1. Introduction

Edit tabular data with the power of vim. This is not a spreadsheet (|^1|) plugin. It's a tool to navigate and organise tables with maximum efficiency.

Top-table let's you

• |MoveCells|, |MoveRow| and |MoveColumn|
• |ResizeColumn|
• |CollapseCells| to fit columns
• Edit |Multiline| cells
• Nest and access tables with |SplitView| Export to |MarkdownTable| or |PdfTable| or |DocTable|
• |Increment| columns with sequential numbers
• |Sum| columns

^1 see Visidata and Sc-im for spreadsheet tools

MoveCells (normal mode)

Normal hjkl preceded with a c swaps the cell with its neighbour left,below,above or right. The cursor stays with the cell as it moves.

         `ck`
         up

   `ch`   `CELL`   `cl`
  left        right
         `cj`
        down

MoveRow and MoveColumn (normal mode)

Normal hjkl with <Ctrl> moves (bubbles) rows up/down and columns left/right.

        `<C-k>`
         up

<C-h> Row/Column <C-l> left right <C-j> down

ResizeColumn (normal mode)

Column narrower wider

Collapse long cells to column width

A Cell that is wider than the column can be truncated.

R1C1	R1C2	R1C3
R2C1	Col2 with much to say	R2C3

becomes

R1C1	R1C2	R1C3
R2C1	Col2 …	R2C3

CellToggle >> toggle this cell CollapseCells <C-,,> (Ctrl <<) collapse all cells ExpandCells <C-..> (Ctrl >>) open all cells

|CollapseCells| shortens the content of all cell and replaces the end of the enrtry with <123 (concealed as …), where < indicates that the entry has been collapsed and 123 is a sequential number by which the file containing the full content of the cell can be uniquely identified. The filename is the same as the remaining cell content with a leading . to hide it. When the cell is expanded, this file is deleted.

Cells are automatically expanded when entered normal mode or when switching to insert mode with i.

When opening a cell in a different column all cells in other columns are closed.

Multiline

A ; inside a cell denotes a line break. The semicolons will become line breaks when the cell is displayed in |SplitView| with <S-Enter>. When collapsing a multiline cell, only the text up to the first semicolon is kept as the label.

R1C1	R1C2	R1C3
R2C1	Row; with much; to say	R2C3

This toggles to:

R1C1	R1C2	R1C3
R2C1	Row …	R2C3

SplitView

Expanding a cell with <S-Enter> opens splits on the right to display the text over multiple lines for easy editing.

R1C1	R1C2	R1C3
R2C1	Row …	R2C3

Row

with much

to say

If the word under the cursor has the same extension as the table (e.g. .tab or .tsv), it is treated as a link. The file is opened (or created) in a split to the right.

master table

R1C1	R1C2
R2C1	subtable≫

subtable

T2C1	T2C2
Nested	table
with	optional back reference
# master≫

To keep a back reference to the file from which this table was opened, add a # to the start of the last line and toggle the cell. Next time the file name is added, such that it, too, can be used as a link back with <S-Enter>

LineBreaks ;;

With <Enter> being mapped to advance through cells in insert mode, it cannot be used to "break" a line into two. Strictly speaking, that shouldn't be necessary and one could delete the remainder of a line, add a line below and paste (Do<ESC>p). To make it a bit quicker, there is a ;; mapping for that. (Turns out I use that more than I thought I would)

Increment ++ insert sequential numbers for all columns below the current one. If a numeric value is present, the sequence starts with that number.

Sum == Adds all numerical values above this cell Inserts the result.

CONVENTIONS

File-type Files ending in .tsv or .tab are autodetected. Alternatively use :set ft=tab

Delimiter The default delimiter is . If the header line contains no , but it does contain a comma, all commas are replaced with tabs. To convert back to csv use , before saving. To continue/revert to functionality use :edit .

Every line should end with a . These are automatically added if not entered manually.

WARNING When saving the file with collapsed cells, the hidden files must be kept with the main file for the content to be restored. It is advisable to |ExpandCells| before saving the file (see |Backup|). The file behind a collapsed cell is cleaned up (deleted) when the cell is expanded. To avoid inadvertent data loss, the undolevels history is reset (collapsing the cell again via undo could not restore that file).

2. Key bindings

Key (normal)

<TAB> next col <S-TAB> prev col <S-Enter> |SplitView| display content in right split

cl |MoveCells| right ch |MoveCells| left ck |MoveCells| up cj |MoveCells| down

yc yank cell dc delete cell content yank register includes trailing

dd delete row DD |DeleteColumn| <C-i> |InsertColumn| left <C-I> |AddColumn| right O insert row above o insert row below

<C-l> |MoveColumn| right <C-h> |MoveColumn| left <C-k> |MoveRow| up <C-j> |MoveRow| down

>> |CellToggle| full width / column width <C-..> |ExpandCells| Expand all cells <C-,,> |CollapseCells| Collapse all cells

<S-Right> widen col <S-Left> narrow col

<leader>p export to markdown and pdf <leader>, turn into csv ++ fill column with incremental numbers == insert the sum of all numerical values in column above this row

Key (insert)

<Enter> Advance to next row/column (see |Entry-mode|) ;; Split line (what <Enter> would normally do) ; Gets treated as \n (looks neater and avoids escaping)

3. Commands

• Help open this file in split view

• Backup save a fully expanded copy with .table extension

• Header split window to show header row fixed to top

• InsertColumn Insert a blank column left of the current column

• AddColumn Insert a blank column to the right

• DeleteColumn Delete current column

• |Increment| add incremental numbers for all cells below this one

• |Sum| insert the sum of all numerical values above this cell

• Avg insert the average of all numerical values in column above this row

• Fit size columns to longest element

• Fix size columns to 10 wide

• |ExpandCells| Expand all cells to display their full content

• |CollapseCells| Shorten all cells to fit within their columns

• MarkdownTable Export to markdown for rendering with pandoc +multiline_table

• PdfTable Export to PDF file

• DocTable Export to Word .docx file Each export creates the intermediate markdown file

• Entry-mode (in insert mode)

• ColWise advances to the next column

• RowWise advances to the next row

4. Revision history

18 Jun 23 v3.4 Phil Grunewald - added .tsv as auto-detect format for better compatability

21 May 23 v3.3 Phil Grunewald

- Open multiline cells or nested tables in split views (`S-Enter`)
- No more mutiline expansion - use `;` instead - much cleaner
  implementation and no issues with lines that don't end with a tab
- moved all funcitons into `plugin` folder (avoids function
  redefinition when opening .tab split view
- Export to Markdown, PDF and Word
- |LineBreak| with `;;`

11 May 23 v3.2 Phil Grunewald

- |InsertColumn| / |DeleteColumn|
- undo reset
- first pieces of error handling (missing end <Tab>)
- fix line breaks with NextCell
- fix |Fit| end of row recognition

10 May 23 v3.1 Phil Grunewald

- Undo block when expanding, otherwise the removed file is
- EnterDown alignment fix
- Cursor column highlighting
- neater NextCol
- Header split as command
- Backup command

09 May 23 v3.0 Phil Grunewald Multi-line support and bug fixes

05 May 23 v2.1 Phil Grunewald LeftRight with S and C to save buffer cycling behaviour

04 May 23 v2.0 Phil Grunewald Save hidden text to hidden files

22 Apr 23 v1.1 Phil Grunewald Column sums / avg

21 Apr 23 v1.0 Phil Grunewald Auto comma conversion

20 Apr 23 v0.1 Phil Grunewald Initial version with helpfile