Re: @multitable with prototype row has no effect in html

[Patrice Dumas]

On Thu, Dec 29, 2022 at 10:59:43AM -0800, Raymond Toy wrote:
> Consider the following table (taken in part from maxima's user manual):
> 
> @multitable {greater than or equal to 333} {notequal 333} {relational
> function}
> @headitem Operation @tab Symbol @tab Type
> @item less than                  @tab @code{<}        @tab relational infix
> @item less than or equal to      @tab @code{<=}       @tab relational infix
> @item equality (syntactic)       @tab @code{=}        @tab relational infix
> @end multltable
> 
> In the pdf and info file, the columns are spaced out nicely according to
> the prototype.  If the prototype is made wider, then the columns are
> wider.  But this doesn't happen in the html output.  The width of each
> column is pretty much fixed to the entry with the widest element.

There is nothing specific in HTML with prototypes, so a plain HTML table
is output, with the rendering based on the browser.

> But if I replace the prototype with @columnfractions, everything works
> nicely in info, pdf, and html.
> 
> The prototype form is much easier to use; it's hard to know a priori what
> column fractions to use to make the columns spaced nicely.

I do not remember any discussion about that.  But it is not clear to me
what should be done.  There is no obvious way to get the width of
rendered text in HTML.

-- 
Pat