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ANN: Emacs WYSIWYG CALS table generator

• From: Michael Smith <smith@x...>
• To: xml-dev@l...
• Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 22:19:48 -0800

Just made available: a new release of a WYSIWYG table editor for
GNU Emacs and XEmacs, with support added for generating XML source
compliant with the OASIS Exchange subset of the CALS table model
(used in DocBook and in some other DTDs)[1].

The editor -- v1.5.16 of the Emacs lisp package table.el created by
Takaaki (Tak) Ota <Takaaki.Ota@a...> -- can be dowloaded at:

  http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=14137&release_id=21474

Details and screenshots are available at:

  http://table.sourceforge.net/

Along with the newly added CALS support, other notable features:

  * can generate HTML 3.2-compliant tables too
  
  * also useful for embedding tables in any text document: in comments
    in code or e-mail, for example -- not just for XML/SGML/HTML
  
  * like Emacs itself, can be used even in a non-Windowing/GUI
    environment (for example, over a Telnet/tty connection)

  * support for generating LaTeX tables is in the works

The table.el site also provides a number of supporting Sourceforge
features, including links to table.el mailing lists (for bugs and
requests) and an interface for submitting table.el bug reports.

But not a CALS or HTML rendering/display engine
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Though table.el generates CALS and HTML source, it doesn't render/
display either CALS or HTML tables.

Ota considers source rendering out of scope for table.el, and has no
plans to ever offer integrated rendering. However, he has said he is
very much willing to collaborate with developers working on rendering
packages (such as w3 mode for Emacs) and working with them on package
interoperablity to enable "round tripping" of tables in Emacs.

By the way, though table.el itself contains extensive documentation --
and is easy enough to use that you don't really need the docs much --
I'll be helping to create a Texinfo file for it, so feel free to send
comments or suggestions for the documentation to me.

   --Mike Smith


[1] For those familiar with the CALS table model
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The XML source generated by table.el will validate either against the
"full" CALS model or the OASIS Exchange XML subset, as described in
OASIS Technical Memorandum TR9901:1999:

  http://www.oasis-open.org/html/tm9901.htm

This means that the XML source generated by table.el:

  * specifies horizontal spans by placing namest="" and nameend=""
    attributes on <entry> elements, instead of <spanspec> elements

  * never contains <tfoot> elements

However, compliant with OASIS Exchange subset, table.el _does_ enable
you to specify how many (zero or more) <row>'s of the generated source
should be wrapped in a <thead> element.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

-- 
Michael Smith          mailto:smith@x...
XML-Doc                http://www.xml-doc.org/

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