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A possible extra feature for the table formatter

Discussions regarding financial software
Gengulphus
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A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#422484

Postby Gengulphus » June 26th, 2021, 10:00 am

Just to note an extra feature that I think should be quite easily added to the table formatter: add an option to formatting with [table] and [/table] tags that prevents columns running into each other if the table is displayed on a too-narrow window or screen. This can easily be achieved by making it produce "||  ||" (in which the central spaces are non-breaking spaces) wherever it currently produces just "||", so that an extra narrow (but nonzero-width) column of white space is placed between each pair of columns.

Two notes about this suggestion:

* I'm suggesting it as an option rather than the default behaviour because it does mean that the table formatter's output is somewhat harder to read and requires a bit more care if for some reason one wants to edit it.

* The "||  ||" separator I'm suggesting has two non-breaking spaces in the middle because that's what I use when I want to produce a table that might be too wide for some screens. Other numbers of non-breaking spaces could be used - my choice of two is just a matter of what looks 'right' to me, i.e. a personal aesthetic choice.

Gengulphus

kiloran
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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#422491

Postby kiloran » June 26th, 2021, 10:07 am

OK, I'll take a look at this, though football and a few other issues may take priority

--kiloran

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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#422899

Postby kiloran » June 27th, 2021, 5:03 pm

Gengulphus wrote:Just to note an extra feature that I think should be quite easily added to the table formatter: add an option to formatting with [table] and [/table] tags that prevents columns running into each other if the table is displayed on a too-narrow window or screen. This can easily be achieved by making it produce "||  ||" (in which the central spaces are non-breaking spaces) wherever it currently produces just "||", so that an extra narrow (but nonzero-width) column of white space is placed between each pair of columns.

Two notes about this suggestion:

* I'm suggesting it as an option rather than the default behaviour because it does mean that the table formatter's output is somewhat harder to read and requires a bit more care if for some reason one wants to edit it.

* The "||  ||" separator I'm suggesting has two non-breaking spaces in the middle because that's what I use when I want to produce a table that might be too wide for some screens. Other numbers of non-breaking spaces could be used - my choice of two is just a matter of what looks 'right' to me, i.e. a personal aesthetic choice.

Gengulphus

I had a quick look at this but I fear I've just made my incompetence rather more obvious :oops:

How do you enter a non-breaking space into the table? &nspb; works fine in simple HTML, but our phpBB TABLE capability is not simple HTML. I've tried other magic incantations I found via Google but all fail.

So, in the following code extract, what is the XXX:

Code: Select all

[table]
L=Col 1||XXX||Col 2||XXX||Col 3
[/table]


--kiloran

mc2fool
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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#422903

Postby mc2fool » June 27th, 2021, 5:20 pm

kiloran wrote:How do you enter a non-breaking space into the table? &nspb; works fine in simple HTML, but our phpBB TABLE capability is not simple HTML. I've tried other magic incantations I found via Google but all fail.

Just enter it directly as a unicode character, methinks. It's decimal 160, so on Windows you can just hold down the Alt key and then key in 0160 and on lifting the Alt after it inserts a non-breaking space. If you're using something else see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-breaking_space

kiloran
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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#422907

Postby kiloran » June 27th, 2021, 5:33 pm

mc2fool wrote:
kiloran wrote:How do you enter a non-breaking space into the table? &nspb; works fine in simple HTML, but our phpBB TABLE capability is not simple HTML. I've tried other magic incantations I found via Google but all fail.

Just enter it directly as a unicode character, methinks. It's decimal 160, so on Windows you can just hold down the Alt key and then key in 0160 and on lifting the Alt after it inserts a non-breaking space. If you're using something else see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-breaking_space

Tried that, failed miserably!
I think we may be limited by the BBcode in the TABLE implementation software

--kiloran

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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#422975

Postby ReformedCharacter » June 27th, 2021, 9:41 pm

This link seems to suggest Unicode Character 'MEDIUM MATHEMATICAL SPACE' (U+205F)

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/bbcode-space-question.52513/

https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/205f/index.htm

Might be worth a try, if you haven't already. It seems to work on the code editor here:

https://www.systutorials.com/tools/bbeditor/

RC

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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#422976

Postby Gengulphus » June 27th, 2021, 9:42 pm

On Windows, I just use the 'Character Map' accessory to copy "||  ||" (with the central spaces being non-breaking ones) into the clipboard, then paste into the post input box. I am certain this works.

