tables with Unicode box drawing characters?

[Suraj Kurapati]

Hello,

I read David Wheeler's table proposal[1] for Markdown and very much
agree with his conclusion and PostgreSQL-inspired proposed format.  I
also read the mailing list archives for 2009 but did not find any
clear concesus on whether DW's format was officially accepted (I hope
it is soon!).

However, I want to ask: has anyone considered taking these simple
ASCII table drawings to the next level of realism with Unicode box
drawing characters[2]?  I have long admired the w3m browser[3]'s
ability to render HTML tables using Unicode box drawing characters.
For example, w3m renders this[4] demo page as follows[5]:

 A more complex table-within-a table.
   An inner table showing a variety of headings and data items.
┌┐
│  Inner Table   │
├───┬┤
│   │   Head1│
│  CORNER   ├┬───┤
│   ││ Head3 │
├───┬───┤   Head2├──┬┤
│   Head4   │ Head5 ││Head6 ││
   Outer├───┼───┼┼──┴┤
   Table│A  │   │  • Lists can be table data │   Two Wide│
│   │   │  • Images can be table data│   │
├───┤   ├┼──┬┤
│   │Two│A Form in a table: Your age:│  ││
│   │Tall   │[  ]│  No  │Multiple│
│HTML   │   │ What is your favorite ice  │border│line│
│Station│   │   cream?   │Little│item│
│   │   │[Chocolate ]│Table ││
│   │   │   [OK] [Cancel]│  ││
└───┴───┴┴──┴┘


What if Markdown used Unicode characters to express tables in this manner?

All we need are two essential subsets of the Unicode box drawing characters:
* thin ones for normal cells: ┌ ┐ └ ┘ ─ │
* thick ones for heading cells: ╔ ╗ ╚ ╝ ═ ║

Thanks for your consideration.

[1]: http://justatheory.com/computers/markup/markdown-table-rfc.html
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_drawing_characters
[3]: http://w3m.sourceforge.net/
[4]: http://www.december.com/html/demo/table.html
[5]: http://snk.tuxfamily.org/tmp/w3m-tables.png
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Re: tables with Unicode box drawing characters?

[Waylan Limberg]

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 12:18 AM, Suraj Kurapati wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I read David Wheeler's table proposal[1] for Markdown and very much
> agree with his conclusion and PostgreSQL-inspired proposed format.  I
> also read the mailing list archives for 2009 but did not find any
> clear concesus on whether DW's format was officially accepted (I hope
> it is soon!).

I didn't go back and check but I think there was in a previous
discussion with a similar proposal. In other words, you need to go
back further in the archive.

Basically, these proposals for more complex tables are outside the
scope of Markdown and should be left to raw html. At least I seem to
recall actual implementers leaning that direction. Of course, if
someone wanted to implement David's proposal (or some variant) and
users flocked to it, then the rest of us may follow suite. Until then,
I'm sticking to the simple solution we have now.

Hint (and shameless plug): Python-Markdown makes adding on something
of the sort easy with it's extension API. Check it out here:
http://www.freewisdom.org/projects/python-markdown/Writing_Extensions


> What if Markdown used Unicode characters to express tables in this manner?
>
> All we need are two essential subsets of the Unicode box drawing characters:
> * thin ones for normal cells: ┌ ┐ └ ┘ ─ │
> * thick ones for heading cells: ╔ ╗ ╚ ╝ ═ ║
>

The last few times someone proposed a syntax that didn't use commonly
found keys on the keyboard, the proposal met with a *lot* of
resistance. I suspect most users wouldn't even know how to type these
characters.

Another barrier is that not all implementations support Unicode (I
think - at least not fully). Therefore, some implementations may never
adopt such a proposal.

Third, it seems like it would be an awful lot of work to build such a
table. A lot more than some of the existing proposals out there.

-- 

\X/ /-\ `/ |_ /-\ |\|
Waylan Limberg
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Re: tables with Unicode box drawing characters?

[Sherwood Botsford]

Once it gets to table in a table, or table elements that span rows and
columns, or tables that need varicoloured text, you end up with a mess that
can't be done in the markdown way of "Simple to read, simple to type."
The template Toolkit system uses Markedown as a plugin.  So you have
sections of TT cookie dough, and embedded markdown raisins in it.  This made
my web creation simple.  TT handles the directory structure, the menu
system.  Markdown handles the actual content.  And now that I know that
Markdown treats DIV as just a word, and passes it through, I can have
markdown content inside my html elements in an easy way.
Markdown text is at the core a linear data format.  Tables are at the core
two dimensional data.  Fletch and others have stretched the markdown syntax
to encompass simple tables, and have done so in a way that doesn't beat the
goals of markdown too much.But full table support shouldn't be in the
cards.
Indeed I question the use of complex tables.  At some point you end up with
a data set that people can't grasp.  If your table is too complex or even
too large to make with the tools you have now, there is merit in going back
and seeing if there is a better way to present the data.  Perhaps as
multiple tables.  Perhaps as graphs or networks.
This is much on the lines of the programming dictum:  If your program
indents are deep enough that you are making your window wider, it's time to
abstract some subroutines out of your program.
One of the big issues with HTML is there is no method of abstraction.

