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Update table header floats within a table?

naglists
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Update table header floats within a table?

My authors want to be able to modify the repeating table headers within a
table. For example, there might be a header that included "System, Date
Deployed, Date Support Ends" at the top of the table and at the top of the
subsequent pages if the table continues.

Standard table header float stuff so far.

Now, there might be a section within the table that talks about those three
columns of data for County X. And that should be part of the table header
float that continues. However, when in the middle of the table, it changes
to Country Y (and Country Z and so on), they want the "second" row of the
table header float to update with Country Y and drop Country X.

For example:
Top of table:

System Date Deployed Date Support Ends
Country X (spans all three columns)

On page two you would get:
System Date Deployed Date Support Ends
Country X (continued ...)


Somewhere on page two of the table, this row occurs and replaces the
Country X row in the float:
Country Y


Now, page three of the table starts:
System Date Deployed Date Support Ends
Country Y (continued ...)


Easy, right? Anyone done anything like this?

--
Paul Nagai
16 REPLIES 16

Paul,
You can try this by using multiple tgroups in the table. Each tgroup would have it's own float and that way you can get away with multiple theads in a table. Floats can't change, but this should stop the first one and pick up the second one. It's about the only option you have.
Good luck!
Trudy

I tried this recently, and the thead with the second tgroup was output in the middle of the page where the second tgroup started as well as at the top of the table on subsequent pages. In my case, I had other options, so I didn't pursue it. Hmmm ... maybe the second thead could be suppressed and output as a regular float . . .

Good luck!

Suzanne Napoleon
www.FOSIexpert.com
"WYSIWYG is last-century technology!"


I think the behaviour you describe is what Paul is after actually. In case you really need to push the limits on this stuff APP/3B2 supports up to 5 levels of table headers … 🙂

-Gareth

I *think* this works the way I/we wanted it to but I've passed the
technique back to the authors who will really be able to determine if it
fulfills one of those wish-list items. Thanks to all!


Ah, yes, so the authors quickly point out that this works only if the
header is "simple" and can be completely replaced. Otherwise we need the
capability Gareth refers to in APP ("tiers" of thead) and Suzanne hints at
in terms of suppressing tgroup(notfirst)/thead but still letting it update
the float. APP isn't going to happen, but maybe I can plink around with our
FOSI and see what's the what re: multiple tgroups...


Paul,

What does "simple" headers mean exactly?

Suzanne


Single row (or double row that would be ok to replace fully) vs. "complex"
where you would want the first row(s) to repeat for the duration of the
entire table, but the second row(s) would only repeat until replaced.

For example:
CALIFORNIA
NorCal

Might repeat until you talked about
SF Bay Area (which by the way is "central" ... and yes, I'm trying to
start somethin' 😉

At which point, "Norcal" should be replaced by "SF Bay Area" and CALIFORNIA
should remain part of the table header BUT CALIFORNIA should not appear in
the interior of the table when it converts from NorCal to SF Bay Area.

In the first tgroup, you can start with both the CALIFORNIA and the NorCal
rows. In the second, you can have only the SF Bay Area BUT you will not get
CALIFORNIA at the top of the next page ... just SF Bay Area OR you can have
CALIFORNIA/SF Bay Area when it changes from NorCal to SF Bay Area ... tihs
will get you the proper continuation on subsequent pages but will introduce
a redundant CALIFORNIA row (unless you force a table pagebreak before it).

Not sure how to describe it any better .... does that make sense?

The trick would be for FOSI to examine thead occur="notfirst" and maybe
then attributes on row to suppress some (the CALIFORNIA
thead[notfirst]/row) from outputting there in the table but save them all
(both CALIFORNIA and SF Bay Area rows) to the float.




On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 12:26 PM, Suzanne Napoleon <
SuzanneNapoleon@fosiexpert.com> wrote:

> Paul,
>
> What does "simple" headers mean exactly?
>
> Suzanne
>

I'm not sure if I'm following. Below is a representation of what I think you might mean.

That is the desired output. Yes.


On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 2:56 PM, Suzanne Napoleon <
SuzanneNapoleon@fosiexpert.com> wrote:

> I'm not sure if I'm following. Below is a representation of what I think
> you might mean.
>

Is there markup for "Norcal" and "SF Bay Area"?


Nope. Just your standard table row/entry/para/bold content. I can see
adding attribute support to row for this. My first thought was to split the
tgroup as others originally suggested, include the CALIFORNIA in something
like thead/row/@suppress_in_table="yes" followed by a
row/entry/para/bold/NorCal and figure out how to suppress the first row but
add both to the float. But that's all mental so far, I haven't set keyboard
to DTD or FOSI yet.


On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 4:32 PM, Suzanne Napoleon <
SuzanneNapoleon@fosiexpert.com> wrote:

> Is there markup for "Norcal" and "SF Bay Area"?
>

Again, in my imagination, that second row is still in the thead in the
second tgroup ... if it wasn't clear.


How about using nested tables? APP supports that too 😛 (sorry couldn't help myself)

Paul,

I don't know if this is possible.

You cannot float whatever.txt and change the value of whatever.txt during its scope. The first value continue to be floated.

I thought a context pseudo-element worked as a float scope, but the little testing I did indicates otherwise.

You can have multiple floats that stack on top of each other depending on their order in the botfloat/topfloat characteristic. CALIFORNIA could float separately scoped to table. Maybe you could output each tgroup as a gentable placemnt=after with the flagged content coded as the thead.

Good luck!
Suzanne



Caroline,
Maybe this is the discussion you were remembering? I have not implemented
this although it is my recollection that I tested it and thought it would
work but then other priorities back burnered it and the authors forgot
(until they remember, I'm sure 😉 so I can't confirm 100% either way that
it will solve your problem.


On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 3:39 PM, Suzanne Napoleon <
SuzanneNapoleon@fosiexpert.com> wrote:

> Paul,
>
> I don't know if this is possible.
>
> You cannot float whatever.txt and change the value of whatever.txt during
> its scope. The first value continue to be floated.
>
> I thought a context pseudo-element worked as a float scope, but the little
> testing I did indicates otherwise.
>
> You can have multiple floats that stack on top of each other depending on
> their order in the botfloat/topfloat characteristic. CALIFORNIA could float
> separately scoped to table. Maybe you could output each tgroup as a
> gentable placemnt=after with the flagged content coded as the thead.
>
> Good luck!
> Suzanne
>
>

Yes, this is it! Thanks, Paul. I also tried Suzanne's method of using a context pseudo-variable...unsuccessfully :(. But now I can look through this thread again.

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