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[O] [RFC] Shrink columns dynamically


From: Nicolas Goaziou
Subject: [O] [RFC] Shrink columns dynamically
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2017 14:12:55 +0200
User-agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.2 (gnu/linux)

Hello,

Currently, the only way to shrink an Org table column is to use
a so-called width cookie (e.g., "<c10>" or "<10>") so that aligning
table forces the column to fit within the specified number of
characters. When the width is less than the number of characters in the
field, contents is hidden with "=>" string.

Besides, width cookies are interpreted by some export back-ends.

I think this situation is not good for two major reasons:
  - width cookies have two orthogonal uses,
  - hiding a column implies modifying the table.

I'd like to replace the visual effect of width cookies (not
interpretation by export back-ends) with a more dynamic one. To that
effect, I pushed a "hide-table-column" branch in the repository. 

There, the single user-facing function is
`org-table-toggle-column-visibility'. Its docstring is

      Shrink or expand current column in an Org table.

    When optional argument ARG is a string, use it as white space
    separated list of column ranges.  A column range can be one of
    the following patterns:

      N    column N only
      N-M  every column between N and M (both inclusive)
      N-   every column between N (inclusive) and the last column
      -M   every column between the first one and M (inclusive)
      -    every column

    When called with `\\[universal-argument]' prefix, ask for the \
    range specification.

    When called with `\\[universal-argument] \\[universal-argument]' \
    prefix, expand all columns.

It allows to quickly shrink or expand one of more columns in a table,
e.g., "1 3-4 6-". A shrunk column is only 1 character wide, not counting
vertical bars:

  | 123 |    =>   |…|

The character used for display (here "…"), is customizable with
`org-table-shrunk-column-display' variable.

A shrunk column expands whenever an interactive change happens in some
of its fields. Thus, re-calculating a table does not count.

Unlike to width cookies, no column is shrunk upon opening the buffer.
Due to its dynamic state, shrunk columns are not restored across
sessions either. I thought about "fixing" the first point with a new
STARTUP value that would shrink any column with a width cookie, but that
conflicts with the first motivation given earlier.

Feedback welcome. In particular, please test it and report if this is
a viable replacement for width cookies. Also, the
`org-table-toggle-column-visibility' function current misses a binding.
Suggestions welcome.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou                                                0x80A93738



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