However, experimenting with the table formatter indicates that if I copy text containing non-breaking spaces into the table formatter's 'Input Text' box, create formatted text and then copy the table formatter's 'Output Text' box into the post input box, the non-breaking spaces get changed into ordinary spaces. As further experiments, if I copy text containing non-breaking spaces into the table formatter's 'Input Text' box, then copy that box into the post input box, the same thing happens - but if I copy precisely the same text containing non-breaking spaces directly into the post input box, the non-breaking spaces are kept.

So it looks to me as though the table formatter's 'Input Text' box is configured in some way that makes it automatically convert non-breaking spaces into ordinary spaces as they are entered. That's as far as I think I can take the experiments I'm in a position to do.

Gengulphus

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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#423484

Postby kiloran » June 29th, 2021, 3:41 pm

Gengulphus wrote:Just to note an extra feature that I think should be quite easily added to the table formatter: add an option to formatting with [table] and [/table] tags that prevents columns running into each other if the table is displayed on a too-narrow window or screen. This can easily be achieved by making it produce "||  ||" (in which the central spaces are non-breaking spaces) wherever it currently produces just "||", so that an extra narrow (but nonzero-width) column of white space is placed between each pair of columns.

Gengulphus

I think I may have nailed this. Have a look at the test page I've put up on Weebly: http://lemonfoolfinancialsoftware.weebl ... -page.html

I added a new radio button "[table with spacer columns]". Does this implementation look OK to you?

--kiloran (with an addled brain jumping between VBA, Python, HTML and Javascript)

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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#423562

Postby Gengulphus » June 29th, 2021, 7:18 pm

kiloran wrote:
Gengulphus wrote:Just to note an extra feature that I think should be quite easily added to the table formatter: add an option to formatting with [table] and [/table] tags that prevents columns running into each other if the table is displayed on a too-narrow window or screen. This can easily be achieved by making it produce "||  ||" (in which the central spaces are non-breaking spaces) wherever it currently produces just "||", so that an extra narrow (but nonzero-width) column of white space is placed between each pair of columns.

I think I may have nailed this. Have a look at the test page I've put up on Weebly: http://lemonfoolfinancialsoftware.weebl ... -page.html

I added a new radio button "[table with spacer columns]". Does this implementation look OK to you?

I'm afraid not. Using the new radio button produces text in the test-page table formatter's output box that looks OK, but when I copy and paste it into a post and display the post in a narrow window, the columns run into each other - try shrinking the width of this post to see this happen in the following example:


This is the behaviour I would expect if the "||  ||" sequences in the test-page table formatter's output box contains ordinary spaces rather than non-breaking spaces.

I've also tried creating the table tags and the "L=" and "||  ||" sequences (with non-breaking spaces) myself using NotePad and copy-and-pasting them directly into the post input box (i.e. without any use of the table formatter). The results of that look the same in a wide window, but if you shrink the width of the window, you'll find that the columns don't run into each other (and I've just noticed that in wide windows, comparing the results with the above table says that the two columns are more widely spaced from each other):


I.e. the posting software is still processing non-breaking spaces in the way I have come to expect when they are entered into its post input box.

I've also again tried taking that source with table tags, "L=" and "|| ||" sequences (with non-breaking spaces) created by me, copy-and-pasting it into the test-page table formatter's input box, then copy-and-pasting it from there into the post input box. This produces a table like the first table above, not the second:


So it still looks as if either pasting non-breaking spaces into the test-page table formatter's input box or copying them out of it converts them into ordinary spaces.

Gengulphus

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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#424478

Postby kiloran » July 3rd, 2021, 4:23 pm

Hi Gengulphus, sorry about the late reply.

I wonder why you are typing non-breaking spaces into the input box? When I created the Table Formatter, I assumed that the user would copy data from a spreadsheet and paste into the input box. This seems far simpler to me, though I'm probably missing something.

Here's an example table with the original tool:

Narrowing the web browser window certainly causes a problem, the spaces in the second row disappear and the columns run into each other.

Using the proposed modification for the same data, we get:


When narrowing the web browser window, there is always a space between columns. A scoll bar allows all of the data to be seen.

If you have a good reason for manually typing non-breaking spaces into the input box, I'll certainly look at it, but I'm intrigued why you would want to do that when you can just copy/paste from a spreadsheet

kiloran

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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#424620

Postby Gengulphus » July 4th, 2021, 10:57 am

kiloran wrote:I wonder why you are typing non-breaking spaces into the input box? When I created the Table Formatter, I assumed that the user would copy data from a spreadsheet and paste into the input box. This seems far simpler to me, though I'm probably missing something.

