Re: rendering of tables

[Denis Barbier <nospam@thanx>]

On Fri, Oct 27, 2000 at 08:22:12AM +0100, Werner Heuser wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I'm reworking my HTML tables and have just started to work
> with the <xtable> tag. Now I'm looking for a method do
> create different tables from one (<xtable>) database.
> 
> As far as I understand, there is no difference between
> "setting" up the table data and "rendering" them (like let's
> say in the <navbar ..> tags). Example:
> 
> setting up the table data:
> 
> <cell:define 1,1>content</cell:define>
> <cell:define 2,1>content</cell:define>
> 
> ...
> 
> rendering the table:
> 
> <cell:render *,1>print column 1</cell:render>
> 
> Can you point me into a  direction to get a solution?
> 
> I have thought about converting my HTML tables into a CSV
> file or another database format and then creating the 
> tables from these database. But this is an errorprone
> method and also I would like to stay with WML.

Hi Werner,

i am surprised this has never been requested before, it looks quite
natural. The <xtable> tag is just a wrapper for freetable (formerly
wwwtable), so the best solution is to request this feature to the
freetable maintainer (i'll do so).  Meantime you may try this trick:
  * define your table content into a tag without cell attributes
      <define-tag mytablecontent>
       (1,1)
          blah blah
      ...
      </define-tag>
  * render it by adding some extra markup
    <xtable>
    (*,1) SUPPRESS_THIS_COLUMN
    (*,2) align=center
    (*,3) SUPPRESS_THIS_COLUMN
    <mytablecontent>
    </xtable>
  * parse ePerl output.
Last step is not trivial, and i think i have to provide a solution to
make it much easier (something like <navbar:filter>).
Any suggestion is welcome.

-- 
Denis Barbier
WML Maintainer
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