Multi-row tables through braille

Tables (help format info) are great. But what if you want a header-style table with multiple items for a single header? You might think you could start with a pipe, but that doesn’t work. Nor does adding a space before it (or the various things that count as spaces).

You can, of course, have multiple items in a comma- or bullet-delimited list. But this block of text gets harder to read as you add items and it reduces the width of the header side, causing multiple-word headers to flow onto multiple lines unless you use <nobr>.

Enter ‘⠀’, aka “Braille Pattern Blank” (U+2800). As it’s a symbol, not a space, it isn’t trimmed. But it’s also displayed as a space. (Some fonts may theoretically show “missing” dots as empty circles or small dots; I have not seen this online.)

This is constructed from the following markup:

---|---
Name|Gloom
Type|Grass
⠀|Poison
Height|2'07"
⠀|0.8 m
Weight|19.0 lbs.
⠀|8.6 kg
Evolves from|Oddish
Evolves to|Vileplume
⠀|Bellossum

Hopefully this is of use to some of you.

Be sure to check out the other options described by help format and help format info such as ((ooc text)), ++superscript++ and --subscript--, [[Sections]] {limited} and # ## ### headers (nestable within sections) to liven up your profile, description and area info/rules!

6 Likes

Thanks for this tip @GreenReaper!

TIL on Wolfery forums something that can be used in RL! :grinning_face:

1 Like