Re: Syntax Proposal: Multi-line Table Cells/Text Wrapping

[Timothy]

Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com> writes:

> In principal, it wold be great to be able to support multi-row columns.
> However, I'm not sure how easily this can actually be implemented in a
> consistent and maintainable manner.

Mmmm, this of feels like something where you'll quickly learn how hard
it is/isn't when you try to implement it.

> From watching these discussions in the past, I think the big stumbling
> block is how easily multi-row columns can be added and maintained in the
> various export formats. Some are easy, like HTML, but others are less
> so. In particular, I know from my many years working with Latex,
> multi-row columns are not straight-forward. There are lots of edge cases
> to deal with and it is hard to get a consistent result programatically.
>
> Proposals like this one can seem simple and straight-forward on the
> surface. However, implementation is another matter. All of the exporters
> will need to be updated to handle this new syntax and it will probably
> take a fair bit of work to handle it correctly in just plain org files
> (formatting, highlighting etc).

Currently if you were to try this content with the proposed syntax,
content is just put in the top left cell of the group. This seems like a
reasonable fallback to me. Then for HTML we have colspan/rowspan, and
for LaTeX there's \multicolumn and with the multirow package \multirow.

FWIW just formatting would need to be updated for Org files.
Highlighting is fine as is.

> If this was something people were prepared to put the time into
> implementing, I think it must be done in a completely separate feature
> branch and would need to be fully tested (including all back end
> exporters) before it can be merged into the mainline branch. It would
> also be important to profile and ensure it does not have significant
> impact on performance.
>
> I am a little concerned about the expansion and addition of features in
> org mode when there seems to already be a challenge with respect to
> maintenance and bug fixing. Personally, I would prefer an org mode which
> is consistent and reliable over one with large numbers of features that
> is less stable and slower.

I appreciate this concern, but I do think that the ability to have
multi-col/row cells is invaluable in many large tables, and so would be
a very good addition to Org.

--
Timothy