bug#44068: 28.0.50; Faulty uses of tabulated-list-format

[Stephen Berman]

On Mon, 19 Oct 2020 21:43:57 +0300 Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

>> From: Stephen Berman <stephen.berman@gmx.net>
>> Cc: 44068@debbugs.gnu.org
>> Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2020 20:20:16 +0200
>> 
>> > Instead of manually fine-tuning each column's width, wouldn't it be
>> > better to use the string-trim capabilities that replace excess
>> > characters with an ellipsis?
>> 
>> I'm not sure I understand your suggestion.  If you mean to truncate the
>> column label in the header line when displaying the sort indicator,
>> e.g. change "Status" to "Sta… ▼", I'm dubious it's worth the effort,
>> since most of the problematic cases in the Emacs sources are with the
>> final column, where there's always enough space, but due to the
>> misleading description in tabulated-list-format's doc string, many modes
>> have made it unnecessarily narrow, preventing the display of the sort
>> indicator.  So to avoid the final column being labelled e.g. either
>> "File" or "Fi… ▼" instead of "File ▼", it is necessary to change the
>> width manually anyway.  In other words, the truncation proposal would be
>> an addition to manual fine-tuning (for non-final columns), not a
>> substitute for it.  Or did you mean something else?
>
> Yes, I meant it as an addition, which will make this issue much more
> future proof.  Documentation update is definitely fine (and should
> probably go to emacs-27, not to master, right?), and adjusting the
> column widths to eliminate the ellipsis is also okay.  I just don't
> want us to end with these two and nothing else.

Ok.  I can try, but anyone should feel free to beat me to it.

Steve Berman