To clarify:

* The first example in my last post did not involve typing non-breaking spaces into the input box. It also didn't involve using a spreadsheet, but instead using NotePad to create a tab-separated input file, then copying that into the table formatter's input box and using the new 'table with spacer columns' option. That resulted in the columns running into each other, and I saw two possible explanations for that: either the table formatter wasn't producing the non-breaking spaces, or the posting software had somehow started treating non-breaking spaces in its input box as ordinary spaces. The second of those seemed rather unlikely, but not impossible on the basis of what I actually knew for certain...

* So to eliminate the second of those possibilities, I took a copy of the tab-separated input file for the first example and manually edited it into what I thought the table formatter should be producing, by globally replacing the tabs by "||  ||" sequences, adding the table tags at start and end, and adding the "L=" sequences at the start of each row, then copied that into the posting software's input box. That produced the second example in my last post, in which the columns didn't run into each other, and so confirmed that the posting software was still treating non-breaking spaces in the way I expected, implying that the table formatter wasn't producing non-breaking spaces in its output box.

* The third example in my last post was the result of what I've now realised was a bit of confused thinking: I wondered at what stage the table formatter was converting non-breaking spaces into ordinary spaces - which was confused thinking because it wasn't being given any non-breaking spaces to process in either of the first two examples! It does reveal that just copying a text file into its input box and then immediately copying it out again produces something which isn't an exact copy of the text file one started with - rather counter-intuitive behaviour, though probably of little or no significance...

Since there is the difference in the first example between you copying from a spreadsheet and me from a tab-separated text file prepared in NotePad, I've created a spreadsheet containing the same data and copied that into the table formatter's input window. Creating the formatted text and copying it into this post produces:


The columns run into each other when I narrow the browser window, just as they did for the NotePad-prepared input file - so the spreadsheet vs NotePad difference doesn't seem to be responsible.

Next, I've tried reproducing your spreadsheet input as closely as I can and using the table formatter on it:


The columns again run into each other when I narrow the browser window. So either there's some subtle difference in our spreadsheet inputs (though I can't think what that might be) or some difference in our software environments is causing the table formatter (or possibly some other piece of software, though that seems unlikely) to behave differently...

Gengulphus

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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#424630

Postby kiloran » July 4th, 2021, 11:13 am

Gengulphus wrote:The columns again run into each other when I narrow the browser window. So either there's some subtle difference in our spreadsheet inputs (though I can't think what that might be) or some difference in our software environments is causing the table formatter (or possibly some other piece of software, though that seems unlikely) to behave differently...

Gengulphus

Thanks for the feedback, Gengulphus. I also see the columns merging on your last post, though my previous post is OK. This is just weird, and is causing immeasurable damage to my brain!

Can you confirm that the second example in my post is OK, that there is always a space between columns, even with a very narrow browser window? Is that the behaviour that you are trying to achieve?

What OS/Browser are you using (I guess Windows 10 OS since you mention Notepad).
I use Windows 10 and normally use Chrome browser, though I've also checked on Firefox and Edge.

--kiloran

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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#424689

Postby Gengulphus » July 4th, 2021, 2:48 pm

kiloran wrote:
Gengulphus wrote:The columns again run into each other when I narrow the browser window. So either there's some subtle difference in our spreadsheet inputs (though I can't think what that might be) or some difference in our software environments is causing the table formatter (or possibly some other piece of software, though that seems unlikely) to behave differently...

Gengulphus

Thanks for the feedback, Gengulphus. I also see the columns merging on your last post, though my previous post is OK. This is just weird, and is causing immeasurable damage to my brain!

Can you confirm that the second example in my post is OK, that there is always a space between columns, even with a very narrow browser window? Is that the behaviour that you are trying to achieve?

Yes, and yes.

kiloran wrote:What OS/Browser are you using (I guess Windows 10 OS since you mention Notepad).
I use Windows 10 and normally use Chrome browser, though I've also checked on Firefox and Edge.

Windows 8.1/Firefox, so it sounds as though the difference might be due to the Windows version difference. And before you ask, I'm not currently in a position to try Windows 10 - but I have used it on a different machine in the past and I definitely did not get on with it!

Gengulphus

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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#425226

Postby kiloran » July 6th, 2021, 1:05 pm

Gengulphus wrote:
kiloran wrote:
Gengulphus wrote:The columns again run into each other when I narrow the browser window. So either there's some subtle difference in our spreadsheet inputs (though I can't think what that might be) or some difference in our software environments is causing the table formatter (or possibly some other piece of software, though that seems unlikely) to behave differently...

