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Subject: Re: [docbook] Confusion with tables


Aidan Lister <aidanis@gmail.com> writes:

> Firstly, I'm not subscribed (any more) to this list, so if you could
> cc: me any replies that would be fantastic.
> 
> I'm a bit unsure about tables and docbook.
> Which model should I be using?
> - row/entry etc, (CALS model?)
> - Or tr/td, (HTML model?)

I think it depends on what you are used to and on what kinds of
editing applications you want to use. If you want to create and
edit your tables using a graphical interface, there are some that
support CALS, but many others only support HTML tables.

> At the moment, I'm using row/entry. I'm having a couple of problems. I
> need to make a heading  column (as opposed to a heading row). There
> seems to be no other way than wrapping each cell in <emphasis>.
> 
> To make a heading row, I'd use <thead><row><entry...../></row><thead>.
> As I can't put a column in thead, I'm at a loss. Do I use colspec
> somehow?

CALS does not have the concept of a "heading column". It only
allows Entry (equivalent of TD) within Row (=TR). It has no
equivalent of TH or (that I know of). It could be argued that not
having something TH-like is a feature, not a limitation --
especially not having something equivalent within Row. Because the
HTML model of allowing TH in TR lets you do things like this:

  <table>
    <tr><td></td><th></th><td></td></tr>
    <tr><th></th><td></td><td></td></tr>
  </table>

Which doesn't make a lot of sense.

But I think that since the practical effect of using TH vs. TD is
just that TH contents get rendered in bold, you can get that
effect just using CSS:

  TR TD[1] { font-weight: bold }
  
-- or whatever the CSS syntax is for "boldface contents of the
first TD child of each TR".

Or you can just author your DocBook docs using HTML tables and TH,
instead of CALS :-)

> Next, If my table has subdivisions, i.e. half way down I have
> another sub-heading saying "Other elements", for example, how
> should I structure the html?
> 
> Currently I've got a <row><entry namest= nameend=>... which spans the
> table, but this probably isn't ideal.
> 
> I've stuck an example table here: http://aidan.dotgeek.org/exampletable.htm

Myself, I would probably just make them separate tables.

  --Mike

-- 
Michael Smith
http://logopoeia.com/  http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/890

smime.p7s



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