Box Drawings Help
Name:Box Drawings
Version:0.1
Last update:2019-10-17 13:28:40




Introduction

This package provides commands to draw a frame around a text selection or draw table borders for a tabulated block of text.
To activate this feature, go to Alpha ↣ Global Setup ↣ Features… and check the Box Drawings checkbox.
It inserts a submenu called Boxes in the Text menu. The various commands apply to a text selection.

Box drawing commands

Draw a frame

The Draw Frame commands are designed to enclose the whole selection in a frame. For instance, the following selection 
Augustus miscere adfabilis rures.
Gulosus syrtes optimus libere fermentet Aquae Sulis. 
Medusa celeriter corrumperet catelli.
would be turned into
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │Augustus miscere adfabilis rures. │ │Gulosus syrtes optimus libere fermentet Aquae Sulis. │ │Medusa celeriter corrumperet catelli. │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

The selection is extended to contain complete lines.
Note that if the selected block of text contains tabulation characters, the right edge of the frame may not be correctly aligned. Indeed, a tabulation is considered as a single character. If you check the Convert Tabs To Spaces preference in the Alpha ↣ Preferences ↣ Package Preferences ↣ Box Drawings panel, then you will get a correct alignment (but lose your tabulations!).

Draw a table

The Draw Table commands are designed to draw a bordered table with cell frames. The latter expect a selection of tabulated text i-e a block of text whose lines contain fields separated by a tabulation character. For instance, the following block of text (where <TAB> designates a tabulation character [\t]) 
Optimus <TAB> pretosius <TAB> zothecas 
rures <TAB> corrumperet <TAB> cathedras
would be turned into
┌───────┬───────────┬─────────┐ │Optimus│pretosius │zothecas │ ├───────┼───────────┼─────────┤ │rures │corrumperet│cathedras│ └───────┴───────────┴─────────┘

The commands Draw Styled Frame and Draw Styled Table let you select a style. Five styles are available to draw frame borders:
┌┬┐ ├┼┤ └┴┘
Light
┏┳┓ ┣╋┫ ┗┻┛
Heavy
╔╦╗ ╠╬╣ ╚╩╝
Double horizontal and vertical
╒╤╕ ╞╪╡ ╘╧╛
Horizontal double and vertical single
╓╥╖ ╟╫╢ ╙╨╜
Horizontal single and vertical double
There are two commands called Remove Frame and Remove Table Borders to unframe a selection.

Box drawing palette

The package also defines a floating palette containing all the Unicode box drawing characters for easy insertion in a document. The palette, called Box Drawings, is available from the Alpha ↣ Edit ↣ Palettes menu.
Very useful if you need to draw a maze like this !
│├───┬────┬──┐ │└┐┌┘││╶┼─┘╶┐│ ├┐│└┐└┴─ ─┼╴│└ ││├╴├──┬─┬┴─┘┌ └──────┴─────┘
Boxes Palette

Known problems

Please report any problem or bug you encounter to Alpha's Bug Tracker.

License and Disclaimer

Copyright (c) 2019, Bernard Desgraupes.
All rights reserved.
The boxDrawings package is free software and distributed under the terms of the new BSD license:
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL BERNARD DESGRAUPES BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.