The .FIXTABLE Command

When designing pages, many people don't consider users with text-based browsers like lynx. When a table is viewed under lynx, its contents are often jumbled together. This command gives you an easy way to provide lynx users with something that more closely resembles what you intend.

It works by removing all HTML tags having to do with tables. Instead, it presents only the contents of the one cell, row, or column of the table that you choose. For example, on the MHC home page, the sidebar with the MHC logo on the lefthand side is not presented, but the body of the document is.

The .FIXTABLE command must appear immediately before the <TABLE> tag which begins the table it is to affect.

Test

This option allows you to preview your table as though you were using a text-based browser. When this option is used in a .FIXTABLE command anywhere on a page, all tables which use the .FIXTABLE command are affected.

Be sure to remove this option when you are done testing.

BR

Normally, when a cell's contents are "fixed", the document interface puts a linebreak <BR> tag only at the ends of rows in the original table. This option will cause a <BR> after every cell's contents.

DefaultRow

This parameter is used in conjunction with the DefaultCol parameter. It tells the DI which cell, or range of cells, of your table to present to the text-based browser.

Rows in the table are numbered starting with 0 at the top. This parameter defaults to 0 if it is not specified. If a value of * is used, all rows will be presented. If a negative number is used, the table will be completely omitted from text-based browsers.

DefaultCol

This parameter is used in conjunction with the DefaultRow parameter. It tells the DI which cell, or range of cells, of your table to present to the text-based browser.

Columns in the table are numbered starting with 0 at the left. This parameter defaults to 1 if it is not specified. If a value of * is used, all columns will be presented. If a negative number is used, the table will be completely omitted from text-based browsers.

Examples

The following examples all use this table:

<TABLE border=3 cellpadding=5>
       <TR><TD>r0 c0</TD><TD>r0 c1</TD><TD>r0 c2</TD></TR>
       <TR><TD>r1 c0</TD><TD>r1 c1</TD><TD>r1 c2</TD></TR>
</TABLE>

r0 c0	r0 c1	r0 c2
r1 c0	r1 c1	r1 c2

Display the whole table:

<!--.fixtable test * *-->
<TABLE border=3 cellpadding=5> ...

r0 c0 r0 c1 r0 c2
r1 c0 r1 c1 r1 c2

Display the whole table, with linebreaks after every cell:

<!--.fixtable test br * *-->
<TABLE border=3 cellpadding=5> ...

r0 c0
r0 c1
r0 c2

r1 c0
r1 c1
r1 c2

Display just row 0, column 2:

<!--.fixtable test defaultrow=0 defaultcol=2-->
<TABLE border=3 cellpadding=5> ...

r0 c2

Display just column 2:

<!--.fixtable test * 2-->
<TABLE border=3 cellpadding=5> ...

r0 c2
r1 c2