[reportlab-users] Table rendering with HTML colspan and rowspan

Dirk Holtwick reportlab-users@reportlab.com
Fri, 02 Jul 2004 15:10:24 +0200


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I think you are talking about something we have already developed. It's 
our product called "pisa". I attached a simple example with source and 
result.

Get more informations on http://pisa.by.spirito.de (older demonstration) 
or http://www.spirito.de

Yours Dirk

Bogdan M. Maryniuck wrote:

>On Mon, Jun 21, 2004 at 06:34:27AM -0700, andy@reportlab.com wrote:
>  
>
>>IMHO a full HTML-like table rendering algorithm like this will be slow 
>>and have different goals to our current tables.  
>>    
>>
>
>Agree. But current tables are just pain pain pain, when I do something like:
>OpenOffice.org XML -> RML -> PDF. Then I need to do lot of magic with XSL.
>And, those still ugly and unusable when somebody merges cells and/or rows...
>Yes, I know, I can do complex tables with nested tables, but this is
>exactly: 
>
>   painLevel = pow(painLevel, painLevel)
>
>Again, current tables are good, but only if you _know_ how your table 
>should look like (you write a code to render PDF, or this is a bill your code
>produces or so). Instead, when you do lots XML transform from "unknown" 
>sources, made by who knows whom by nobody knows what rules (basically 
>Microsloth Word -> OpenOffice.org), than one moment you will see wrong 
>output... But when I do the same with HTML -- tables are just excellent 
>(with magic of CSS2 here/there).
>
>  
>
>>It would make perfect sense to  have two different kinds of tables 
>>with different design goals.
>>    
>>
>
>Agree! Besides, I haven't said: "replace that old implementation". ;-)
>
>  
>

-- 

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Dirk Holtwick

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

spirito GmbH
Dirk Holtwick (CEO)
Grünstraße 6
D-47051 Duisburg

fon: +49 203 3187778
mbx: holtwick@spirito.de
web: http://www.spirito.de

GnuPG fingerprint (http://www.gnupg.org)
A5A1 54E1 C82E 02AD 4804  0547 66F4 3FB0 C790 EBAB



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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
  <meta content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type">
  <title></title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
I think you are talking about something we have already developed. It's
our product called "pisa". I attached a simple example with source and
result.<br>
<br>
Get more informations on <a href="http://pisa.by.spirito.de">http://pisa.by.spirito.de</a>
(older demonstration) or <a href="http://www.spirito.de">http://www.spirito.de</a><br>
<br>
Yours Dirk<br>
<br>
Bogdan M. Maryniuck wrote:<br>
<blockquote cite="mid20040621141444.GC28957@bitute.b4net.lt" type="cite">
  <pre wrap="">On Mon, Jun 21, 2004 at 06:34:27AM -0700, <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:andy@reportlab.com">andy@reportlab.com</a> wrote:
  </pre>
  <blockquote type="cite">
    <pre wrap="">IMHO a full HTML-like table rendering algorithm like this will be slow 
and have different goals to our current tables.  
    </pre>
  </blockquote>
  <pre wrap=""><!---->
Agree. But current tables are just pain pain pain, when I do something like:
OpenOffice.org XML -&gt; RML -&gt; PDF. Then I need to do lot of magic with XSL.
And, those still ugly and unusable when somebody merges cells and/or rows...
Yes, I know, I can do complex tables with nested tables, but this is
exactly: 

   painLevel = pow(painLevel, painLevel)

Again, current tables are good, but only if you _know_ how your table 
should look like (you write a code to render PDF, or this is a bill your code
produces or so). Instead, when you do lots XML transform from "unknown" 
sources, made by who knows whom by nobody knows what rules (basically 
Microsloth Word -&gt; OpenOffice.org), than one moment you will see wrong 
output... But when I do the same with HTML -- tables are just excellent 
(with magic of CSS2 here/there).

  </pre>
  <blockquote type="cite">
    <pre wrap="">It would make perfect sense to  have two different kinds of tables 
with different design goals.
    </pre>
  </blockquote>
  <pre wrap=""><!---->
Agree! Besides, I haven't said: "replace that old implementation". ;-)

  </pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- 

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Dirk Holtwick

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

spirito GmbH
Dirk Holtwick (CEO)
Grünstraße 6
D-47051 Duisburg

fon: +49 203 3187778
mbx: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:holtwick@spirito.de">holtwick@spirito.de</a>
web: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.spirito.de">http://www.spirito.de</a>

GnuPG fingerprint (<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.gnupg.org">http://www.gnupg.org</a>)
A5A1 54E1 C82E 02AD 4804  0547 66F4 3FB0 C790 EBAB

</pre>
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