Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!ucbvax!ANDREW.CMU.EDU!tpn+
From: tpn+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Tom Neuendorffer)
Newsgroups: comp.soft-sys.andrew
Subject: Re: Tabs
Message-ID: <AafqoxG00Vt1I7p0p4@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 26 Jul 90 22:22:53 GMT
References: <14360@jade.BBN.COM>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 59


Thanks to Andy for explaining the real story.

So what do people want tabs for anyway? In general , it seams to be for
creating simple tables where numbers or strings line up reasonably. The
table object provides this functionality, and it even goes to the extent
of using the same troff  machinations that tbl uses to get everything to
line up. Though as Terry Crowley pointed out, often people don't want to
bother with this mechanism just to get a simple 2 or 3 line table.  I
have been experimenting with some software to make doing this sort of
thing easier and I have a package that does some interesting things.

Take for example the following table, created with tabs between the fields

	header 1 (memo)	header 2	header 3
note 1	123	54	65
note 2	234	not applicable	88
note 3	999	645	345

Neither readable or pretty, I can select it with the mouse and call a
function that transforms it into :

         header 1 (memo)   header 2         header 3
note 1   123               54               65
note 2   234               not applicable   88
note 3   999               645              345

This form has the advantage that it both prints reasonably , and can be
mailed to non-atk sites.
Another function will actually turn the above into a table, with the
proper number of cells.
[An Andrew ToolKit view (a spreadsheet) was included here, but could not
be displayed.]
Thanks to table's print mechanism, this will print properly. The above
table just contains simple strings. If I want styled text, or text that
will span lines , I have another function that will turn.

	header 1 (memo)	header 2	header 3
note 1	123	54	65
note 2	234	not applicable but this is nothing to worry about	88
note 3	999	645	345

into the following
[An Andrew ToolKit view (a spreadsheet) was included here, but could not
be displayed.]
Again, this actually prints, though people that arn't reading this with
AMS are missing the table object that the above styled text became. Just
in case anyone reading this newsgroup the last few weeks is wondering
why people bother with ATK , I should point out that one of the beauties
of ATK is the fact that this sort of functionality can be added to the
system without any change or recompile of the system code. 

I won't claim that this is the perfect solution, but it could make
things easier in many instances. If people are interested, I will look
into making this code available.

	Regards,

		Tom Neuendorffer