Enhancing table cell alignments and commenting columns (was Re: Orthogonality of blocks)

[Jambunathan K <kjambunathan@gmail.com>]

Jambunathan K <kjambunathan@gmail.com> writes:

> Charles Turner <chturne@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> @Jambunathan: Your examples render the blocks with sizes proportional
>> to the contained text, rather than aligning as a table. I find that
>> aesthetically displeasing :-(
>
> I am unable to understand what "sizes proportional to the contained
> text" means. What viewer are you using?
>
> I am using a fairly recent version of LibreOffice (v3.4.4) and I see
> that the positions of the blocks are a bit staggered (See portions
> marked red in the attached png)
>
> Furthermore, the srcline where the cursor is - marked with an ellipse -
> uses OrgSrcBlockLastLine style. If the style were modified to
> OrgSrcBlock style, I see that the above staggering gets less
> accentuated. A plausible explanation for this behaviour is that the
> "space below paragraph" introduced by "OrgSrcBlockLastLine" spills over
> to the next paragraph which is in the second table column.
>
> One of the reasons that the staggering persists is because of the change
> in space settings between "Text_20_body" and "OrgSrcBlock" styles (Note
> that the "Say Hello in ..." lines and the src block lines use different
>  fonts and font sizes and different paragraph styles)
>
> AFAIK, there is nothing amiss with the XML that the ODT exporter dumps
> and I am inclined to think that the issue is with LibreOffice rendering
> engine.

I am wrong, the issue is not with the LibreOffice but with my memory.

The srcblocks are actually aligned "centrally" (along the vertical axis)
within the table cell. Since the two blocks are of different
sizes/lengths the top border gets staggered.

Changing the alignment to "top" will fix the issue.

#+begin_src nxml :see OrgOdtContentTemplate.xml
    <style:style style:name="OrgTblCell" style:family="table-cell">
                                         @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@   
      <style:table-cell-properties style:vertical-align="middle" fo:padding="0.159cm" fo:border-top="none" fo:border-bottom="none" fo:border-left="none" fo:border-right="none"/>
    </style:style>
#+end_src

There colcookies that specify how a table column has to be
aligned. Currently there are specifiers only for left and right
alignment.

,---- (info "(org) Column width and alignment")
|    If you would like to overrule the automatic alignment of number-rich
| columns to the right and of string-rich column to the left, you can use
| `<r>', `c'(2) or `<l>' in a similar fashion.  You may also combine
| alignment and field width like this: `<l10>'.
`----

I think it would be useful to specify a "top" alignment specifier. There
is also a recent interest in commenting out certain Org-table columns
[1].

I think the colcookie lines could be enhnaced to also support "t" and
"/" characters. IMNSHO, using #+ATTR_ODT: lines for commenting out
columns will not only be cumbersome but also error-prone.

> ps: I am not much concerned xhtml exporter as it is mostly a museum
> piece cherished just by me.

Footnotes: 
[1]  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2011-12/msg00691.html

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