Re: Using orgtbl-mode with markdown: hfmt1

[Carsten Bormann <cabo@tzi.org>]

> The point of orgtbl-mode is to edit Org tables, not Markdown tables,
> which have a different syntax.

The point of a screwdriver is to drive screws.
I happened to notice that this particular screwdriver makes a good chisel, too.
Unfortunately, the way things are at the moment means that using this screwdriver as a chisel damages it (by making me change the native org-mode table syntax, too).

The analogy stops here: Different from an actual screwdriver, it is possible to add a switch to org-table-align that allows to use it for either purpose, without damage.

(To me, it seems that the existence of an orgtbl-mode minor mode points out that this kind of use outside org-mode is not an entirely foreign concept here.)

> The usual workflow is to edit the Org mode tables and "send" it to
> another location within the same buffer, applying some pre-defined
> transformation. See (info "(org) Radio tables") for more information.

These workflows would make more sense if I’m working alone on the document.
Well, then I could write them entirely in org-mode in the first place.
The point of writing them in markdown is to be able to collaborate with people who don’t use org-mode (or Emacs, or even a plaintext editor at all!).

> Another option is to add an advice on `org-table-align'. See
> `add-advice’.

That doesn’t work too well as the tiny change is in the middle of that function; advice-add could be used to manipulate its input or its output, but not that small difference in table syntax between org-mode and github markdown (the main culprit here — many other markdown implementations don’t have a problem with org-mode table syntax).

Grüße, Carsten