Posting buildsheets in a table format.

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Posting buildsheets in a table format.

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Ritterview

Post subject: Posting buildsheets in a table format.

Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 10:20 pm

Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2006 2:28 am
Posts: 530
Location: Northern California

The image below is a build sheet for a bicycle in Excel. I can save it as a MS Word table, and save the Word file as a web page. I can bring the webfile up on Firefox. There I can convert it into HTML code (by selecting the table and right clicking to "View Selection Source"), and then copy and paste this HTML onto an HTML board.

So, it works for HTML, but with WW's BBCode I cannot post it here retaining its table format and hyperlinks.

Anybody have a solution? It would be a boon to WW to have people be able to create their buildsheets on Excel, and post the results in a table format, as buildsheets want to be in a table.

Excel Spreadsheet

Copy and past spreadsheet into MS Word. Save as a Web Page.

Bring up the file in Firefox, highlight the table, and right click to "View Selection Source".

The HTML comes up, this can be copied and pasted into an HTML screen. How do we convert this HTML into something that can be posted in WW's BBCode?

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mitre_tester

Post subject:

Posted: Sat May 02, 2009 12:39 am

Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2008 7:21 pm
Posts: 796
Location: down by the Jubilee River

Oh the horror! Never, ever, use Word to create HTML; people will just laugh at you.

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Ritterview

Post subject:

Posted: Sat May 02, 2009 6:44 am

Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2006 2:28 am
Posts: 530
Location: Northern California

mitre_tester wrote:

Oh the horror! Never, ever, use Word to create HTML; people will just laugh at you.

Thanks for your helpful advice. I downloaded SnapFiles...

Quote:

AscToTab converts plain or tab-delimited text tables into HTML or RTF tables.

...saved an Excel file as Text, and then converted it to HTML using the program. No Word is involved. How do I get the HTML below into BBCode have it appear as a table at WW?

Quote:

<table>
<col>

<col>
<tbody><tr>
<td></td>
<td>Miles</td>
<td>Elevation</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>North</td>

<td>1</td>
<td>2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>South</td>
<td>3</td>
<td>4</td>

</tr>
<tr>
<td>East<span> </span></td>
<td>5</td>
<td>6</td>
</tr>
<tr>

<td>West</td>
<td>7</td>
<td>8</td>
</tr>
<if>
<tr>
<td></td>

<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<endif>
</tbody></table>

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mitre_tester

Post subject:

Posted: Sat May 02, 2009 1:04 pm

Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2008 7:21 pm
Posts: 796
Location: down by the Jubilee River

That's much tidier. Unfortunately, tables in a phpbb forum depend on implementation of one or more mods to the core phpbb scripts, so that they either parse the html tags into html output (instead of rendering them as text, which is the default) or enable table-like BBcode tags.

While we wait for that, best bet is probably to upload a screen grab as image for people to read, and attach a copy of the table in csv form if you think somebody else might want to play with it.

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Ritterview

Post subject:

Posted: Sat May 02, 2009 8:15 pm

Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2006 2:28 am
Posts: 530
Location: Northern California

mitre_tester wrote:

Unfortunately, tables in a phpbb forum depend on implementation of one or more mods to the core phpbb scripts, so that they either parse the html tags into html output (instead of rendering them as text, which is the default) or enable table-like BBcode tags.

Geez, I wouldn't have thought that making a table in phpbb was such a big deal. There is no way to post a table without delving deep into the bowels of the core phpbb scripts?

mitre_tester wrote:

Best bet is to... attach a copy of the table in csv form if you think somebody else might want to play with it.

Is .csv an allowed extension? It would help if WW allowed .doc and .xls as allowed extensions, and we could easily share Excel buildsheets and templates.

Quote:

Allowed Extensions and Sizes

gtar gz tar tgz z zip

gif ief jpe jpeg jpg pbm pgm png pnm ppm ras rgb tif tiff xbm xpm xwd

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mitre_tester

Post subject:

Posted: Sat May 02, 2009 10:24 pm

Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2008 7:21 pm
Posts: 796
Location: down by the Jubilee River

Ritterview wrote:

mitre_tester wrote:

Unfortunately, tables in a phpbb forum depend on implementation of one or more mods to the core phpbb scripts...