Gengulphus

Thanks for the feedback, Gengulphus. I also see the columns merging on your last post, though my previous post is OK. This is just weird, and is causing immeasurable damage to my brain!

Can you confirm that the second example in my post is OK, that there is always a space between columns, even with a very narrow browser window? Is that the behaviour that you are trying to achieve?

Yes, and yes.

kiloran wrote:What OS/Browser are you using (I guess Windows 10 OS since you mention Notepad).
I use Windows 10 and normally use Chrome browser, though I've also checked on Firefox and Edge.

Windows 8.1/Firefox, so it sounds as though the difference might be due to the Windows version difference. And before you ask, I'm not currently in a position to try Windows 10 - but I have used it on a different machine in the past and I definitely did not get on with it!

Gengulphus

I've done some more serious testing and it looks like Firefox is the problem, Gengulphus.

I first used Notepad to create some standard text for testing. The Notepad file is TableFormatTest.txt at the bottom of http://lemonfoolfinancialsoftware.weebl ... -page.html

The non-breaking spaces in "||  ||" were created in Notepad/Windows 10 using ALT and 0160. The spaces in the header row following "Column" are normal spaces EXCEPT for Column 1 where I used a non-breaking space.

I then copied the data in TableFormatTest.txt to the clipboard, and pasted it into the Input Text box at http://lemonfoolfinancialsoftware.weebl ... ormat.html (the current "production" version), clicked on "Create Formatted Text", copied the data in the "Output Text" box to the clipboard. pasted that into a Fool post and clicked on Preview.

Using this process on Windows 10, Chrome, Edge and Opera all performed correctly....... narrowing the browser window maintained a space between columns.


Using the same process with Firefox, all was OK until I narrowed the browser window, when the columns merged.
I tried another test with Firefox. I used Chrome to open the Table Formatter tool. copied the text from the output box and pasted it into a Fool post in Firefox, clicked on Preview and narrowed the Firefox window. That worked fine, columns did not merge.

I then looked at the Table Formatter tool in more detail. I opened the tool in Chrome, pasted the data in to the Input Text box, then copied the data in the Input Text box to a small Python script I wrote to look at the ASCII characters in the text. The non-breaking spaces were correct, ASCII code 160.

I then opened the Table Formatter tool in Firefox, pasted the data into the Input Text box, then copied the data in the Input Text box to the Python script. The non-breaking spaces were now incorrect, normal spaces with ASCII code 32.

I repeated all of the above using Linux Mint, with exactly the same results.... Chrome and Opera were OK, Firefox failed.

So, it seems to me that Firefox is the culprit. A non-breaking space pasted into the Table Formatting tool in Firefox is converted instantly to a normal space.

Is it too early for a beer as a reward after all that work? :)

--kiloran

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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#425236

Postby Lanark » July 6th, 2021, 1:29 pm

Seems like this bug has been in Firefox for 17 years and counting
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=290565

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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#425262

Postby Gengulphus » July 6th, 2021, 3:46 pm

kiloran wrote:I've done some more serious testing and it looks like Firefox is the problem, Gengulphus.
...
So, it seems to me that Firefox is the culprit. A non-breaking space pasted into the Table Formatting tool in Firefox is converted instantly to a normal space.

Is it too early for a beer as a reward after all that work? :)

Yes, that's consistent with everything I've observed, so I think a beer is justified! ;-)

But I think Firefox must have an accomplice rather than being the sole culprit... Pasting a non-breaking space into the phpBB software's input box in Firefox does not end up with it being converted to a normal space - otherwise the second example in my post viewtopic.php?p=423562#p423562 above would also have resulted in merged columns when narrowed, which it doesn't. So it's possible to copy a non-breaking space into an input box under Firefox without it being converted into a normal space, but not if it's copied into the type of input box the table formatter uses.

Gengulphus

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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#425266

Postby kiloran » July 6th, 2021, 4:35 pm

Gengulphus wrote:
But I think Firefox must have an accomplice rather than being the sole culprit... Pasting a non-breaking space into the phpBB software's input box in Firefox does not end up with it being converted to a normal space -
Gengulphus

Oddly enough, that's not what I see in Firefox. I opened a Fool post window, pasted some text with a non-breaking space, copied that text and pasted it into my Python script and got ASCII code 32, a normal space. Doing the same with Chrome shows ASCII code 160, a non-breaking space.

Right, where's that beer...... :? :? :?

