Hello,

I have been experimenting all weekend, and I have gotten to tables. I
have a couple of projects to do, and I am learning what I need for
them. I will be back later for more questions as more projects come up

I read through the online manual, and figured out how to manipulate them.

Is there a way to make the tables transparent? Meaning, Can I have a
total/partial tranprency for the background of the table? I want the
table lines to been seen, and the text in the cells. But, I want to be
able to place a partial opacity on them.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Joseph

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Joseph,

yes it can be done.
A cell must be selected. PGS has some trouble with that. So you have to
zoom in enough.

Select the cells (one by one) you want to make transparent with the
Reshape Tool (not the Object Tool) and holding down the Shift-Key. Then
select Fill in the Edit Palette , making Blend from None to Opacity and
fill in the percentage you want the transparent to be.

There you go.

Next to the Fill button in the Edit Palette are T (Top), L (Left), R
(Right), B (Bottom) for the lines round the cell.

You are not planning to learn all of PGS this weekend, do you?

Theo

Op 19-2-2012 19:03, Joe Hogan schreef:
> Hello,
>
> I have been experimenting all weekend, and I have gotten to tables. I
> have a couple of projects to do, and I am learning what I need for
> them. I will be back later for more questions as more projects come up
>
> I read through the online manual, and figured out how to manipulate them.
>
>
> Is there a way to make the tables transparent? Meaning, Can I have a
> total/partial tranprency for the background of the table? I want the
> table lines to been seen, and the text in the cells. But, I want to be
> able to place a partial opacity on them.
>
> Any ideas would be appreciated.
>
> Joseph
>
>

--
PageStream Pro 5.0.5.8 on Windows 7 Pro 32 bits (Dutch), Python 2.7.1 and PySide 1.0.5
AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 215 Processor at 2.70 GHz and 2 GB RAM

Hello Theo,

Thanks!

It worked.

One note though.

Why is it that when I pull up the same menu from the drop down menus,
the opacity is not applied? It is the same menu just that you said to
use the edit pallete.

Thanks

Joseph

On 02-19-12 1:37 PM, Theo Zweers wrote:
>
> Hi Joseph,
>
> yes it can be done.
> A cell must be selected. PGS has some trouble with that. So you have to
> zoom in enough.
>
> Select the cells (one by one) you want to make transparent with the
> Reshape Tool (not the Object Tool) and holding down the Shift-Key. Then
> select Fill in the Edit Palette , making Blend from None to Opacity and
> fill in the percentage you want the transparent to be.
>
> There you go.
>
> Next to the Fill button in the Edit Palette are T (Top), L (Left), R
> (Right), B (Bottom) for the lines round the cell.
>
> You are not planning to learn all of PGS this weekend, do you?
>
> Theo
>
> Op 19-2-2012 19:03, Joe Hogan schreef:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I have been experimenting all weekend, and I have gotten to tables. I
> > have a couple of projects to do, and I am learning what I need for
> > them. I will be back later for more questions as more projects come up
> >
> > I read through the online manual, and figured out how to manipulate
> them.
> >
> >
> > Is there a way to make the tables transparent? Meaning, Can I have a
> > total/partial tranprency for the background of the table? I want the
> > table lines to been seen, and the text in the cells. But, I want to be
> > able to place a partial opacity on them.
> >
> > Any ideas would be appreciated.
> >
> > Joseph
> >
> >
>
> --
> PageStream Pro 5.0.5.8 on Windows 7 Pro 32 bits (Dutch), Python 2.7.1
> and PySide 1.0.5
> AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 215 Processor at 2.70 GHz and 2 GB RAM
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Joseph,

mmm, odd.
I think that is an answer that Deron has got to give.
On the other side, when you are working with the Reshape Tool, you have
all the things you could do in the Edit Palette.
For anyone new on PGS, it is confusing, I admit.

I'm trying to learn a new (for me!) 3D program, Hexagon. Boy, does that
work different. A steep learning curve, and I am at the very start...

Theo

Op 19-2-2012 20:23, Joe Hogan schreef:
> Hello Theo,
>
> Thanks!
>
> It worked.
>
> One note though.
>
> Why is it that when I pull up the same menu from the drop down menus,
> the opacity is not applied? It is the same menu just that you said to
> use the edit pallete.
>
> Thanks
>
> Joseph
>
> On 02-19-12 1:37 PM, Theo Zweers wrote:
>> Hi Joseph,
>>
>> yes it can be done.
>> A cell must be selected. PGS has some trouble with that. So you have to
>> zoom in enough.
>>
>> Select the cells (one by one) you want to make transparent with the
>> Reshape Tool (not the Object Tool) and holding down the Shift-Key. Then
>> select Fill in the Edit Palette , making Blend from None to Opacity and
>> fill in the percentage you want the transparent to be.
>>
>> There you go.
>>
>> Next to the Fill button in the Edit Palette are T (Top), L (Left), R
>> (Right), B (Bottom) for the lines round the cell.
>>
>> You are not planning to learn all of PGS this weekend, do you?
>>
>> Theo
>>
>> Op 19-2-2012 19:03, Joe Hogan schreef:
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I have been experimenting all weekend, and I have gotten to tables. I
>>> have a couple of projects to do, and I am learning what I need for
>>> them. I will be back later for more questions as more projects come up
>>>
>>> I read through the online manual, and figured out how to manipulate
>> them.
>>>
>>> Is there a way to make the tables transparent? Meaning, Can I have a
>>> total/partial tranprency for the background of the table? I want the
>>> table lines to been seen, and the text in the cells. But, I want to be
>>> able to place a partial opacity on them.
>>>
>>> Any ideas would be appreciated.
>>>
>>> Joseph
>>>
>>>
>> --
>> PageStream Pro 5.0.5.8 on Windows 7 Pro 32 bits (Dutch), Python 2.7.1
>> and PySide 1.0.5
>> AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 215 Processor at 2.70 GHz and 2 GB RAM
>>
>>
>

