Make Tables support borders

[joshka]

This issue is marked as a "Good First Issue". I'd ask anyone considering working on this to please first consider the open questions mentioned below, and to design the user facing API in this issue to validate it upfront before going forward with an implementation.

Problem

The current table implementation uses spaces to separate columns and does not have any way to separate the header. It would be nice to be able to add borders around cells. e.g. using the line drawing characters we might have something like:

┌─┬─┐
│A│B│
├─┼─┤
│1│2│
├─┼─┤
│3│4│
└─┴─┘

We should also be able easily configure something more like:

A│B
─┼─
1│2
3│4

And

A B
───
1 2
3 4

And

A│B
1│2
3│4

And possible even:

┌─┬─┐
│A│B│
╞═╪═╡ 
│1│2│
├─┼─┤
│3│4│
└─┴─┘

Solution

1. We should be able to set the characters used (this is probably a symbols::line::Set, but may need to add a new table_borders::Set if we want to individually set header borders like the last example.
2. We should be able to configure which borders are used (TOP, LEFT, RIGHT, BOTTOM, INNER VERTICAL, INNER HORIZONTAL, HEADER TOP, HEADER LEFT, perhaps footer?
3. It's conceivable that we might want to handle the bottom row or right hand column differently - so we should design for that - I'm not sure what this will look like in code - let's design this before implementation.

Alternatives

Additional context

For some inspiration:

Rich (Python)

Bubble Tea (Go):

[orhun]

Maybe mark this as good first issue or help wanted in case someone is interested?

[polarathene]

I came across this crate recently, which might be of interest?: https://github.com/zhiburt/tabled/tree/master#style

---

Regarding the linked issue with text on collapsed border lines, tabled has similar functionality already: https://github.com/zhiburt/tabled/tree/master#column-names

┌header 0─┬header 1──┐
│ Hello   │ World    │
├─────────┼──────────┤
│ Bonjour │ le monde │
├─────────┼──────────┤
│ Hallo   │ Welt     │
└─────────┴──────────┘

https://github.com/zhiburt/tabled/tree/master#merge

+---+---+---+
| 0 | 1 | 2 |
+---+---+---+
| A | B     |
+   +---+---+
|   | W | E |
+---+---+---+
| Z         |
+---+---+---+

[joshka]

I came across this crate recently, which might be of interest?:

Wow. That crate is super deep and comprehensive. It makes me not want to consider adding all that same level of functionality as it's chasing a much better result. I wonder whether it would be possible to easily use that in one of the following approaches:

1. As a configuration layer for Ratatui tables
2. As a new widget implementation on top of it in a Table crate
3. Perhaps just by converting the output to Ratatui text and rendering it raw
4. By forking and abstracting then abstracting the style and color options in the original with the equivalent Ratatui types.
5. Some other approach?

[im-stanly]

Hi @joshka , I'm interested in working on this issue, but could you elaborate a bit more on your thoughts regarding this API?

[joshka]

Hey, I don't have any concrete suggestions other than to try a few things and show what could work. When an API like this is ambiguous, it's often a useful approach to start with the user code in mind instead of jumping to any implementation (as that will lead to less rework). So given that, what do you think a Ratatui app that uses this would look like in the ideal case?

Use some of the examples from the tabled crate and write out just the functions that build up the model of the Table widget. It's not important to implement this until you have a good idea of what it looks like from the user's perspective...

[im-stanly]

Many thanks for your help. Can you please assign this issue to me?

[im-stanly]

Hi Joshka, I was trying to solve this issue as a project at uni, but I'm not able to do this. I will leave this issue and unassign myself

[joshka]

Hi Joshka, I was trying to solve this issue as a project at uni, but I'm not able to do this. I will leave this issue and unassign myself

No problem :)

[opiredev]

@nabby27 created a $50.00 reward using Opire

How to earn this reward?

Since this project does not have Opire bot installed yet 😞 you need to go to Opire and claim the rewards through your programmer's dashboard once you have your PR ready 💪

[mobley-trent]

Hello @joshka is this issue still open ?

[joshka]

Hello @joshka is this issue still open ?

It is, but this is definitely something that needs some discussion about exactly how this might look. If you haven't worked with Ratatui much before, it's probably not the best task to pick up. Also, I mentioned in another PR that it might not be a bad idea to move the table out of Ratatui, and iterate fast in a breaking manner rather than slower keeping backwards compatibility. That's still something to consider.

I don't know anything about the bounty - it was added by an outside contributor, so you'll have to work that out with them if this is the driving factor on this.

[nabby27]

Hi 👋 (for reference), I am Co-founder of Opire and I have created this reward because I like to collaborate on open-source projects, unfortunately, I don't have as much time as I would like (nor knowledge in all areas) but I really like this project and I wanted to help with this issue since I think it would be nice if ratatui had this functionality

[joshka]

Hi 👋 (for reference), I am Co-founder of Opire and I have created this reward because I like to collaborate on open-source projects, unfortunately, I don't have as much time as I would like (nor knowledge in all areas) but I really like this project and I wanted to help with this issue since I think it would be nice if ratatui had this functionality

Sounds good. :) Thanks for doing this.