--kiloran

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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#425299

Postby Gengulphus » July 6th, 2021, 6:29 pm

kiloran wrote:
Gengulphus wrote:But I think Firefox must have an accomplice rather than being the sole culprit... Pasting a non-breaking space into the phpBB software's input box in Firefox does not end up with it being converted to a normal space -

Oddly enough, that's not what I see in Firefox. I opened a Fool post window, pasted some text with a non-breaking space, copied that text and pasted it into my Python script and got ASCII code 32, a normal space. Doing the same with Chrome shows ASCII code 160, a non-breaking space.

Whereas in the example I referred to, I opened a Fool post window, copy-and-pasted some text that contains non-breaking spaces into it, and without further ado submitted the resulting post - and the columns didn't merge. That involves Firefox and copy-and-pasting non-breaking spaces, so the problem isn't just that Firefox converts non-breaking spaces into normal spaces. You're adding the extra ingredients of your table formatter / Python script, so something about them triggers the non-breaking-to-normal space conversion - but only under Firefox, not the other browsers you've tried.

Gengulphus

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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#425329

Postby kiloran » July 6th, 2021, 7:47 pm

Gengulphus wrote:
kiloran wrote:
Gengulphus wrote:But I think Firefox must have an accomplice rather than being the sole culprit... Pasting a non-breaking space into the phpBB software's input box in Firefox does not end up with it being converted to a normal space -

Oddly enough, that's not what I see in Firefox. I opened a Fool post window, pasted some text with a non-breaking space, copied that text and pasted it into my Python script and got ASCII code 32, a normal space. Doing the same with Chrome shows ASCII code 160, a non-breaking space.

Whereas in the example I referred to, I opened a Fool post window, copy-and-pasted some text that contains non-breaking spaces into it, and without further ado submitted the resulting post - and the columns didn't merge. That involves Firefox and copy-and-pasting non-breaking spaces, so the problem isn't just that Firefox converts non-breaking spaces into normal spaces. You're adding the extra ingredients of your table formatter / Python script, so something about them triggers the non-breaking-to-normal space conversion - but only under Firefox, not the other browsers you've tried.

Gengulphus

No, I didn't use the Table Formatter for that test. I just took some data from Notepad with a non-breaking space and pasted it into a Fool post window. In Firefox it was converted to a simple space.

--kiloran

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Re: A possible extra feature for the table formatter

#425593

Postby Gengulphus » July 7th, 2021, 3:57 pm

kiloran wrote:
Gengulphus wrote:
kiloran wrote:Oddly enough, that's not what I see in Firefox. I opened a Fool post window, pasted some text with a non-breaking space, copied that text and pasted it into my Python script and got ASCII code 32, a normal space. Doing the same with Chrome shows ASCII code 160, a non-breaking space.

Whereas in the example I referred to, I opened a Fool post window, copy-and-pasted some text that contains non-breaking spaces into it, and without further ado submitted the resulting post - and the columns didn't merge. That involves Firefox and copy-and-pasting non-breaking spaces, so the problem isn't just that Firefox converts non-breaking spaces into normal spaces. You're adding the extra ingredients of your table formatter / Python script, so something about them triggers the non-breaking-to-normal space conversion - but only under Firefox, not the other browsers you've tried.

No, I didn't use the Table Formatter for that test. I just took some data from Notepad with a non-breaking space and pasted it into a Fool post window. In Firefox it was converted to a simple space.

Sorry, it probably wasn't clear that when I said "table formatter / Python script", I meant at least one of the two, not both of them... But this misunderstanding has suggested a possible explanation to me, and I've confirmed it by experiment. The experiment was to take the text file I have in NotePad for my second example in viewtopic.php?p=423562#p423562 above, copy-and-paste it into this post's input box, then copy the resulting text in this post's input box and paste it immediately afterwards. One would expect that to produce two identical tables, but the results under Firefox were:




On previewing full screen on a large desktop monitor, I could see immediately that they're not identical - the indentation of the second column differs between them. Narrowing the window, the first copy doesn't have the columns merging, while the second does, and I've also recently realised that one can actually see the non-breaking spaces in the first table and that they're absent in the second if one highlights the text in the tables by selecting it.

I think this can all be explained by your earlier theory that "A non-breaking space pasted into the Table Formatting tool in Firefox is converted instantly to a normal space." being slightly off-target: non-breaking spaces can be pasted into input boxes (whether the post input box or the table formatter's) without suffering any conversion, but if they're copied out of either input boxes or output boxes, what arrives on the clipboard under Firefox is normal spaces...

Gengulphus


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