Geez, I wouldn't have thought that making a table in phpbb was such a big deal. There is no way to post a table without delving deep into the bowels of the core phpbb scripts?

If you're going to be pedantic, a module, not a core, but still involves a degree of hacking by the BB admin.

Ritterview wrote:

mitre_tester wrote:

Best bet is to... attach a copy of the table in csv form if you think somebody else might want to play with it.

Is .csv an allowed extension? It would help if WW allowed .doc and .xls as allowed extensions, and we could easily share Excel buildsheets and templates.

Quote:

Allowed Extensions and Sizes

gtar gz tar tgz z zip

I suggested csv because it's universally importable into any spreadsheet app, not everybody uses Excel. You can also just include csv as inline text without breaking it. Whether you attach a csv or an xls file, I'd expect you to put it in a zip or similar wrapper anyway as a matter of politeness to our hosts, as both will compress a lot and so zipping them up will save server bandwidth.

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Ritterview

Post subject:

Posted: Sun May 03, 2009 6:13 pm

Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2006 2:28 am
Posts: 530
Location: Northern California

The phpbb code apparently exists to post tables, as evidenced here.

Quote:

Making Tables
What do the [table] and [/table] tags do?
You use [table] and [/table] to start and end the table
Use [table] at the very beginning of the table,
and [/table] at the very end....

Weight Weenies is about building a light bike. A light bike consists of light components in a buildsheet. A buildsheet is a table. Weight Weenies needs to have a capability of posting tables.

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mitre_tester

Post subject:

Posted: Sun May 03, 2009 9:54 pm

Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2008 7:21 pm
Posts: 796
Location: down by the Jubilee River

You and I both know that it can be done, and that it should be done, but chatting amongst ourselves isn't going to get it done. You need to make your case to the board admin

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Ritterview

Post subject:

Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 1:45 am

Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2006 2:28 am
Posts: 530
Location: Northern California

mitre_tester wrote:

You and I both know that it can be done, and that it should be done, but chatting amongst ourselves isn't going to get it done. You need to make your case to the board admin

I've appreciated your help, MT. I've written an email to WW HQ. What I wrote had links, but I don't want to have to re-do the links (lack of a way to post URL's is another topic).

Dear WW:

I've posted a thread on the WW forum regarding the pressing need for WW to have a means of posting tables. I bring it to your attention, as it appears that we would need changes at the highest levels of WW to do this.

If you look at posts of buildsheets, you'll see users composing work-arounds to post what should be a table. Like here. Or posting incomplete information (in this example, no weights for each component), or lacking components that would be obvious if a default table were available.

I've attached an Excel spreadsheet of a build I am doing. Using a spreadsheet is easy, and it adds up the weights. I've got the links to the websites that confirm the weight, part #, etc. There is a lot of information in such a format, but there is no way at WW for users to transmit such information.

* A way to build a table from scratch on WW.
* A way to post a table using HTML (which could be generated from standard programs such as Excel, Word, etc.
* A way to upload files containing spreadsheets and tables, so that other users could download them.

Sincerely,

Ritterview

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Ritterview

Post subject:

Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 2:57 am

Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2006 2:28 am
Posts: 530
Location: Northern California

A bike build created on any spreadsheet or table can be uploaded at Google Documents, and published as a webpage. The link can be posted here.

For example, the spreadsheet to my BMC SLC01.

It would be much better, of course, to post the table in WW, rather than having people have to leave WW to see the details of a build, or in this case have to post a screenshot (which not everyone knows how to, or is willing to do).

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djconnel

Post subject: Re: Posting buildsheets in a table format.

Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2010 10:17 pm

Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2007 1:57 pm
Posts: 6899
Location: San Francisco, CA

Embedding Google docs in BBCode requires a code extension which will generate the appropriate iframe, from what I can tell.

There's no way an average user can get the required HTML into a post, at least AFAIK.

