Upcoming TABLE Code Changes

[Qaanol]

I wonder, is there some way to get the vertical lines, but not horizontal? With the striped colors, the horizontal lines aren't as necessary, but without vertical lines the tables end up looking kind of cluttered.

Not exactly, to my knowledge, but here is the closest I’ve been able to achieve:

Spoiler: Vertical-lined table (-ish)

Show

Animal		Vegetable		Mineral
Elephant		Broccoli		Feldspar
Dolphin		Chestnut		Corundum
Cheetah		Okra		Quartz
Mako		Avocado		Kimberlite
Macaw		Snap Peas		Basalt
Monarch		Daffodil		Granite

I agree it would be great if there were a vertical_grid table class (and a horizontal_grid class too for that matter), but the tables as they currently exist are certainly quite useable and flexible.

After preview: looks like Colspan works beautifully with it. It sorts by the first column that it affects rather than causing any funky results like switching cells around to put them in order. Perfect.

That is not quite how colspan interacts with sortable headers. The nth header cell sorts by the nth column, regardless of colspan. So in the following table, the last header cell (being the third of them) sorts by the middle column (which is the third column), even though the first two header cells each have colspan: 2.

Spoiler: Vertical-lined table (-ish) with colspan

Show

Animal		Vegetable		Mineral
Elephant		Broccoli		Feldspar
Dolphin		Chestnut		Corundum
Cheetah		Okra		Quartz
Mako		Avocado		Kimberlite
Macaw		Snap Peas		Basalt
Monarch		Daffodil		Granite

Also note that the second header cell there (as well as either of the blank interstitial pseudoheader cells in the first table) have their “sort” arrows act by reversing the current order of the rows, regardless of whether or not they are currently sorted by any other criterion.

Edit: new discovery, almost certainly of no good use (probably not of neutral use either):

Spoiler: Vertical-lined table (-ish) that refuses to sort

Show

Animal		Vegetable		Mineral
Elephant		Broccoli		Feldspar
Dolphin		Chestnut		Corundum
Cheetah		Okra		Quartz
Mako		Avocado		Kimberlite
Macaw		Snap Peas		Basalt
Monarch		Daffodil		Granite

Edit 2: If you don’t mind losing the ability to sort rows, you can also make a table of one-column tables:

Spoiler: Vertical-lined table (no sorting possible)

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Animal Elephant Dolphin Cheetah Mako Macaw Monarch

Vegetable Broccoli Chestnut Okra Avocado Snap Peas Daffodil

Mineral Feldspar Corundum Quartz Kimberlite Basalt Granite

Also, I just found a bug of sorts. If you put a table inside a table and make the inner table wider than the column it’s in, it almost works, except the sort arrows float on top:

Spoiler: Vertical-lined table (-ish) with minitable bug

Show

Animal		Vegetable		Mineral
Elephant		Broccoli		Feldspar
Dolphin		Chestnut		Corundum
Cheetah		Okra		Quartz
Mako		Avocado		Kimberlite
Macaw		Snap Peas		Basalt
Monarch		Daffodil		Animal Vegetable Mineral Elephant Broccoli Feldspar Dolphin Chestnut Corundum Cheetah Okra Quartz Mako Avocado Kimberlite Macaw Snap Peas Basalt Monarch Daffodil Granite