I'm having the most frustrating time trying to have tables (which are code output) display where they should in a PDF rendered in Quarto. After a bog standard yaml, the source code underlying the image you can see below is
[begin]
Below is some ...
m(1976)
m(2016)
\newpage
[end]
Now, what's utterly bizarre is that
the two tables will not print one atop the other on the first page. It has nothing to do with how much space is left
the table "insists" on appearing below a footnote (!!)
the second table (not pictured, but the result of m(2016)) literally skips over the \newpage to appear on the following page.
Any help with this specific issue is appreciated as are general pointers in learning Quarto. Though their documentation is very professional, from a relative novice's perspective it's an absolute dog's breakfast. I'd liken it to trying to learn a foreign language through a dictionary.
Edit:
Here is the .qmd file needed to reproduce the heinousness.
I am a relatively new user of Tabulator so please forgive me if I am asking anything that, perhaps, should be obvious.
I have a Tabulator report that I am able to print and create as a PDF, but the report's formatting (as shown on the screen) is not used in either output.
For printing I have used printAsHtml and printStyled=true, but this doesn't produce a printout that matches what is on the screen. I have formatted number fields (with comma separators) and these are showing correctly, but the number columns should be right-aligned but all of the columns appear as left-aligned.
I am also using Tree View where the tree rows are coloured differently to the main table, but when I print the report with a tree open it colours the whole table with the tree colours and not just the tree.
For the PDF none of the Tabulator formatting is being used. I've looked for anything similar to the printStyled option, but I can't see anything. I've also looked at the autoTable option, but I am struggling to find what to use.
I want to format the print and PDF outputs so that they look as close to the screen representation as possible.
Is there anywhere I could look that would provide examples of how to achieve the above? The Tabulator documentation is very good, but the provided examples don't appear to explain what I am trying to do.
Perhaps there are there CSS classes that I am missing or even mis-using? I have tried including .tabulator-print-table in my CSS, but I am probably not using it correctly. I also couldn't find anything equivalent for producing PDFs. Some examples would help immensely.
Thank you in advance for any advice or assistance.
Formatting is deliberately not included in these, below i will outline why:
Downloaders
Downloaded files do not contain formatted data, only the raw data, this is because a lot of the formatters create visual elements (progress bar, star formatter etc) that cannot be replicated sensibly in downloaded files.
If you want to change the format of data in the download you will need to use an accessor, the accessorDownload option is the one you want to use in this case. The accessors transform the data as it is leaving the table.
For instance we could create an accessor that prepended "Mr " to the front of every name in a column:
var mrAccessor= function(value, data, type, params, column, row){
return "Mr " + value;
}
Assign it to a columns definition:
{title:"Name", field:"name", accessorDownload:mrAccessor}
Printing
Printing also does not include the formatters, this is because when you print a Tabulator table, the whole table is actually rebuilt as a standard HTML table, which allows the printer to work out how to layout everything across multiple pages with column headers etc. The downside of this is that it is only loosely styled like a Tabulator and so formatted contents generated inside Tabulator cells will likely break when added to a normal td element.
For this reason there is also a accessorPrint option that works in the same way as the download accessor but for printing.
If you want to use the same accessor for both occasions, you can assign the function once to the accessor option and it will be applied in both instances.
Checkout the Accessor Documentation for full details.
Let me preface this by saying that I am a programmer by trade, but not very familiar with SPSS.
I am helping a friend set up some histogram plots using SPSS Syntax language. Using the Chart Builder, we have arrived at the code below:
GGRAPH
/GRAPHDATASET NAME="graphdataset" VARIABLES=OurVariable MISSING=LISTWISE REPORTMISSING=NO
/GRAPHSPEC SOURCE=INLINE
TEMPLATE=[
"C:\some\path\greenHistogram.sgt"].
BEGIN GPL
SOURCE: s=userSource(id("graphdataset"))
DATA: OurVariable=col(source(s), name("OurVariable"))
GUIDE: axis(dim(1), label("OurVariable"))
GUIDE: axis(dim(2), label("Frequency"))
GUIDE: text.title(label("Bla bla",
"bla"))
ELEMENT: interval(position(summary.count(bin.rect(OurVariable, binStart(0.5)))),
shape.interior(shape.square))
END GPL.
As you can see, she would like to make the histogram columns green. We could not achieve that using the Chart Builder, but we could easily make a template via the Chart Editor window and apply that. This seems like a very sensible approach, as she has many charts she wants green.
She would also like to customize the y-axis labels (number of decimal places, tick "major increment" etc.). This can also be achieved using the Chart Editor and saving a template. However, this is a much more individualized edit, and making a custom template for each and every plot seems cumbersome. Is it possible to adjust these things directly in the Syntax-script which generates the plots?
In many other places there is a nice Paste-button which generates the necessacy code, but I could not find one in the Chart Editor.
