-------------------------------------------------------------------- User- Document for Create_Table v1.0 (by Carsten Labinsky, 18.12.95) -------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: 1. Introduction 2. Legal notice 3. Requirements 4. Installation 5. Usage 6. Settings 7. History (For information about how to reach the author, read the file register.doc [You should read it for legal info's anyway]) =============================================================== = = = IMPORTANT BUG-NOTICE: = = = = At least the german version of FinalWriter v4.01 does not = = handle text-object-coordinates correctly. = = The TOP-value contains in fact the y-coordinate for the = = text's BASELINE (which is approximately 0.7 * HEIGHT below)!= = = = Create_Table provides a WORK-AROUND which is ENABLED by = = default. If you use a different version of FinalWriter = = and find the text-objects scattered in y-direction, set = = FW4_BUGFIX to FALSE (see 6:Expert-User-Settings). = = = =============================================================== 1. Introduction =============== This is a powerful AREXX-Macro for FinalWriter. It supports the creation of auto-sized tables of variable widths and heights. Since table-handling is not supported in FinalWriter, this macro may save you a lot of time and frustration while creating them by hand. It will ask you for the table-data using FW's requesters and create a table through the use of FW's standard objects like lines, boxes and text-objects. Layout processing is done auto- matically, based on your settings. The result is a grouped object, that can be sized, copied and placed just like any other graphic-object. Features include: - variable table dimensions - customizable line widths for grid-box - round or normal grid-box corners - equally balanced line and column widths - vertical and/or horizontal header entries - multiple lines of text as table entries - centered or left-justified text entries - individual text-style support - optional title-text - customizable text-flow A FW-Document with examples of created tables is included into the archive to demonstrate all of its features. 2. Legal notice =============== This archive is distributed as SHAREWARE (fee is 15 DM or $15 US-DOLLARS). IF RE-DISTRIBUTED, NO CHANGES MUST BE MADE TO THIS PACKAGE. DISTRIBUTION FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES IS PROHIBITED. YOU MAY USE THIS SOFTWARE FOR 4 WEEKS WITHOUT REGISTRATION. Read the file "register.doc" for full info's about legal issues. 3. Requirements =============== The Create_Table-Macro does not require any additional libraries or programs (except FinalWriter and AREXX, of course ;). It was developed for FinalWriter V4, but should work with earlier versions also. I tried it with V1, and it seems to function. 4. Installation =============== This archive contains the following files: FW_Tables/ (dir) Create_Table.demo FW-Doc with Table-Examples Create_Table.demo.info Create_Table.doc This file Create_Table.doc.info register.doc Doc about legal issues register.doc.info Create_Table The AREXX-Macro To install the macro, you will have to: a) Copy the file "Create_Table" to FinalWriter's macro-directory, e.g.: [your path]/FinalWriter/FWMacros/ b) Start FinalWriter and add the macro to the user-menu (look at your FinalWriter manual for further details on how to add items to the user-menu). 5. Usage ======== A table-layout done with Create_Table looks similar to this: [Col1] [Col2] [Col3] [Col4] [ColN] ---------------------------------------------------------- | || | *** | | *** *** | horiz. [Line1] | ****** || ******** | ***** | ** ** | ****** **** | <= Header | || | *** | | ***** * | |----------++------------+---------+-------+-------------| < doubled hor. |----------++------------+---------+-------+-------------| < headerline | *** **** || | | | | [Line2] | ****** || ***** *** | ** ** | | *** **** | | *** **** || | | | | |----------++------------+---------+-------+-------------| | || | | ** ** | | | **** || *** ** *** | | *** | **** | [LineM] | ** *** || ******* ** | ***** | ***** | ** **** | | **** || *** *** | | ** ** | **** | | || | | ***** | | ---------------------------------------------------------- ^ ^^ >Titlestring< vert. | doubled header---+ vertical headerline Before we start, a note on requesters in general: If you hit the "Abort"-Button, the creation process will be canceled and all your inputs are lost (expcept mentioned otherwise). Ok, you were warned, so now we can have a look at how to create a table in a step-by-step manner. Step numbers in brackets (e.g. '(9)' are optional. See settings section): 1. Invoke the Makro. 2. The Shareware-Requester pops up. You have to wait 15 secs, before you may proceed. 3. You are requested for the number of lines and columns. Enter values greater than 1. 