[pmwiki-users] proposed markup for rowspan in simple tables

[john.rankin at affinity.co.nz]

> On Sun, Aug 24, 2008 at 07:53:33PM +1200, john.rankin at affinity.co.nz
> wrote:
>> >From time to time, I have needed to include a rowspan in a table.
>> While this can be done in (:table:) markup with (:cell rowspan=n:)
>> (n is the number of rows spanned), in simple tables (|| markup),
>> one can colspan but not rowspan.
>>
>> In the same way that || denotes columnspan, I propose using
>> the = character to denote rowspan:
>>
>> ||cell text ||==spanning text ||
>> ||text ||
>> ||aaaa ||bbbb ||
>>
>> To centre or right align the spanning row, put = after the space:
>> || ==spanning text ||
>
> There's a small cognitive conflict in that the '==' markup sequence
> is used to mean "heading" in many wiki markups, including Creole.
> This includes table headings (where PmWiki currently uses ||!heading).
> So, I'd prefer a different markup.

The other option I considered is the underscore:

||cell text ||___spanning text ||
||text||
||more||
||aaa ||bbb ||

One advantage of the underscore is that on my keyboard, both the
| and _ characters require a shift, so it's easy to type.

I could live with this...
>
> It also wasn't obvious until I read the recipe that the number
> of equals signs represented the number of rows to span.

Peter suggests _2_ for rowspan='2' rather than the character
count. However, with the |||| precedent, in my view repeating
the character is more consistent with other markup usage.
We also have ! repeated for headings, rather than (say) !3!

JR