User talk:Zocky/Table syntax

Nice concept! On susning.nu they use spaces to do justifications.

| text|

will leftify

|text |

rightify, and

| text | or |text|

centrify. —Sverdrup(talk) 20:56, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Simple syntax for simple tables

I've dreamed up a simple, yet quite useful syntax to enter tables into articles in User:Zocky/Table_syntax. Please look at it and comment there. I'd like to hear some thoughts before I make it a request. Zocky 00:47, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

How is that different from what's already done? m:MediaWiki User's Guide: Using tables. Angela. 00:59, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Mine's simpler and less powerful, and as such, not needed. It is better looking, though, especially for col and row spans. How come I've never seen one of those used in an article? Zocky 01:09, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

This format is less than a month old, so very few articles use it yet. —Noldoaran (Talk) 01:32, Dec 18, 2003 (UTC)

I like Zocky's format alot, it is simple enough for me. The HTML format of tables is actually horrible, and as such actually misfitting in the wiki concept, with simple, fast and easy to remember syntax. I favour Zocky's syntax because it is similar to that of my home wiki's and actually Zocky's "howto use this syntax" page is a lot better. Look att than media wiki article!(m:MediaWiki User's Guide: Using tables) It expects me to know HTML, and comes with only few examples. Un-wiki and not simple. We should really strive to simplify the table syntax.

I understand that this was what we wanted to do when we added the | pipe syntax described at meta, but I have to say that I favour this even more. —User:Sverdrup|Sverdrup(talk) 17:47, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

A thought about rowspans: their most sensible use (apart from formatting) is classification. It's not unlike bulleted and numbered lists. Wouldn't it be nice if this produced an expected table? (This is somewhat different from the syntax on my page). Zocky 23:07, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

|mammalia
||carnivora
|||canis
||||dog|house|woofs|
||||wolf|woods|yelps|
|||felis
||||cat|house|meows|
||||lynx|woods|hisses|
||rodenta
|||ratus
||||brown rat|sewer|squeaks|
||||black rat|middle ages|plagues|

mammalia	carnivora	canis	dog	house	woofs
			wolf	woods	yelps
		felis	cat	house	meows
			lynx	woods	hisses
	rodenta	ratus	brown rat	sewer	squeaks
			black rat	middle ages	plagues

I like Zocky's format too. I find the one adopted just as confusing as regular tables. In fact, I am not going to bother to learn that, but rather stick to tables. Dori | Talk 23:18, Dec 18, 2003 (UTC)

Yep, it's still the same commands, but with different words. And they still expect you to know the HTML syntax to learn the simpler one. No, we need a truly easy way of creating tables. —Sverdrup(talk) 00:06, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You don't need to use HTML now. See m:MediaWiki User's Guide: Using tables.

If you type

Cell 1, row 1	Cell 2, row 1
Cell 1, row 2	Cell 2, row 2

you get

Cell 1, row 1	Cell 2, row 1
Cell 1, row 2	Cell 2, row 2

Angela. 03:44, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm sure they're aware of that, it's just that that syntax is direct shorthand for HTML and they (and I) think it doesn't provide sufficient automagic. If you want to do even relatively minor stuff, you have to fall back on HTML attributes. The syntax of those is questionable: TD attributes are strange enough, but TABLE and TR articles look eerily unwikilike: there's unmarked text which is not displayed. AFAIK it's unique in that.

Also, providing an easier syntax for fully formatted tables (which the current syntax does succesfully) may not be a Good Thing. If one is needed (seldom), there's always HTML, and others should use standard formatting. Next thing you know we'll be having a revert war over the shade of blue.

My syntax is much more obvious and wikilike, and the hierarchical table thing is very useful and IMHO, really pretty. Too bad I didn't have an internet conncetion at home two months ago. Zocky 04:18, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I don't think the current method is a "direct shorthand for HTML" and I certainly disagree with the notion that you need to learn HTML before using it. It doesn't seem any harder to learn that what Zocky is proposing. The new way of creating tables makes it visually clear how the table is going to look even when viewed in wikitext and seems a lot easier than worrying about lining up the right number of ||||'s. Angela. 06:32, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Well, worrying about the number of |||'s is just as complex as worrying about the number of ***'s and we seem to do that just fine. And the current syntax is direct shorthand for html:

= /td td

= /td /tr /table

Nothing wrong with it so far. But try to make a country info table without falling back on HTML attributets. Or try to insert brown bear, honeybee and coyotte in the upper table using the current syntax and see how straightforward it is. Zocky 14:25, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)