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 10:54 PM, Waylan Limberg  wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 12:18 AM, Suraj Kurapati wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I read David Wheeler's table proposal[1] for Markdown and very much
> > agree with his conclusion and PostgreSQL-inspired proposed format.  I
> > also read the mailing list archives for 2009 but did not find any
> > clear concesus on whether DW's format was officially accepted (I hope
> > it is soon!).
>
> I didn't go back and check but I think there was in a previous
> discussion with a similar proposal. In other words, you need to go
> back further in the archive.
>
> Basically, these proposals for more complex tables are outside the
> scope of Markdown and should be left to raw html. At least I seem to
> recall actual implementers leaning that direction. Of course, if
> someone wanted to implement David's proposal (or some variant) and
> users flocked to it, then the rest of us may follow suite. Until then,
> I'm sticking to the simple solution we have now.
>
> Hint (and shameless plug): Python-Markdown makes adding on something
> of the sort easy with it's extension API. Check it out here:
> http://www.freewisdom.org/projects/python-markdown/Writing_Extensions
>
>
> > What if Markdown used Unicode characters to express tables in this
> manner?
> >
> > All we need are two essential subsets of the Unicode box drawing
> characters:
> > * thin ones for normal cells: ┌ ┐ └ ┘ ─ │
> > * thick ones for heading cells: ╔ ╗ ╚ ╝ ═ ║
> >
>
> The last few times someone proposed a syntax that didn't use commonly
> found keys on the keyboard, the proposal met with a *lot* of
> resistance. I suspect most users wouldn't even know how to type these
> characters.
>
> Another barrier is that not all implementations support Unicode (I
> think - at least not fully). Therefore, some implementations may never
> adopt such a proposal.
>
> Third, it seems like it would be an awful lot of work to build such a
> table. A lot more than some of the existing proposals out there.
>
> --
> 
> \X/ /-\ `/ |_ /-\ |\|
> Waylan Limberg
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>



-- 
Respectfully,

Sherwood of Sherwood's Forests

Sherwood Botsford
Sherwood's Forests --  http://Sherwoods-Forests.com
780-848-2548
50042 Range Rd 31
Warburg, Alberta T0C 2T0
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Re: tables with Unicode box drawing characters?

[Aristotle Pagaltzis]

* Suraj Kurapati  [2009-09-09 06:20]:
> What if Markdown used Unicode characters to express tables
> in this manner?

Then I would still write my tables using HTML tags.

Regards,
-- 
Aristotle Pagaltzis // 
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Re: tables with Unicode box drawing characters?

[david parsons]

In article ,
Suraj Kurapati   wrote:
>
>However, I want to ask: has anyone considered taking these simple
>ASCII table drawings to the next level of realism with Unicode box
>drawing characters?


  I'm sure that somebody has, but where are you going to find a keyboard
  that has all of those unicode glyphs on it, or would you have to write
  a markdown preprocessor that takes a table made up of symbols found on
  a keyboard and convert it into the unicode characters?

  -david parsons
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Re: tables with Unicode box drawing characters?

[Sidney San Martín]

I believe that Suraj is proposing that Markdown implement David
Wheeler's proposed table formatting and provide the option to process
them into tables made up of box characters.

I agree, though, that this is best left for HTML — especially since
character-based tables only render correctly with monospaced fonts.

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 11:39 AM, david parsons  wrote:
>  I'm sure that somebody has, but where are you going to find a keyboard
>  that has all of those unicode glyphs on it
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Re: tables with Unicode box drawing characters?

[david parsons]

In article <871221ae0909100931w5b6da2d4neec60c5a2e9d2...@mail.gmail.com>,
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Sidney_San_Mart=EDn?=   wrote:
>I believe that Suraj is proposing that Markdown implement David
>Wheeler's proposed table formatting and provide the option to process
>them into tables made up of box characters.

That seems like it would be an extraordinarily non-markdownish thing
to do; redoing markdown into a "convert to html, except for one
ascii-style formating wart" doesn't seem to be particularly useful.


-david "no, I don't think that's a good plan" parsons
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Re: tables with Unicode box drawing characters?

[Suraj Kurapati]

Thanks for considering my idea and replying accordingly, everyone.  I
agree that having Markdown users meticulously craft tables with
Unicode box drawing characters[2] is impractical.

However, I am still very fond of David Wheeler's proposal[1] for
Markdown tables.  Are there any existing implementations of [1] at
present?  If not, I will try to implement it as a preprocessor (as
Waylan Limberg suggested) so that it can be used with any Markdown
implementation:

  cat document.md | dw_md_tables | markdown > document.html

Thanks for your consideration.

[1]: http://justatheory.com/computers/markup/markdown-table-rfc.html
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_drawing_characters
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Re: tables with Unicode box drawing characters?

[Lou Quillio]

> However, I am still very fond of David Wheeler's proposal[1] for
> Markdown tables.  Are there any existing implementations of [1] at
> present?  If not, I will try to implement it as a preprocessor (as
> Waylan Limberg suggested) so that it can be used with any Markdown
> implementation:

If I understand the need, wouldn't an
HTML-tables->box-drawing-characters transformer -- implemented as a
post-processor in a Markdown stack -- be more straightforward, remove
any Markdown dependency and address more use cases? I can imagine a
wrapper element option, etc. (, for example).

There may be abusable code in projects like ELinks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELinks

LQ
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