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Raw tables are "easier than any markdown" only if you don't mind it looking completely different. My favorite simple tables look like: | are | easier |

by taeric 3y ago

Raw tables are "easier than any markdown" only if you don't mind it looking completely different. My favorite simple tables look like: | are | easier | than | | any | markdown | flavor | Granted, I don't know of any that allow colspan/rowspan well. And even fewer that support newlines in a cell. Styling can also be annoying. But simple tables are surprisingly annoying in most any of these options. (I should say that I fully agree with you, btw.)

layer8 3y ago
HTML tables are easier in the sense that if the length of the cell contents changes, or you add or remove lines within a single cell, that’s easy in HTML but inconvenient in Markdown (or requires special editor support).
- taeric 3y ago
  Fair, "easier to write." They lose heavily on the "easy to read." (And folks that recognize my table as the org-mode table know that resizing the pipes is automatic for you, such that that shortcoming is addressed. :D )
  - layer8 3y ago
    Markdown was originally only intended as an authoring format, not a viewing format (it was just intended as an easier way to author HTML), and it is still used a lot in that manner (e.g. GitHub readmes).
    - taeric 3y ago
      Ish. Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown, the goal was "to write using an easy-to-read and easy-to-write plain text format, optionally convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML)."
jraph 3y ago
A while ago, I designed a syntax supporting colspan (the last pipe of the line being optional): || are easier | than | | any | markdown | flavor | The number of consecutive pipes would increase the colspan value. I think I also had support for rowspan but I don't remember how. The XWiki syntax [1] also supports it by letting you use HTML attributes. |=Title 1|=(% style="background-color:yellow" %)Title 2 |(% colspan=2 %) Word 1 Word 2 Arguably more clunky and less intuitive, but more powerful I guess. (disclaimer: I work for XWiki) [1] https://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Documentation/UserGuide/Features/XWikiSyntax/#HTables https://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Documentation/UserGuide...
- hinkley 3y ago
  Trac’s wiki format has tables that work like that, and I don’t think it’s the first time I’ve seen colspan in wiki markup.
abathur 3y ago
I feel like I remember restructured text's visual table format supporting rowspan/colspan cells. (but I've also read the docs for nearly every minimal markup format I can find, so I might be misremembering... :)

by taeric 3y ago

layer8 3y ago

HTML tables are easier in the sense that if the length of the cell contents changes, or you add or remove lines within a single cell, that’s easy in HTML but inconvenient in Markdown (or requires special editor support).

taeric 3y ago
Fair, "easier to write." They lose heavily on the "easy to read." (And folks that recognize my table as the org-mode table know that resizing the pipes is automatic for you, such that that shortcoming is addressed. :D )
- layer8 3y ago
  Markdown was originally only intended as an authoring format, not a viewing format (it was just intended as an easier way to author HTML), and it is still used a lot in that manner (e.g. GitHub readmes).
  - taeric 3y ago
    Ish. Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown, the goal was "to write using an easy-to-read and easy-to-write plain text format, optionally convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML)."

jraph 3y ago

A while ago, I designed a syntax supporting colspan (the last pipe of the line being optional): || are easier | than | | any | markdown | flavor | The number of consecutive pipes would increase the colspan value. I think I also had support for rowspan but I don't remember how. The XWiki syntax [1] also supports it by letting you use HTML attributes. |=Title 1|=(% style="background-color:yellow" %)Title 2 |(% colspan=2 %) Word 1 Word 2 Arguably more clunky and less intuitive, but more powerful I guess. (disclaimer: I work for XWiki) [1] https://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Documentation/UserGuide/Features/XWikiSyntax/#HTables https://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Documentation/UserGuide...

hinkley 3y ago
Trac’s wiki format has tables that work like that, and I don’t think it’s the first time I’ve seen colspan in wiki markup.

abathur 3y ago

I feel like I remember restructured text's visual table format supporting rowspan/colspan cells. (but I've also read the docs for nearly every minimal markup format I can find, so I might be misremembering... :)