Re: [vile] Are there any table editing add-ons/macros/whatever for vile?

[Chris Green]

On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 05:21:34PM -0500, Thomas Dickey wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 05:32:42PM +0000, Chris Green wrote:
> > As per the subject line are there any 'extras' for [x]vile that help
> > with editing tables?  That's tables as in text laid out in columns with,
> > possibly, some characters used to form the borders.
> > 
> > A typical use would be in creating and editing tables for docutils'
> > reStructuredText or (in my case) DokuWiki's mark-up language.
> 
> hmm - no.
> 
> Reading the descriptions of these, I see they're similar-but-different.  If I
> were editing something like those, my first inclination would be to look for
> (or make) a simple nroff-style formatter that I could use vile to display the
> target markup as it is shown in their respective manuals.
> 
> That's simply because the tables rapidly will get kind of ragged-looking.
> 
Exactly!  I have various times/places when I want to edit tables like
these.  Even the simple reStructuredText and the DokuWiki ones rapidly
get, as you say, ragged-looking.  I now have a further similar
requirement where I want, if possible, to edit TAB separated or similar
'csv' files such that I can easily do:-
    Extract rows/columns from database as CSV (but probably TAB separated)
    Edit as necessary
    Write back to database

I find vile as good as anything for this, especially with the
rectangular area cut/paste ability but it would be good if I can get
even more help.


> However, for macros - this would be something better suited to making
> a Perl script than vile's scripting.  It could be invoked as part of the
> Perl binding, or as a filter.
> 
> I see that there are Emacs modes,
> 
>       http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/user/emacs.html
> 
Yes, that's sort of what made me wonder if vile could do similar.


> including one for drawing the table lines (without giving a clue whether the
> editing is limited to the cells, or whether it's possible to accidentally move
> a border):
> 
>       http://table.sourceforge.net
> 
> Unless you had a program that can reformat things and tidy them up into
> a more/less canonical form, then editing would be tedious.
> 
Quite.

I suppose I could try the Emacs table editor.

-- 
Chris Green