I'm trying to set a specific property to a non exact value, for example say that I want to define the height of a pine tree to usually between 3-80 m (according to wikipedia). Then I would like to set something like [[Has height::3-80]] (of course this doesn't work) and defining the unit to meters with "custom units". Then I would like to be able to query for example "trees that can reach the height of 70 meters" and the pine tree would be included. I've been searching and trying different angles for hours now and I can't figure it out. Tried with #set_recurring_event but that seems to be only for dates/time. Also understood how to set multiple values for a property with #arraymap but this doesn't seem to help me here. Really would appreciate help with this (it's probably very easy and right in front of me) Thx! COG
There's no such things. But you able to create template, with parameters you want. The you just use code kinda {{range|min|max|units}}. For example your range of heights looks like {{range|3|80|m}}.
I would really like to see a proportional font IDE, even if I have to build it myself (perhaps as an extension to Visual Studio). What I basically mean is MS Word style editing of code that sort of looks like the typographical style in The C++ Programming Language book.
I want to set tab stops for my indents and lining up function signatures and rows of assignment statements, which could be specified in points instead of fixed character positions. I would also like bold and italics. Various font sizes and even style sheets would be cool.
Has anyone seen anything like this out there or know the best way to start building one?
I'd still like to see a popular editor or IDE implement elastic tabstops.
Thinking with Style suggests to use your favorite text-manipulation software like Word or Writer. Create your programme code in rich XML and extract the compiler-relevant sections with XSLT. The "Office" software will provide all advanced text-manipulation and formatting features.
i expected you'll get down-modded and picked on for that suggestion, but there's some real sense to the idea.
The main advantage of the traditional 'non-proportional' font requirement in code editors is to ease the burden of performing code formatting.
But with all of the interactive automatic formatting that occurs in modern IDE's, it's really possible that a proportional font could improve the readability of the code (rather than hampering it, as i'm sure many purists would expect).
A character called Roedy Green (famous for his 'how to write unmaintainable code' articles) wrote about a theoretical editor/language, based on Java and called Bali. It didn't include non-proportional fonts exactly, but it did include the idea of having non-uniform font-sizes.
Also, this short Joel Spolsky post posts to a solution, elastic tab stops (as mentioned by another commentor) that would help with the support of non-proportional (and variable sized) fonts.
#Thomas Owens
I don't find code formatted like that easier to read.
That's fine, it is just a personal preference and we can disagree. Format it the way you think is best and I'll respect it. I frequently ask myself 'how should I format this or that thing?' My answer is always to format it to improve readability, which I admit can be subjective.
Regarding your sample, I just like having that nicely aligned column on the right hand side, its sort of a quick "index" into the code on the left. Having said that, I would probably avoid commenting every line like that anyway because the code itself shouldn't need that much explanation. And if it does I tend to write a paragraph above the code.
But consider this example from the original poster. Its easier to spot the comments in the second one in my opinion.
for (size-type i = 0; i<v.size(); i++) { // rehash:
size-type ii = has(v[i].key)%b.size9); // hash
v[i].next = b[ii]; // link
b[ii] = &v[i];
}
for (size-type i = 0; i<v.size(); i++) { // rehash:
size-type ii = has(v[i].key)%b.size9); // hash
v[i].next = b[ii]; // link
b[ii] = &v[i];
}
#Thomas Owens
But do people really line comments up
like that? ... I never try to
line up declarations or comments or
anything, and the only place I've ever
seen that is in textbooks.
Yes people do line up comments and declarations and all sorts of things. Consistently well formatted code is easier to read and code that is easier to read is easier to maintain.
I wonder why nobody actually answers your question, and why the accepted answer doesn't really have anything to do with your question. But anyway...
a proportional font IDE
In Eclipse you can cchoose any font on your system.
set tab stops for my indents
In Eclipse you can configure the automatic indentation, including setting it to "tabs only".
lining up function signatures and rows of assignment statements
In Eclipse, automatic indentation does that.
which could be specified in points instead of fixed character positions.
Sorry, I don't think Eclipse can help you there. But it is open source. ;-)
bold and italics
Eclipse has that.
Various font sizes and even style sheets would be cool
I think Eclipse only uses one font and font-size for each file type (for example Java source file), but you can have different "style sheets" for different file types.
When I last looked at Eclipse (some time ago now!) it allowed you to choose any installed font to work in. Not so sure whether it supported the notion of indenting using tab stops.
It looked cool, but the code was definitely harder to read...
Soeren: That's kind of neat, IMO. But do people really line comments up like that? For my end of line comments, I always use a single space then // or /* or equivalent, depending on language I'm using. I never try to line up declarations or comments or anything, and the only place I've ever seen that is in textbooks.
#Brian Ensink: I don't find code formatted like that easier to read.
int var1 = 1 //Comment
int longerVar = 2 //Comment
int anotherVar = 4 //Command
versus
int var2 = 1 //Comment
int longerVar = 2 //Comment
int anotherVar = 4 //Comment
I find the first lines easier to read than the second lines, personally.