4. Select a method for text-justification: Options are: "Center" or "Left" (5). You are asked, if you want a doubled horizontal line as a seperator between Line1 and Line2. Hit "H-Hdr" or "No". (Remember: "Abort" cancels the table) (6). Same as above, but for vertical line between Col1 and Col2. 7. You are asked, if you want all Lines to have the same Height (according to the maximum height of all matrix-cells). "Equal" selects this feature. "No" sizes all lines individually (to max. height of the maxtrix-cells in the line) 8. Same as above, but for Column-Widths. (9). You are asked for the title-string. This may begin with an optional text-style-def (see 10. for a full explanation). Input-format: {text-style}Titletext Note: Titletext may be no longer than 37 chars and MUST NOT countain any quote-chars ('"'). Examples: a) My really boring table title b) {B I}My interesting bolditalic title 10. You are requested for the texts to be placed in the table, starting from Line1/Col1, Line1/Col2, etc. E.g., if you selected 5 lines and 4 columns, you will have to enter 20 strings now. Don't get shy by the following: It looks cryptic at first, but offers interesting features for expert-users. (You want to become one, don't you?) If you want a quick-start, you may skip to now and read about multiple-lines and text-styles later. You can enter multiple lines per matrix-cell by using the line-seperator-character (default: #). Each line can begin with an optional type-style-def that is surrounded by '{' and '}'. If you don't define any style-defs, your preferences-settings for textobjects will be used. The input-format is: {text-style}Textline1# ... #{text-style}TextlineN - Textline1..N can be any strings with a max. of 37 characters (this is a limitation in FW's TextObjects). NO quote-chars are allowed ('"')! If you don't enter a string, the matrix-cell will stay empty. - text-style can be one or multiple of the following options: B sets BOLD-flag I sets ITALIC-flag S: sets FONTSIZE to points, e.g. 12. W: sets FONTWIDTH to in % , e.g. 120 F: sets FONTNAME to , e.g. Courier each of these style-opts must be seperated by a space-char. This may look a bit complicated, but it offers a lot of flexibility. And you don't HAVE to use it. ;) Input-Examples: a) {B S:18 F:Times}My Bold Header b) Just#a#couple#of#six#lines c) {S:14 F:Courier}I really#{B I W:150}LIKE#Styles 11. Sit back and watch as Create_Table in fact creates your table. This may take a while. You'll be notified by a Pop-Up-Message when your table is ready. 6. Settings =========== You can change Create_Table's behaviour in many ways, by editing the user-definable part its sourcecode. The source is loaded with comments to make this as easy as possible. I decided to do it this way, because a) I assume you have a prefered layout-style and don't want to enter the same values every time you create a table. b) There are already too many PopUps/Requesters anyway (but I didn't want to build my own GUI). Since the variables are documented well enough in the source- file and you need the info's there and not here, I'll give just a short overview of them: Line- and Box-Style settings: - LINE_WIDTH Set the line-width to dots. - BOX_LINE_WIDTH Same as above, but for outer framebox - ROUND_BOX_CORNERS Selects round or normal framebox-corners General Table-Layout Settings: - DblHLineOffset Distance between Doubled Horizontal Lines - DblVLineOffset Distance between Doubled Vertical Lines (if set to 0, no doubled lines and requesters are switched off, see: Usage, steps 5 and 6) - EQ_LSPACING (De)select defaults for equal line spacing - EQ_CSPACING (De)select defaults for equal column spacing (Requesters will appear in each case, but the corresponding default-button is enabled) - COL_SPACING Defines distance between text and vert. lines - LINE_SPACING Defines distance between text and horiz. lines Text-Placement Settings: - TITLE Don't ask for a titlestring (see: Usage, step 9) - TITLE_CENTERED Title will be centered/left-justified - TITLE_BELOW Title will be placed below/above - TITLE_OFFSET Distance between title and table-borders - TEXT_CENTERED Defaults for text-justification-requester Options are: Center, Left. - TEXT_FLOW Defines textflow-method around the table - FLOW_DIST Defines textflow-distance Expert-User Settings: - SEP_CHAR Character that is used as a line-separator during text-input (default: '#') - L_BRACKET Char indicates beginning of a text-style definition (default: '}') - R_BRACKET Char indicates end of a text-style-definition (default: '}') - FW4_BUGFIX (De)selects work-around for FW4's TextObj-BUG (see the BUG-NOTICE on top of this file) - DEBUG (De)selects Script-Debug-Mode 7. History ========== V1.0 (18.12.95), First public release.