Re: [9fans] libhtml vs. <pre> tags

[David Tolpin <dvd@davidashen.net>]

On 21/10/2005, at 22:35, Skip Tavakkolian wrote:

>> Tables have always been a complete bitch in rendering HTML. Part  
>> of the problem is that it is easy to inconsistently overspecify a  
>> table (e.g., the whole table must have width 3in but there are  
>> only two columns each of which must have width 2 in), and you have  
>> to experiment with, say, Internet Explorer, to see how it resolves  
>> the problem.
>>
>
> one would think that knuth had solved it for τεχ. any of it  
> applicable to html?
>

This is specified in CSS2, clearly and unambiguously. If the sum of  
columns' widths is less than the table's width, one must increase the  
column widths so that they fill the tables width. You don't have to  
experiment with implementations to comply to the specification.  
Unless you have to deal with multipage tables, formatting table, even  
with auto-layout, is a relatively easy task.

And you don't need Knuth and TEX for that.

David