Author mode table editing

[jelovirt]

Oxygen version: 10.0
Platform: OS X 10.5.6
Java: 1.6.0_07

Currently you can delete a row in a DITA table by highlighting the whole row and pressing backspace, or you can use Author > Table > Delete Row. If you want to delete a column, you can't highlight a row, the only way is to use Author > Table > Delete Column.

While there doesn't have to be multiple ways to delete column, most people are familiar with the functionality that e.g. Word offers, where if you hover the cursor just above the cell of the top-most row, the cursor becomes a downward arrow and you can select all the cells in the table. The same applies to rows, the cursor becomes a rightward arrow if you hover it just to the left of the leftmost cell in a row. If Oxygen had this column selection functionality, you could delete a column with just pressing backspace.

Related to this, I'd like to see the following functionality. Say you have DITA table three columns, A, B, and C.

1. Select column A
2. Cut the column to clipboard
3. Select column C
4. Paste columns to between B and C, resulting in column B, A, and C.

(Word will paste columns before the selected column, currently Oxygen Author > Table > Insert Column will insert columns after the selected cell's column). The reason for this is that rows are easy to reorder in the Text mode, but columns are very laborious to reorder.

[Radu]

Hi,

Indeed, for the moment reordering table columns in the Author is not possible and it is a very difficult operation to perform without special support.
I added your suggestions as an improvement request for a future version.

Regards,
Radu