Since community input is desired - and most people seem to vote for ‘piped’ tables - I would like to add myself to the list of those, who’d prefer a more simple style.
To me, the “first rule” of Markdown is, as expressed by Gruber (emphasis is mine):
The overriding design goal for Markdown’s formatting syntax is to make it as readable as possible. The idea is that a Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions.
To me, that means Pandoc style ‘simple’ and ‘multi line’ tables:
Simple Table:
Right Left Center Default
------- ------ ---------- -------
12 12 12 12
123 123 123 123
1 1 1 1
Table: Demonstration of simple table syntax.
Multiline Table:
-------------------------------------------------------------
Centered Default Right Left
Header Aligned Aligned Aligned
----------- ------- --------------- -------------------------
First row 12.0 Example of a row that
spans multiple lines.
Second row 5.0 Here's another one. Note
the blank line between
rows.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Table: Here's the caption. It, too, may span
multiple lines.
I would add an optional, numeric sequence to the caption, like in the following example.
ID Name Street ZIP City Phone
-- --------- -------------- ----- --------- ---------
01 Tom Smith Main St. 324 49322 Supertown 0233-4545
02 Jane Doe Upper Rd. 3234 23234 Homeplace 0434-1343
Table 1: Caption (optional, numeric count is also optional)
Getting tables to align correctly is difficult enough already! It seems wisest, to first add each table row, check which is the longest, and then, as a last step, format the rest of the table according to that line.
I would like this kind of table to go into the “core” spec.
Introducing | or :, already contradicts: “without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions” Such tables could be a “blessed extension” To those I would add other, basic, formatting symbols people came up with.
