Is Table Widget already added?

Is Table Widget already added?

Hello @ebencio and welcome! :slightly_smiling_face:

There is no “Table Widget” in Sparkle at the moment.
Some of us are waiting for it as well … :slightly_smiling_face:

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Code is: HOPE
:wink:
have a nice day everyone

For now, your best bet is to attach a PDF of your table doc.
Or save it as a jpg and post it that way. Maybe use the Click to enlarge feature in Sparkle.

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Thanks macmancape! This works for me!

I have a question: How do you envisage, or how would you expect, a table that works well in Desktop view working in Mobile view?

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i’ll just assume you’re asking me a rhetorical question.

Hi ebencio,

Maybe this is a better way of asking the question :slight_smile:

I’m actually very interested on how you would like a tabular style layout to work on mobile.

Can you explain how you would like it look?

Regards,
Chris

Thanks for the concern. I’m more than okay now. :slight_smile:

If you need to add a table to your sparkle project, you can use the generator at THIS WEBSITE. It will allow you to create and style a table as you want it to appear. It then generates the HTML and the CSS that you can paste into your sparkle page via the code widget. You can then adjust the table size for each breakpoint. The HTML code can be pasted directly as it is. However, the CSS should be pasted into the same code box but set between style tags (<style> css code </style>) As an alternative to resizing the table for each breakpoint, you could use the same generator to create smaller versions of the table and have them display only on relevant breakpoints.

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With Excel you can save any table as web page

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I agree with @PaoloPa - A good option for those with Microsoft office.

What if you just kept it SIMPLE!
What if by keeping it simple you have greater control over the breakpoints!

Using anything other than html to create your table is just outright nasty to the user’s experience!
Sparkle is a visual free-flow design platform and thinking in those terms can set you free! :slight_smile:

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As at @FlaminFig says, Sparkle can do it with a little patience. Here is an example of a table I made in Sparkle!

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This is still the central question though. Not rhetorical at all.

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For simple tables, such as a restaurant menu, tables can work very well across all devices. You may have to adjust font size etc. to ensure they look good, but once created, they embed seamlessly in Sparkle. I’ve used tables for restaurant sites and made different tables for different device widths. They can be fine tuned width-wise right inside Sparkle, so never had any real issues.

I did try creating tables using text boxes in Sparkle and then just arranging them on the page. The problem I had (using an earlier version of Sparkle), was getting the text boxes to align perfectly, particularly if one or more of the boxes contains multi-line text. It was quite a lot of work to get everything on the page, but the result was eventually good. However, since using tables, I’ve found it easier to create and edit table elements and simply add the HTML and styles to the page.

I don’t think there is any need for a specific table tool in Sparkle. For the rare occasion that tables are a preferred option, there are many tools out there, as well as Excel which do the job quickly and easily.

Thanks but:

  • touching code is not an option for most people
  • by creating a table externally from Sparkle you can’t easily put anything but plain text in the table cells
  • not all tables are restaurant menus that scale down, and when they don’t I would like to know what people expect to happen…
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I just found an excellent article about creating complex table for mobile use, all makes sense in the design aspect, but I have no idea how you could code this into something Sparkle users could use. But the interesting thing is how well the complex table / information works on mobile device .

Complex Tables for Mobile device

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Agreed! Code is only an option for those who really understand what they’re doing. But, I’m sure there are some people who like Sparkle for the flexibility of layout it offers without a lot of effort, but would also like to incorporate some code options. The fact that sparkle does this is, to me, a great bonus.

The plain text thing is, of course, correct, but, if you have the right application (Excel or third-party generators) the styles get included as part of the package, so no big problems there.

Your last point is very valid. You clearly can’t have a complex table of several columns that will seamlessly work across all devices. It will require some additional thought on how to present the information on different devices. But, for simple tables with only a few columns, they can be incorporated very well - if that’s what people want. And, they can be resized for different breakpoints by either resizing within Sparkle or by creating a smaller version externally and then adding the code and have it display on specific devices only.

For those who may not be adept at incorporating the coded options, they still have the ability to create a pseudo table using text boxes.

I remember a while back we had a project for our local hospital and there were a lot of tables we had to work though, understand, devise, and create for mobile (engined by a CMS) because the Doctors where going to use the web app on mobile. That project was an absolute nightmare making those multiple column tables work on mobile and not only work but employing the KISS method so doctors with no time had access to the needed information in seconds!

In the end we came up with a clever way to present the multi-column tables - sometimes 31 columns wide. The last 20px of the right hand-side of the table faded indicating there was more and so the user would slide the remaining table into view. This was far quicker then the user scrolling down the page several screens long!

Most creators of websites do not have the patience or the know how (or leave it up to the framework) in creating tables on mobile and like @Chris and @duncan has mentioned this is very important to get right and understand, especially the UX (user experience). And then I need to think how will my client update these tables when I hand over the project to them.

So my take is I have done my time with the complexity of tables on mobile and how clients manage them after handover, and I have learnt a lot about the UX of it all since then and I’m advocating the KISS method and that us website creators need to think UX before we go ballistic on dropping in tables that just creates a nightmare for the average mobile online user, because on average 55-75% of website traffic is on mobile nowadays. And the other big thing is that Google has made me aware that next year they will also be enacting a logarithm taking into account layout and UX of a website - ouch!

I’m here because I love the KISS method of Sparkle and the more I work with Sparkle the more I see simpler solutions I can value add onto my client/online user, and introducing complex exterior linked or 10+ multi-column tables are not one of them!

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