The indentation part of your question is being done today in a real product, though possibly to even a greater level of automation than you imagined, the product I mention is an XSLT IDE, but the same formatting principles would work with most (but not all) conventional code syntaxes.
This really has to be seen in video to get the sense of it all (sorry about the music back-track). There's also a light XML editor spin-off product, XMLQuire, that serves as a technology demonstrator.
The screenshot below shows XML formatted with quite complex formatting rules in this XSLT IDE, where all indentation is performed word-processor style, using the left margin - not space or tab characters.
To emphasise this formatting concept, all characters have been highlighted to show where the left-margin extends to keep indentation. I use the term Virtual Formatting to describe this - it's not like elastic tab stops, because there simply are no tabs, just margin information which is part of the 'paragraph' formatting (RTF codes are used here). The parser reformats continuously, in the same pass as syntax coloring.
A proportional font hasn't been used here, but it could have been quite easily - because the indentation is set in TWIPS. The editing experience is quite compelling because, as you refactor the code (XML in this case), perhaps through drag and drop, or by extending the length of an attribute value, the indentation just re-flows itself to fit - there's no tab-key or 'reformat' button to press.
So, the indentation is there, but the font work is a more complex problem. I've experimented with this, but found that if fonts are re-selected as you type, the horizontal shifting of the code is too distracting - there would need to be a user-initiated 'format fonts' command probably. The product also has Ink/Handwriting technology built-in for annotating code, but I've yet to exploit this in the live release.
Folks are all complaining about comments not lining up.
Seems to me that there's a very simple solution: Define the unit space as the widest character in the font. Now, proportionally space all characters except the space. the space takes up as much room so as to line up the next character where it would be if all preceeding characters on the line were the widest in the font.
ie:
iiii_space_Foo
xxxx_space_Foo
would line up the "Foo", with the space after the "i" being much wider than after the "x".
So call it elastic spaces. rather than tab-stops.
If you're a smart editor, treat comments specially, but that's just gravy
Let me recall arguments about using the 'var' keyword in C#. People hated it, and thought it would make code less clear. For example, you couldn't know the type in something like:
var x = GetResults("Main");
foreach(var y in x)
{
WriteResult(x);
}
Their argument was, that you couln't see if x was an array, an List or any other IEnumerable. Or what the type of y was. In my opinion the unclearity did not arise from using var, but from picking unclear variable names. Why not just type:
var electionResults = GetRegionalElactionResults("Main");
foreach(var result in electionResults)
{
Write(result); // you can see what you're writing!!
}
"But you still cannot see the type of electionResults!" - does it really matter? If you want to change the return type of GetRegionalElectionResults, you can do so. Any IEnumerable will do.
Fast forward to now. People want to align comments en similar code:
int var2 = 1; //The number of days since startup, including the first
int longerVar = 2; //The number of free days per week
int anotherVar = 38; //The number of working hours per week
So without the comment everything is unclear. And if you don't align the values, you cannot seperate them from the variales. But do you? What about this (ignore the bullets please)
int daysSinceStartup = 1; // including first
int freeDaysPerWeek = 2;
int workingHoursPerWeek = 38;
If you need a comment on EVERY LINE, you're doing something wrong. "But you still need to align the VALUES" - do you? what does 38 have to do with 2?
In C# Most code blocks can easily be aligned using only tabs (or acually, multiples of four spaces):
var regionsWithIncrease =
from result in GetRegionalElectionResults()
where result.TotalCount > result > PreviousTotalCount &&
result.PreviousTotalCount > 0 // just new regions
select result.Region;
foreach (var region in regionsWithIncrease)
{
Write(region);
}
You should never use line-to-line comments and you should rarely need to vertically align things. Rarely, not never. So I understand if some of you guys prefer a monospaced font. I prefer the readibility of font Noto Sans or Source Sans Pro. These fonts are available freely from Google, and resemble Calibri, but are designed for programming and thus have all the neccesary characteristics:
Big : ; . , so you can clearly see the difference
Clearly distinct 0Oo and distinct Il|
The major problem with proportional fonts is they destroy the vertical alignment of the code and this is a fairly major loss when it comes to writing code.
The vertical alignment makes it possible to manipulate rectangular blocks of code that span multiple lines by allowing block operations like cut, copy, paste, delete and indent, unindent etc to be easily performed.
As an example consider this snippet of code:
a1 = a111;
B2 = aaaa;
c3 = AAAA;
w4 = wwWW;
W4 = WWWW;
In a mono-spaced font the = and the ; all line up.
Now if this text is loded into Word and display using a proportional font the text effectively turns into this:
NOTE: Extra white space added to show how the = and ; no longer line up:
a1 = a1 1 1;
B2 = aaaa;
c3 = A A A A;
w4 = w w W W;
W4 = W W W W;
With the vertical alignment gone those nice blocks of code effectively disappear.
Also because the cursor is no longer guaranteed to move vertically (i.e. the column number is not always constant from one line to the next) it makes it more difficult to write throw away macro scripts designed to manipulated similar looking lines.