--
PageStream Pro 5.0.5.8 on Windows 7 Pro 32 bits (Dutch), Python 2.7.1 and PySide 1.0.5
AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 215 Processor at 2.70 GHz and 2 GB RAM

Hi Joe,

Tables are particularly problematic area of PgS: they are clumsy to use being more of exposing the underlying data structure rather than a polished user interface. A while back I was working on a script to improve on the situation (scripts in PgS can have GUI's), but never got that far and my time availability has dropped to nearly zero.

Which is to say: IMO the best way of dealing with the table configuration issues is to have an improved interface built on top of PgS (at least unless/until Deron does something) and if you are planning on doing a lot with tables it might be worth your while to look into the scripting.

Here's kind of a brain dump of issues you may encounter with tables:

1. tab does not move between cells. This is because each cell is a full-fledged text frame and thus can have tabstops for the text inside of it. Doing some macros for previous/next up/down cell bound to function keys may be useful for keyboard navigation.

2. Fill. You already discovered this one with respect to transparency, but if you wanted different colors for say a header row, footer row, that sort of thing it gets to be a pain going through each cell.

3. Stroke. If you want to alter the defaults for having lines between cells not only do you have to edit each cell, but each cell (being its own text frame) has its own border that can be stroked.

4. Adding/Removing cells. When you add a new column or row it doesn't change the sizing of existing cells/rows so if you sized the table, realized you needed another column and add it you have to go back and resize the table.

5. Resizing cells. This gets very interesting when you want to have a certain overall table size and are trying to get cells appropriately sized. The lack of click-drag controls is a real PITA.

6. Stability. PgS is *much* more stable than it once was when doing table operations (add/remove/resize), but it pays to save frequently when tweaking tables.

Because PgS tables are so awkward I think it is a good idea to take a step back and consider what you are trying to achieve. There may be an easier/better way to do it in PgS even if a table would seem like the obvious solution. In particular, if you are wanting tabulated fields IMO using a text frame and tab stops is probably easier/better.

If you wanted each field 'boxed' then you can do that by using a grid object placed over the text frame.

If you need multiple rows per field -- that is a real PITA with a conventional text frame and tab stops so it would become a consideration. In cases where this has come up for me it has been easier to use a text frame and tab stops because text flow hasn't been a real issue in the cases I've had. But it is easy to see where it could be.

If you are doing a mini-spreadsheet complete with calculations… well, that *is* something that requires tables. Now, I'm not sure what purpose there would be to using PgS for that instead of a spreadsheet and then importing the results (which is what I've always done since before PgS got tables) but there might be a good use case for it.

Tim Doty

On Feb 19, 2012, at 1:23 PM, Joe Hogan wrote:

> Hello Theo,
>
> Thanks!
>
> It worked.
>
> One note though.
>
> Why is it that when I pull up the same menu from the drop down menus,
> the opacity is not applied? It is the same menu just that you said to
> use the edit pallete.
>
> Thanks
>
> Joseph
>
> On 02-19-12 1:37 PM, Theo Zweers wrote:
> >
> > Hi Joseph,
> >
> > yes it can be done.
> > A cell must be selected. PGS has some trouble with that. So you have to
> > zoom in enough.
> >
> > Select the cells (one by one) you want to make transparent with the
> > Reshape Tool (not the Object Tool) and holding down the Shift-Key. Then
> > select Fill in the Edit Palette , making Blend from None to Opacity and
> > fill in the percentage you want the transparent to be.
> >
> > There you go.
> >
> > Next to the Fill button in the Edit Palette are T (Top), L (Left), R
> > (Right), B (Bottom) for the lines round the cell.
> >
> > You are not planning to learn all of PGS this weekend, do you?
> >
> > Theo
> >
> > Op 19-2-2012 19:03, Joe Hogan schreef:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > I have been experimenting all weekend, and I have gotten to tables. I
> > > have a couple of projects to do, and I am learning what I need for
> > > them. I will be back later for more questions as more projects come up
> > >
> > > I read through the online manual, and figured out how to manipulate
> > them.
> > >
> > >
> > > Is there a way to make the tables transparent? Meaning, Can I have a
> > > total/partial tranprency for the background of the table? I want the
> > > table lines to been seen, and the text in the cells. But, I want to be
> > > able to place a partial opacity on them.
> > >
> > > Any ideas would be appreciated.
> > >
> > > Joseph
> > >
> > >
> >
> > --
> > PageStream Pro 5.0.5.8 on Windows 7 Pro 32 bits (Dutch), Python 2.7.1
> > and PySide 1.0.5
> > AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 215 Processor at 2.70 GHz and 2 GB RAM
> >
> >
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>