Re: [iText-questions] Table.class or PdfPTable.class ?
Short answer, then longer discussion: If you are only concerned with rendering to PDF, then PdfPTable is more stable and more fully functional. I use PdfPTable in my main application. If, however, you are trying to make something that will render to either RTF, PDF, or XML, then Table may still be useful. I am currently working on adding XML support for PdfPTable, but it is complicated since it wasn't designed to be able to extract the contents for this purpose. I think that it is problematic (or at best just very awkward) for iText to continue in this state. I think that Table should be either fixed or deprecated. It is confusing for someone new to this library to understand the differences or which one to use. The current documentation doesn't help here - it mainly discusses Table. Also, since Paulo has developed PdfPTable (which he has done a very good job of maintaining) he hasn't had much concern for Table and has been willing to commit whatever someone sends in. I think this has made Table grow less and less stable over the last 6 months. It now has things like System.out.println statements with someone's debugging code in it (I'll remove these today). People have a desire to fix their problem of the moment, but without a cleaner architecture, these fixes seem to often break functionality elsewhere. In fairness to these people, the current code in Table is quite a mess and would be hard for anyone to understand. Without a good set of unit or functional tests it is hard for anyone to fix a bug without causing another one. Enough of my ranting. On a more positive note - if anyone is interested in discussing / working on some type of testing framework for iText then I would be willing to contribute. I think this could do a great deal for the long term stability of the project. - Original Message - From: "Andrea Schwob" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2004 8:19 AM Subject: [iText-questions] Table.class or PdfPTable.class ? > Hi > I am confused about the use of tables in iText. In some threads I can > read as it isn't a good way to work with the Table class anymore because > it has some strange code in it (e.g. this story about the cellpadding or > the line spacing in the version 1.1). Otherwise I see there are a lot of > people using Table and not PdfPTable. What is the right solution? Should > I only develop my PDF's with PdfPTable or with Table or with both of > them? I would appreciate to get your opinions. > > Thanks to all > Andrea > > > --- > SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide > Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. > Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. > http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/ > ___ > iText-questions mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/itext-questions > --- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/ ___ iText-questions mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/itext-questions
Re: [iText-questions] Table.class or PdfPTable.class ?
Steve Appling wrote: I think that it is problematic (or at best just very awkward) for iText to continue in this state. Problem is: I have some applications generating tables in PDF and HTML using the same Document object. I can't throw away Table unless I have an alternative. The current documentation doesn't help here - it mainly discusses Table. I'm working on this ;-) But it takes time :( commit whatever someone sends in. I think this has made Table grow less and less stable over the last 6 months. It has been going on for longer. Geert Poels once needed some special features and the code became really complex after that. It now has things like System.out.println statements with someone's debugging code in it (I'll remove these today). People have a desire to fix their problem of the moment, but without a cleaner architecture, these fixes seem to often break functionality elsewhere. Yep. Big problem indeed. In fairness to these people, the current code in Table is quite a mess and would be hard for anyone to understand. Too many people have been working on it. Each one of them had the best intentions, but it is like you say: Without a good set of unit or functional tests it is hard for anyone to fix a bug without causing another one. Enough of my ranting. On a more positive note - if anyone is interested in discussing / working on some type of testing framework for iText then I would be willing to contribute. I think this could do a great deal for the long term stability of the project. Once I am ready to write the chapter on Tables, I could make some small examples. But for the moment I have other priorities. First I want to have the basics in the new tutorial (the first chapters), then I want a tutorial on forms... br, Bruno --- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/ ___ iText-questions mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/itext-questions
RE: [iText-questions] Table.class or PdfPTable.class ?
If you are targeting only PDF use PdfPTable. For other output formats use Table. Most people use Table because it was there first, the tutorial was directed at it and PdfPTable didn't split rows when changing pages and couldn't have complex objects like lists. All those restrictions are now lifted and the only differences that remain is cellspacing and rowspan, both done in PdfPTable with nested tables. > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Andrea Schwob > Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2004 1:20 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [iText-questions] Table.class or PdfPTable.class ? > > Hi > I am confused about the use of tables in iText. In some threads I can > read as it isn't a good way to work with the Table class > anymore because > it has some strange code in it (e.g. this story about the > cellpadding or > the line spacing in the version 1.1). Otherwise I see there > are a lot of > people using Table and not PdfPTable. What is the right > solution? Should > I only develop my PDF's with PdfPTable or with Table or with both of > them? I would appreciate to get your opinions. > > Thanks to all > Andrea > > > --- > SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide > Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from > real users. > Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. > http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/ > ___ > iText-questions mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/itext-questions > --- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/ ___ iText-questions mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/itext-questions
Re: [iText-questions] Table.class or PdfPTable.class ?
- Original Message - From: "Bruno Lowagie" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Steve Appling" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2004 10:05 AM Subject: Re: [iText-questions] Table.class or PdfPTable.class ? > Steve Appling wrote: > > >I think that it is problematic (or at best just very awkward) for iText to > >continue in this state. > > > > > Problem is: I have some applications generating tables in PDF and HTML > using the same Document object. > I can't throw away Table unless I have an alternative. > ... I agree - that is why it seems weird to have an alternative class. How will you explain this? "Use PdfPTable if you only want PDF, but if you want multiple output formats, use Table (unless you run into one of the many bugs, then you're out of luck)." > It has been going on for longer. Geert Poels once needed some special > features and the code became really complex after that. > ... It is lack of knowledge of what some of these "special features" are that has kept me out of many parts of the Table code. I need some good test cases that exercise these features before I would feel comfortable messing with some of the worst parts of the code (like Table.mergeInsertedTables). Perhaps if we can get some test cases exercising some of this, then some brave soul may have a chance at fixing it without breaking everything else :) > >Without a good set of unit or functional tests it is hard for anyone to fix > >a bug without causing > >another one. > > > >Enough of my ranting. On a more positive note - if anyone is interested in > >discussing / working on > >some type of testing framework for iText then I would be willing to > >contribute. I think this could > >do a great deal for the long term stability of the project. > > > Once I am ready to write the chapter on Tables, I could make some small > examples. > But for the moment I have other priorities. > ... I understand - the documentation should come first. I have a start at a testing framework that I have been using to test my changes to iText. I would be glad to contribute it if you are interested. I only have a handful of test cases currently (mostly around Table and PdfPTable), but it's a start. If you are interested in added a separate package for testing, then I'll start another discussion thread describing what I have and where it might be improved. --- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/ ___ iText-questions mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/itext-questions
Re: [iText-questions] Table.class or PdfPTable.class ?
Quoting Steve Appling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > I understand - the documentation should come first. I have a start at a > testing framework that I > have been using to test my changes to iText. I would be glad to contribute > it if you are > interested. > I only have a handful of test cases currently (mostly around > Table and PdfPTable) Yes, I am interested, you can send them to me, but I can't guarantee I will have the time to do something with the examples in the first months to come. So maybe it's better to wait a while before starting the discussion thread. br, Bruno --- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/ ___ iText-questions mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/itext-questions
[iText-questions] Table.class or PdfPTable.class ?
Hi I am confused about the use of tables in iText. In some threads I can read as it isn't a good way to work with the Table class anymore because it has some strange code in it (e.g. this story about the cellpadding or the line spacing in the version 1.1). Otherwise I see there are a lot of people using Table and not PdfPTable. What is the right solution? Should I only develop my PDF's with PdfPTable or with Table or with both of them? I would appreciate to get your opinions. Thanks to all Andrea --- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/ ___ iText-questions mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/itext-questions
