Re: [office] merging nested tables with surrounding table

[Andreas J Guelzow <aguelzow@math.concordia.ab.ca>]

On Wed, 2007-27-06 at 13:26 +0200, Lars Oppermann wrote:
> Dear TC,
> 
> During our last conference call, we discussed whether we needed explicit 
> support for merging a nested table with the surrounding table as an 
> alternative to rowspan/colspan attributes. Up until now, this was 
> achieved

Did you mean "this could be achieved"? ODF also provides the
colspan/rowspan and so did not force that method.

> with the is-subtable attribute, which instructed the 
> application to treat the nested table such that it further partitioned 
> the cell into which it was embedded.
> 
> The rationale for using nested tables for splits was that the resulting 
> structure is less complex then using rowspan/colspan in order to create 
> the same visual effect. I took an action item to investigate whether 
> this kind of merged subtable was supported in HTML/CSS as an alternative 
> to rowspan/colspan.
> 
> Consider the following table:
> ----------------------
> | A1 | B1            |
> ----------------------
> | A2 | B2.A1 | B2.B1 |
> ----------------------
> 
> Using colspan, one would create markup such as:
> <table>
>    <tr><td>A1</td><td colspan="2">B1</td></tr>
>    <tr><td>A2</td><td>B2.A1</td><td>B2.B1</td></tr>
> </table>
> 
> Using a nested table, one would create markup such as:
> <table>
>    <tr><td>A1</td><td>B1</td></tr>
>    <tr>
>      <td>A2</td>
>      <td>
>        <table>
>           <tr><td>B2.A1</td><td>B2.B1</td></tr>
>        </table>
>      </td>
>    </tr>
> </table>

How would you use only colspan/rowspan to define the following table:

<table>
   <tr><td>A1</td><td>B1</td><td>C1</td><td>D1</td><td>E1</td></tr>
   <tr><td>A2</td><td>B2</td><td>C2</td><td>D2</td><td>E2</td></tr>
   <tr><td>A3</td><td>B3</td><td>C3</td><td>D3</td><td>E3</td></tr>
   <tr><td>A4</td><td>B4</td><td>C4</td><td>D4</td><td>E4</td></tr>
   <tr><td>A5</td><td>B5</td><td>C5</td><td>D5</td><td>E5</td></tr>
   <tr><td>A6</td><td>B6</td><td>C6</td><td>D6</td><td>E6</td></tr>
   <tr>
     <td>A7</td>
     <td colspan="2" rowspan="3">
       <table>
          <tr><td>B7.1.1</td><td>B7.2.1</td><td>B7.3.1</td></tr>
          <tr><td>B7.1.2</td><td>B7.2.2</td><td>B7.3.2</td></tr>
       </table>
     </td>
     <td>D7</td><td>E7</td>
   </tr>
<tr><td>A8</td><td>D8</td><td>E8</td></tr>
<tr><td>A9</td><td>D9</td><td>E9</td></tr>
<tr><td>A10</td><td>B10</td><td>C10</td><td>D10</td><td>E10</td></tr>
<tr><td>A11</td><td>B11</td><td>C11</td><td>D11</td><td>E11</td></tr>
</table>

The only way I can imagine it is with use of colspan/rowspan in areas
far away from the nested table

> 
> When using CSS properties to draw border around the table cells, the 
> nested table can be distinguished from the surrounding table. This is 
> shown in the attached example HTML document (test.html) and reproduced 
> in Figure-1. The space between the outer cell and the nested table is 
> called padding.
> Furthermore, the border of the inner table is rendered and it is not 
> possible to explicitly merge it with the surrounding border.
> 
> When the outer borders of the inner table are explicitly suppressed as 
> shown in the lower part of the example and reproduced in Figure 2, the 
> effect can be simulated. This however requires somewhat advanced CSS 
> techniques (i.e pseudo-classes not supported by all browsers)
> 
> In conclusion, it is possible to simulate the desired rendition with CSS 
> in HTML. However, there is no explicit support for visually merging a 
> nested table with its surrounding cell.
> 
> I think it would be possible, to define a table style property in ODF, 
> which specifies, that a surrounding cell border becomes the outer border 
> for a nested table. I am unsure whether there is realy a requirement for 
> such a feature as rowspan/colspan can be used to achieve the same visual 
> result.

See above example. Failure to provide such support would complicate the
description of that table.
> 
Andreas

-- 
"Liberty consists less in acting according to
one's own pleasure, than in not being subject 
to the will and pleasure of other people. It 
consists also in our not subjecting the wills 
of other people to our own."  Rousseau


Prof. Dr. Andreas J. Guelzow
Dept. of Mathematical & Computing Sciences
Concordia University College of Alberta

A1

B1

C1

D1

E1

A2

B2

C2

D2

E2

A3

B3

C3

D3

E3

A4

B4

C4

D4

E4

A5

B5

C5

D5

E5

A6

B6

C6

D6

E6

A7

B7.1.1	B7.2.1	B7.3.1
B7.1.2	B7.2.2	B7.3.2

D7

E7

A8

D8

E8

A9

D9

E9

A10

B10

C10

D10

E10

A11

B11

C11

D11

E11