-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
I would like to (re)write a profit-and-loss report, probably in the next
week or so because I need it. But I am unsure on how to achieve a nice
looking hierachical account list for the report. I mean, the result should
look like the once existing pnl-report:
Assets $500
Cash $100
Checking Acc. $400
...
The existing reports (balance-and-pnl, taxscf) achieved this with a lot of
's, which is essentially this kind of table:
+-------------+----+----+
|Assets | | $500 |
+-------------+----+----+
| Cash | $100 | |
+-------------+----+----+
| Checking | $400 | |
...
Is this the only/best/easiest way to get the desired output? One
alternative I thought about is to break the first column into several
(invisible) columns and to work with different colspan's. (This makes the
assumption that the cell borders are set to zero, i.e. <table border=0>,
an assumption that I think is reasonable for any report that is to be
printed.) That could mean
<tr><td colspan=2>Assets</td>...</tr>
<tr><td></td><td>Cash</td>...</tr>
<tr><td></td><td>Checking</td>...</tr>
I think this solution looks a bit more sound than the rather ad-hoc
insertion of 's. But you still have to determine the width of this
very first column. The homepage-hacking way of that task is to have one of
the infamous one-transparent-pixel-gif images, enlarged to the desired
size, in one cell of that column... not very sound either...
Another problem concerning the tables in the reports is the vertical
spacing between rows. It turns out that this spacing is not going to be
constant over one table, but instead you might want a larger vertical
space between your "Assets" and "Liabilities" account rows as compared to
the space between, say, the "Checking A" and "Checking B" rows. The
balance-and-pnl report inserts empty table rows for achieving this, i.e.
...$42.42</td></tr>
<tr></tr>
<tr><td>Liabilities...
which, again, seems rather like an ad-hoc approach. This gives the desired
spacing only for the current gtkhtml implementation (which might change)
and/or the designer's favorite HTML browser (for printing -- at least
that's what I did). Also, changing the table's cell padding/spacing
doesn't help because the spacing is not constant for all rows. The spacing
might also be different for rows and columns -- rows might require more
spacing while columns need less spacing (paper is never wide enough for
your table).
Conclusion: The standard HTML table options are not sufficient for
creating a good-looking report, at least not good-looking after printing.
What extensions to standard HTML (version 3, isn't it) are there in sight
to give the report developer a greater variety of spacing possibilities?
a) I know CSS could solve this, but AFAIK CSS support of gtkhtml will not
be available soon, if ever.
b) I have worked with a lot of invisible tables and
one-transparent-pixel-gif images. I know this can give any design you
want, but it's a heck of a hack...
c) We could stick to 's and empty rows <tr></tr> but those are
nearly as incompatible as b) ...
d) others?
Christian
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.3i
Charset: noconv
iQCVAwUBOmqy9WXAi+BfhivFAQF8YQQAh3srHl3U12fDdwBVrrFgIUIL/lKWgLRG
efCS7ZKxUOYZWXTDYJ2ChjlgYdCPt7CGsBHbEgq7i+9Z7/oCivX+Ms6JuCU+EgeP
4a9hsZJSzwM5uKM/LQE7AyPpyRUhfpkBtQna7ofMq1i+zxFAYtI+Di4j/QHq6PE7
DqILf+jFgB0=
=s80o
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
_______________________________________________
gnucash-devel mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.gnumatic.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
