Subject: Re: support for Tables
From: Larry Kollar (kollar@alltel.net)
Date: Tue Oct 17 2000 - 04:47:12 CDT
Martin Sevior wrote:
>5. Sophisticated fields. I think I'm on the right track here but Paul Rohr
>would like a different design. Given that I have code that's almost ready
>and he has the weight of good arguments I'm in a quandry about what to do.
"Working code beats four aces."
If the user interface doesn't change, you can always implement what
you have working today, then rip it out tomorrow for a new & improved
version.
>On the way to implementing Tables we should first develop:
>A. Text boxes (like a latex mini-page) that have a defined height and
>width and are formatted on a line like an image.
>
>B. Frames. More sophisticated Text boxes that are basically mini-pages
>which allow images and text to be intermingled. So images and figures can
>have figure caption for example.
FrameMaker calls the latter "anchored frames." The anchoring point is
within the text, so the frame can move with the text. (Graphics, by
default, go into anchored frames -- they can also go into a graphic
frame that remained fixed in one spot on a page.)
Vlad mentioned LyX as a starting point for tables. As much as I like
LyX, its tables are by far its weakest point though. IMO. If you
don't read the documentation carefully, you end up with text running
off the side of the window & no way to scroll over to it. YUCK.
Since DocBook is getting better support in AbiWord, you might want
to look at the CALS table model that DocBook uses. I think you're on
the right track using text frames to define tables; FrameMaker's
tables seem to use that scheme.
Larry
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