Vertically merge cells showing account names and Total

[thielema]

I think this is the best compromise for multibalance:

• In HTML there is only one merged Total cell.
• In CSV there is a Total header in every totals row.
• In FODS the Total header is contained in every row, but only the first one is shown in a merged cell. Formulas can still access the covered Total text e.g. for VLOOKUP.

Same applies to account names in tidy layout.

[simonmichael]

I see there's one new commit here; maybe it also depends on #2226 ?
When you get a chance to rebase both I'll look again.

[thielema]

Yes, it depends on #2226. I have rebased just now.

[simonmichael]

@thielema, what's the problem this is solving, and the visible effects ?

[thielema]

On Sun, 29 Sep 2024, Simon Michael wrote: @thielema, what's the problem this is solving, and the visible effects ?

There is a tension between nice appearance and the opportunity for further processing. Showing a row header once looks nice, but for further processing it is better to repeat the header in every row. There was recently the commit 9788a06 that replaced repeated headers by single ones. This indicates for me that HTML shall look nice but is not intended for further processing. I first thought about adding an option for controlling repetition of row headers. But then I thought that formats like CSV and FODS are for further processing and HTML is for human inspection, thus decided to repeat headers in the first two formats but not in HTML. In FODS we can have both features at once: Row headers can be repeated but only the first one is shown in a merged cell. The HTML equivalent of this is a merged cell, but HTML does not store covered cells. If you prefer explicit control I suggest adding two options:

…

--replicate-row-header = auto|once|duplicate

--use-row-span - boolean option can be combined with any setting for replicate-header and affects formulas accessing covered cells.

[simonmichael]

I'm a bit lost/forgetful, so I have questions.

I cleaned up some visual glitch with html output a few months back, with 9788a06.

I think I also tweaked some row headings in csv output also, in another commit.

Perhaps we should talk about html to start with.
You're right that I haven't been thinking of it as something to be reused in other ways.
What are the changes to html output you propose, compared to 1.40 ?

[thielema]

On Sun, 29 Sep 2024, Simon Michael wrote: Perhaps we should talk about html to start with. You're right that I haven't been thinking of it as something to be reused in other ways.

Btw. HTML output can also be re-used, because LibreOffice-Calc recognizes HTML tables and import them as such. However, detection of numbers does not work well. Thus, I'd prefer importing FODS or CSV to LibreOffice for further processing.

What are the changes to html output you propose, compared to 1.40 ?

We have $ hledger-1.40 -f hledger-journal balance --output-file=multibalance.html --layout=bare --yearly It shows: Total: Euro <blank> USD Whereas hledger from thielema/header-row-span shows: Total: Euro <covered> USD In 1.40, "Total" and "<blank>" are two separate cells. New is, "Total" and "<covered>" are one merged cell. "<covered>" is not shown. You would see the difference if there were borders. In 1.40 there would be a line between "Total" and "<blank>". In the merged cell there would be no line.

[simonmichael]

Thanks, that got me closer. I'm with you now:

becomes

The first two column [heading]s lost their alignment, let's fix that.

[simonmichael]

And you've left csv output as-is (with the header repeated in each row, for ease of machine processing). And you've done something fancier with fods. Sounds great.

[thielema]

On Sun, 29 Sep 2024, Simon Michael wrote: Thanks, that got me closer. I'm with you now: Screenshot.2024-09-29.at.08.27.55.png (view on web) becomes Screenshot.2024-09-29.at.08.28.13.png (view on web) The first two columns lost their alignment, let's fix that.

Interesting. The only difference between old and new output is that the cells got `valign="top"` attributes. This is important for vertically merged cells, but I expected that it has no effect on atomic cells. Surprisingly, valign also affects horizontal alignment.

[simonmichael]

Looks nice - thank you.

The headings are now center aligned - it might be ok, was it intended ?

Old:

New:

And with --layout=bare, the commodity names are now left aligned instead of right - ok.

[thielema]

On Mon, 30 Sep 2024, Simon Michael wrote: The headings are now center aligned - it might be ok, was it intended ?

Now I see. It was not valign=top that made the difference. The change came with commit thielema@ff397f7#diff-eaee0cecc4187da2292f3659e7656b09b43a00e14759d40732b03a89d094b76a. I had thrown away multiBalanceReportHtmlHeadRow, multiBalanceReportHtmlBodyRow that contained some custom alignment styles. I instead relied on default alignments. If you prefer the original alignments I can add them, again.

[simonmichael]

I've seen advice that center-aligned headings are often best, but I probably preferred the content-aligned headings at some point in the past. Let's leave it for a bit and see how it feels!

[simonmichael]

@thielema: At some point, this cell lost its "account" class, causing "Net" to no longer be left-aligned. I didn't see how exactly to fix it myself.

[simonmichael]

By the way you may have seen this already but: adding td, th {border: thin solid red;} in a hledger.css in the current directory is quite handy for checking these HTML reports.