_________________
http://djconnel.blogspot.com/
Fuji SL/1
Send your data to Weight Weenie listings!

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strobbekoen

Post subject: Re: Posting buildsheets in a table format.

Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 9:57 pm

Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 6:24 pm
Posts: 4347
Location: BELGIUM

A build list is not that long. Why go through all the trouble to convert..
Resize the Excel window to show just the contents you need, then Press Alt + Prt screen in windows and copy the contents and save as a GIF.

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djconnel

Post subject: Re: Posting buildsheets in a table format.

Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 10:58 pm

Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2007 1:57 pm
Posts: 6899
Location: San Francisco, CA

What I did was the following:
1. Grab the spreadsheet data
2. paste it into a text file "text.txt". Columns are separated by tabs.
3. Pipe through sed, converting spaces into underscores.
4. Pipe into a script, which aligns columns

Code:

% cat /tmp/text.txt | sed -e 's/ /_/g' | colalign
Frame             BMC         2008 Pro_Machine_SLC01                      55       White/Blk 1070
R/D               Campagnolo  2006 Record_Med_Cage_Rear_Derailleur        Med_Cage N/A       193
F/D               Campagnolo  2008 RECORD_Front_Derailleur                Triple   N/A       75
Shifter/Lever     Campagnolo  2008 ERGOPOWER_Record                       N/A      N/A       324
Cassette          Campagnolo  2008 Record_Ultra-Drive_10-Speed            29-13    N/A       232
Chain             Campagnolo  2008 Record_Ultra_Narrow_Chain              10_speed N/A       250
Tires             Continental 2009 Grand_Prix_4000_S_Clincher             700_x_25 Blk       458
Front_Wheel       Campagnolo  2006 Eurus_Clincher                         Blk      661
Rear_Wheel        Campagnolo  2006 Eurus_Clincher                         Blk      868
Seatpost          Easton      2006 EC90_Seatpost                          31.8     Blk       180
Tube              Continental 2009 Unitube_Race_28_Light                  Blk      160
Handlebar         ITM         2007 K-Sword                                44_cm    Blk       260
Stem              ITM         2008 Volo_carbon-tech                       31.8/120 Blk       116
Fork              Easton      2008 Easton_EC90_SLX                        N/A      White/Blk 325
Brake_Calipers    Campagnolo  2006 Record                                 N/A      Blk       315
Headset           FSA         2006 Integrated                             1-1/8"   Blk       80
Saddle            Fizik       2006 Aliante_Carbon_TwinFlex_Braided_Carbon N/A      Blk       215
Grips/Tape        Fizik       2009 Microtex_Handlebar_Tape                x2       Red       63
Crank             Campagnolo  2007 RECORD™_ULTRA-TORQUE™_CT           50-34    Blk       646
Pedals            Look        2006 Keo_Carbon_Titanium                    N/A      Blk       270
Derailleur_Cable  Campagnolo  2008 Record_Complete_10-Speed_Cable_Kit     N/A      Blk       240
Bottom_Bracket    Campagnolo  2007 Ultra-Torque™_bottom_bracket         N/A      Silver    54
QR_Skewers        Tune        2007 Titanium_QR_Skewers                    100/130  Red       55
Water_bottle_cage Elite       2006 Custom_Macia                           x2       Blk       66

Very fast.

The "colalign" script isn't so pretty, as I did it before I knew Perl, and so it's in awk. It's confused by the multi-byte characters (Unicode), so a few columns aren't right. But it would be fast to rewrite in Perl -- just a few lines.

_________________
http://djconnel.blogspot.com/
Fuji SL/1
Send your data to Weight Weenie listings!

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=4cranks

Post subject: How to post a table to WW

Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 7:37 am

Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 2:35 pm
Posts: 438
Location: USA

withdrawn for re-write

_________________
Equality for Cranks.

Last edited by =4cranks on Thu Apr 08, 2010 5:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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mitre_tester

Post subject: Re: Posting buildsheets in a table format.

Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 9:37 pm

Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2008 7:21 pm
Posts: 796
Location: down by the Jubilee River

Were you expecting the model year of any of the parts to be BC?

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