Re: Vertical rules

[Jeff Kingston]

Giovanni Zezza wrote:

   I don't know how to draw vertical rules between the cells...
   I know I may switch to @Graphic ... or @Diag ... or use @Box,
   but I can't help to think that there must be a simpler way

I think it's quite reasonable to go back to Lout primitives when
generating documents from data using software.  The primitives
give a simple, well-defined semantics with no unwanted bells
and whistles, and typically run faster too.

Lout relies on PostScript, reached via @Graphic, for all its
curve drawing, so @Graphic seems to be to be the approach
most consistent with the rest of what you are doing.  Have
a look at @LocalWidthRule, defined in file include/bsf.  It's
a bit complicated by the optional linewidth parameter and
attempting to handle PDF and plain text as well as PostScript,
but when boiled down all you really need is this:

  def @VRule
  {
    "0 0 moveto 0 ysize lineto stroke" @Graphic {}
  }

When placed alongsize a cell using | or ||, Lout will
assign an amount of vertical space to @VRule equal to
the height of the cell, then the PostScript between
quotes will draw a line from the bottom left hand
corner of this region (0 0 moveto) to the top left
hand corner (0 ysize lineto) and stroke it.

It does seem odd that nothing like this has ever been
packaged up in the standard packages.  I guess there
is just no demand for vertical rules in most documents.

Jeff Kingston