Hi Hans,
natural tables are perfect to create tables with a fixed size for the
cells
but the syntax requires sometimes a lot of typing for small content
and takes
to many lines of code in the document.
I wrote a while ago a simple wrapper to use a table/tabulate like syntax
for the input, what I don't like is to load a extra module for just a
few
lines of code and I think they can be integrated in the core-ntb code.
Wolfgang
%D \module
%D [ file=wolf-tab,
%D version=2007.01.26,
%D title=\CONTEXT\ User Module,
%D subtitle=New Tables,
%D author=Wolfgang Schuster,
%D date=\currentdate,
%D copyright=Wolfgang Schuster]
\writestatus{loading}{Context User Module / New Tables}
\unprotect
%D This module provides an easy way to use natural in a similiar
%D way as the older table module (based on the \TABLE\ macros) and
%D the newer tabulate module.
%D
%D You can see the advantage in the following table, once created
%D with the new macros and once with the normal macros provided
%D with the natural table module.
%D
%D Let us start with the original macros:
%D
%D \starttyping
%D \bTABLE
%D \bTR
%D \bTD Text 1 \eTD
%D \bTD Text 2 \eTD
%D \eTR
%D \bTR
%D \bTD Text 3 \eTD
%D \bTD Text 4 \eTD
%D \eTR
%D \eTABLE
%D \stoptyping
%D
%D and now with my new macros:
%D
%D \starttyping
%D \startTABLE
%D \NC Text 1 \NC Text 2 \NC\NR
%D \NC Text 3 \NC Text 4 \NC\NR
%D \stopTABLE
%D \stoptyping
\def\startTABLE
{\dosingleempty\dostartTABLE}
\def\dostartTABLE[#1]%
{\bgroup
\def\NC{\parseNC}
\bTABLE[#1]}
\def\stopTABLE
{\eTABLE
\egroup}
\def\parseNC#1\NR
{\bTR
\processNC#1\stopNC\NC}
\def\stopNC{\stopNC}
\def\processNC#1\NC%
{\def\temp{#1}%
\ifx\temp\stopNC
\eTR
\else \bTD#1\eTD%
\expandafter\processNC
\fi}
% shorter but did not work when external files are loaded in the table,
% e.g. \bTD \input knuth \eTD.
%
%\def\parseNC#1\NC\NR
% {\bTR
% \processseparatedlist[#1][\NC]\processNC
% \eTR}
%
%\def\processNC#1%
% {\bTD#1\eTD}
%D I used the same mechanism as in \type{core-ntb.tex} to allow
different
%D headers on the first and the following pages. The only changes ist
that
%D I renamed the commands from \tex{bTABLE...} to \tex{startTABLE...}
and
%D from \tex{eTABLE...} to \tex{stopTABLE...} to match the start and
stop
%D pair at begin and end of the table.
\long\def\startTABLEhead{\dosingleempty\dostartTABLEhead}
\long\def\startTABLEnext{\dosingleempty\dostartTABLEnext}
\long\def\startTABLEbody{\dosingleempty\dostartTABLEbody}
\long\def\startTABLEfoot{\dosingleempty\dostartTABLEfoot}
\long\def\dostartTABLEhead[#1]#2\stopTABLEhead{\appendtoks
\doTABLEsection[#1]{#2}\to\TBLhead}
\long\def\dostartTABLEnext[#1]#2\stopTABLEnext{\appendtoks
\doTABLEsection[#1]{#2}\to\TBLnext}
\long\def\dostartTABLEbody[#1]#2\stopTABLEbody{\appendtoks
\doTABLEsection[#1]{#2}\to\TBLbody}
\long\def\dostartTABLEfoot[#1]#2\stopTABLEfoot{\appendtoks
\doTABLEsection[#1]{#2}\to\TBLfoot}
%D \startbuffer
%D \startTABLE
%D \NC Text 1 \NC Text 2 \NC\NR
%D \NC Text 3 \NC Text 4 \NC\NR
%D \stopTABLE
%D \stopbuffer
%D
%D My example from the begin of this module
%D
%D \typebuffer
%D
%D looks like this:
%D
%D \startlinecorrection
%D \getbuffer
%D \stoplinecorrection
\protect \endinput
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