Terminology: what are good unambiguous names for the two senses of the word "column", when printing text in a monospaced font?
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Terminology: what are good unambiguous names for the two senses of the word "column", when printing text in a monospaced font?
If someone says "2 columns" or "3 columns", they mean it in the sense that a newspaper is laid out in multiple columns – you read to the bottom of the first column before starting from the top of the next.
But if they say "80 columns" or "132 columns", they mean the number of monospaced character cells that fit across one line of text _within_ one of those columns.
If you need, for example, a command-line option for each of these, and you don't want to call either option '--columns' because that's ambiguous, what _do_ you call each one?
Particularly the first one (2 or 3 columns). I haven't come up with any good description for it that doesn't involve a definition by negatives. "Number of columns, no, not in that sense, the other sense."
@simontatham vertical layout divisions? nope, nothing concise.
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Terminology: what are good unambiguous names for the two senses of the word "column", when printing text in a monospaced font?
If someone says "2 columns" or "3 columns", they mean it in the sense that a newspaper is laid out in multiple columns – you read to the bottom of the first column before starting from the top of the next.
But if they say "80 columns" or "132 columns", they mean the number of monospaced character cells that fit across one line of text _within_ one of those columns.
If you need, for example, a command-line option for each of these, and you don't want to call either option '--columns' because that's ambiguous, what _do_ you call each one?
Particularly the first one (2 or 3 columns). I haven't come up with any good description for it that doesn't involve a definition by negatives. "Number of columns, no, not in that sense, the other sense."
@simontatham "columns of text" and "width"
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Terminology: what are good unambiguous names for the two senses of the word "column", when printing text in a monospaced font?
If someone says "2 columns" or "3 columns", they mean it in the sense that a newspaper is laid out in multiple columns – you read to the bottom of the first column before starting from the top of the next.
But if they say "80 columns" or "132 columns", they mean the number of monospaced character cells that fit across one line of text _within_ one of those columns.
If you need, for example, a command-line option for each of these, and you don't want to call either option '--columns' because that's ambiguous, what _do_ you call each one?
Particularly the first one (2 or 3 columns). I haven't come up with any good description for it that doesn't involve a definition by negatives. "Number of columns, no, not in that sense, the other sense."
@simontatham the layout terms “boxes” and “blocks” could possibly be repurposed for the complicated case (layout verticals). Technically not quite the same thing (neither requires full top to bottom).
To the best of my knowledge publishing (typography) normally uses “columns” for the layout purpose (not the width purpose), and just ignores the width meaning (since it is “whatever fits with given font / weight”).
TeX used boxes as terminology in that context (\hbox and \vbox).
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@simontatham the layout terms “boxes” and “blocks” could possibly be repurposed for the complicated case (layout verticals). Technically not quite the same thing (neither requires full top to bottom).
To the best of my knowledge publishing (typography) normally uses “columns” for the layout purpose (not the width purpose), and just ignores the width meaning (since it is “whatever fits with given font / weight”).
TeX used boxes as terminology in that context (\hbox and \vbox).
@ewenmcneill yes, I agree that Srs Typographers just say "columns" without worrying about the ambiguity. And rightly so, because in their situation, there _isn't_ an ambiguity – they're not using a monospaced font, so the other meaning of "columns" isn't even meaningful! I'm sure that's part of the problem, and the reason why there isn't already a well-established unambiguous pair of terms.
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@simontatham the layout terms “boxes” and “blocks” could possibly be repurposed for the complicated case (layout verticals). Technically not quite the same thing (neither requires full top to bottom).
To the best of my knowledge publishing (typography) normally uses “columns” for the layout purpose (not the width purpose), and just ignores the width meaning (since it is “whatever fits with given font / weight”).
TeX used boxes as terminology in that context (\hbox and \vbox).
@simontatham in case it helps looks like CSS settled on:
column-count
column-widthFor those attributes in its multi column layout. Which is verbose, but at least obvious.
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@simontatham in case it helps looks like CSS settled on:
column-count
column-widthFor those attributes in its multi column layout. Which is verbose, but at least obvious.
@ewenmcneill ah, thank you! At least two other people have suggested those names, but I think you're the first to mention that they're already established in an existing context. That does make a difference.
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@ewenmcneill ah, thank you! At least two other people have suggested those names, but I think you're the first to mention that they're already established in an existing context. That does make a difference.
@simontatham CSS also cheated and made “columns” a “multi value with magical defaults” property that takes either or both of count and width. (As best I can tell using a scaling value like “rem” to detect it is width.)
But… that’s probably undesirable in a command line
columns CSS property - CSS | MDN
The columns CSS shorthand property sets the maximum number of columns to use when drawing an element's contents, along with the minimum width and maximum height of the element's columns.
MDN Web Docs (developer.mozilla.org)
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@baz --2columns=4 # looks silly but I suppose YKWIM
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@baz but I don't want to make a rule about the maximum number of columns you can possibly have! Someone somewhere will have a very narrow text file and an A0 printer and violate my assumptions.
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@ewenmcneill ah, thank you! At least two other people have suggested those names, but I think you're the first to mention that they're already established in an existing context. That does make a difference.
@simontatham @ewenmcneill Both column(1) and Python’s textwrap agree that `width' is the number of characters.
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