Re: [lmi] Group-quote PDF: whitespace changes, and enhancement

[Vadim Zeitlin]

On Sun, 11 Mar 2018 16:51:30 +0000 Greg Chicares <address@hidden> wrote:

GC> Possessed by the notion that column_margin_ was on the left-hand side only,
GC> I parsed the comment as erroneous. With the patch, the comment now seems to
GC> require emendation, and I was about to change it like this:
GC> 
GC> -        // reduce them by up to half if really needed.
GC> +        // reduce them to the extent necessary.

 Yes, this should indeed be changed in the way you propose.

GC> when it occurred to me...are we now potentially removing all space between
GC> successive pairs of columns?

 Yes.

GC> Just below, we say:
GC> 
GC>     // We need to round up in division here to be sure that all columns
GC>     // fit into the available width.
GC> 
GC> which remains correct, but then:
GC> 
GC>     // We are going to reduce the total width by more than
GC>     // necessary, in general, because of rounding up above, so
GC>     // compensate for it by giving 1 extra pixel until we run out
GC>     // of these "underflow" pixels.
GC> 
GC> Is it still true that there's always at least one pixel left?

 No, but in this case "underflow" is 0, so the comment above is still
formally right.

GC> And, if so, is that enough? We've already established that "9" is five
GC> "PDF pixels" wide; do we need, say, two "PDF pixels" between columns
GC> for readability?

 I don't know, this depends on whether it's better to not have any margins
but still show the table or refuse showing it completely in this case?

 It would be simple to change the "overflow_per_column <= column_margin_"
condition to "overflow_per_column <= column_margin_ - 4" (if we really want
to have 2 PDF pixels on each side) or maybe "-2" (which is the bare
minimum) if desired, of course.

 Regards,
VZ