HEIGHT attribute for <TR>

A while ago, as my first experiment with tables, I decided to try to
convert an ASCII-art chart (using <PRE>) into a <TABLE>.  Here's the
chart:

http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~amc/test/schedule.html

(It has no <HTML>, <HEAD>, <BODY>, etc.  It's just for testing.)

Notice that the labels on the sides, forming the scale of a vertical
timeline, are not labeling rows--they're labeling boundaries between
rows.  That made conversion to a <TABLE> very tricky.

I eventually came up with a gross hack:

http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~amc/test/table.html

The time-labels are each vertically centered in a cell that spans two
rows, so that they align with the boundary between those two rows.
The ticks and tocks are there just to make sure that no rows of the
table are empty.  Without the ticks and tocks, the empty rows collapse,
causing the timeline to become non-linear, throwing off the alignment of
the labels.

This was too disgusting a technique for me to put into practice, so I
didn't.

I just read RFC 1942, hoping that there would be something in there that
could help me, but alas, there is not (that I can find).

One idea would be to allow a HEIGHT attribute for <TR> elements,
analogous to the WIDTH attribute of <COL> elements.

Any other ideas?  Any other example situations in which control of
row height would be desirable, or in which it's desirable to label
boundaries instead of rows and columns?

AMC

Received on Thursday, 13 June 1996 15:02:41 UTC