ | | (1) | (2) | (1) | (2) | +-----------+------------+-----------+---------+-----------+ | apricot | ... | ... | ... | ... | +-----------+------------+-----------+---------+-----------+ | | Some debate | +-----------+------------+-----------+---------+-----------+ | arctic | ... | ... | ... | ... | +-----------+------------+-----------+---------+-----------+ | | Some debate | +-----------+------------+-----------+---------+-----------+

Which would like this : {| ! Word !!colspan=2!AmE !!colspan=2!BrE |-- ! !!(1)!!(2)!!(2)!!(2) |-- |apricot||...||...||...||... |-- | ||colspan=4|Some debate |-- |arctic||...||...||...||... |-- | ||colspan=4|Some debate |}

The wiki syntax for tables will prove to be most useful in many circumstances, I am sure.

Are you sure the problem is with the table markup, and not with the list markup? The one-line-rule was there since the beginning. Squishing a whole HTML table into one line using HTML markup sure looks more ugly than the above code, no?

However,

• Tables are supposed to only be used for presenting tabular

information, not for layout. I don't think that the word itself and the description are tabular information, and so they shouldn't be in a table.

Well, at least the word is (see above). If we'd display the description right of the BrE colunm in above example, it would also become "tabular information". It just wouldn't look very pretty.

We're already using tables to display right-aligned images plus caption. Is that pretty markup? No. Is is tabular information? No. Is it abusing a table for layout purposes? Yes. Why do we do it? Because it's the best we can! (CSS+<div> won't wrap the caption text).

• Do we really want tables that extend across the entire page?

Why wouldn't we? And how would that be really different from having a zillion small tables extending across the entire page? OK, a single table would be less code, meaning less transfer time, but otherwise...

• This solution also requires using the colspan= option for first and

last row in the table for each word, which arguably decreases the readability of the wiki source.

Only for the discussion (see above).

• Would make every cell holding a pronunciation as wide as the longest

pronunciation.

Would spare us the AmE/BrE header for *every single word*!!!

• If we can embed tables in tables, why shouldn't we be able to embed

tables in unordered lists?

You can embed unordered lists in tables, though ;-)

Seriously: * Because list items shouldn't span a dozen lines or so. * Because it would complicate the markup, which is a Bad Thing (TM). Tables are bad enough already. * Because I don't have time to code it, since I spent all my time today on this mail ;-)

I think, in general, being able to extend the content of a list item across multiple lines of wiki source would be convenient. For example, on the current page I have a <br> between the pronunciations and the description text, but I think the wiki source would be more readable if I just put it on a separate line.

Oh there, it's the list markup, not the table after all! :-)

As for how to implement it, maybe the syntax could be that if a line containing a list item ends in a , then the next line is also part of that list item, and if the next line begins a table, the whole table is part of that list item. I haven't studied the PHP for processing wiki syntax, so I don't know how hard that would be to implement, though.

IMHO that would make the wiki code not more, but *less* readable.

I just want to reiterate that I think the wiki syntax for tables is a really great idea! I just wish I could use them on this page. Magnus, again, thanks for taking the initiative and making tables available in wiki syntax.

Thanks for the praise! :-)

Magnus