On Sun, 12 May 2019 at 00:29, Nick Dokos <
address@hidden> wrote:
>
> Neil Jerram <
address@hidden> writes:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have tables with width cookies like this:
> >
> > | <16> | <6> | <64> |
> >
> > I just added new information to one of those tables, and the table
> > shrank down to match the size of the content, i.e. as though Org is
> > now ignoring the width cookies.
> >
> > I believe I've also upgraded in the last few days, and now have:
> > Org mode version 9.2.3 (9.2.3-13-g727c3f-elpa @
> > /home/neil/.emacs.d/elpa/org-20190506/)
> >
> > Is this a known thing? Do I need something else now to make those
> > width cookies work?
> >
>
> As Eric says, things have changed in this area. It's always a good
> idea to check the /etc/ORG-NEWS file for such things. In this
> particular case, read the section entitled "Dynamically narrow table
> columns" in the Version 9.2 "New features" section of etc/ORG-NEWS.
Thanks Nick. I did check the manual before writing, and noticed that it still says:
To set the width of a column, one field anywhere in the column may
contain just the string ‘<N>’ where N specifies the width as a number of
characters.
I think the crux of the matter is that my use case is apparently different from everyone else's. Now that I've reread the whole section, it seems that the main target use case is _shrinking_ a column to be narrower than what is needed for its content. My use case is the opposite: I want a column to be a fixed width that is always _larger_ than its content. (FWIW, this is in order to avoid spurious Git diffs for column width changes, as I change the content in those tables.)
For example, after deploying 'C-u C-c TAB', one of my tables now looks like this:
| Programme ...| Sang? ...| Notes ...|
|------------------...+-------...+-----------------------------------...|
| Audition ...| ...| January 2019 ...|
|------------------...+-------...+-----------------------------------...|
| <16> ...| <6> ...| <64> ...|
| 2019 ...| ...| ...|
| B minor mass ...| Yes ...| 1 planned absence (6 Mar) ...|
| ...| ...| 6 Mar Present when not expected ...|
| Songs Summer Eve ...| No ...| ...|
| French Choral ...| Yes ...| "I'm intending to sing in [this]" ...|
which is IMO uglier than what it used to be, and what I'd like, like this:
| Programme | Sang? | Notes |
|------------------+--------+------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Audition | | January 2019 |
|------------------+--------+------------------------------------------------------------------|
| <16> | <6> | <64> |
| 2019 | | |
| B minor mass | Yes | 1 planned absence (6 Mar) |
| | | 6 Mar Present when not expected |
| Songs Summer Eve | No | |
| French Choral | Yes | "I'm intending to sing in [this]" |
Am I right about my use case being different, and therefore perhaps having been caught up unintentionally in this change?
Best wishes,
Neil