ODF 9.1.12 purpose of element <table:table-columns>

[Regina Henschel]

Hi Luke,

Luke Deller schrieb:
> Hi Regina,
>
> I did some digging into the source history hoping to find clues about
> the original motivation for introducing this <table:table-columns> element.
>
> Support for importing this element was added to Calc in 2000 along with
> <table:table-header-columns>, as part of the initial work for freezing
> rows and columns as headers in a spreadsheet.
> Relevant commits are 7c9e9bfa for the export of headers, and 9cd39996
> and 05c72064 for the import.
>
> I suppose the idea was that two groups of columns would be used: the
> header columns in a <table:table-header-columns> element followed by the
> non-header columns in a <table:table-columns> element.  However the
> export was not actually updated to emit a <table:table-columns> element
> like this, only the import support was added.
>
> A couple of weeks later another similar element
> <table:table-column-group> was added, for implementing the Outlines
> feature described in help here:
> https://help.libreoffice.org/Calc/Group_and_Outline
>
> In this Outlines change (commit 869fb45a), all these three column
> grouping elements were allowed to be nested inside each other.  Prior to
> that, the <table:table-columns> and <table:table-header-columns> could
> only occur beneath the <table:table> element.
>
> Anyway I think this background supports that the <table:table-columns>
> element was not necessary from the beginning.

That supports my intention to remove it.

>
> On 22/07/17 08:12, Regina Henschel wrote:
>> Luke Deller schrieb:
>>> 2. A database (odb) file can contain reports containing tables, which
>>> will be emitted with <table:table-columns>.
>>
>> I was not able to generate such document. I have tried it with report
>> as text document, report as spreadsheet and with the old kind of
>> reports from OOo2.4.3. I always have got only <table:table-column>
>> elements.
>
> Sorry perhaps I should call it a "report design" rather than a "report".
>  I created such a design using the "Use Wizard to Create Report" link in
> the "Tasks" pane in Base.
>
> Afterwards, in the Reports pane of Base, simply double clicking the
> report gives me a Writer document, but if I right click on the report
> and select "Edit", then I get a window entitled "Oracle Report Builder"
> which allows the design to be edited.  (BTW should we update this window
> title?)
>
> The report design was stored in a separate XML file within the odb file,
> which was referenced in the content.xml like this:
>
> <db:reports>
>   <db:component db:name="Customers" xlink:href="reports/Obj11"
> xlink:type="simple" db:as-template="false"/>
> </db:reports>
>
> The <table:table-columns> element was located in the file
> "reports/Obj11/content.xml" within the odb.


Thank you. I have found it now. I had only looked at the generated 
reports, but not at their definitions. In reports definition the 
<table:table-columns> elements are all inside an element in 
"rpt"-namespace. So removing (or deprecate) <table:table-columns> 
element in ODF1.3 would not affect these parts.

Kind regards
Regina