Which default table behaviour do you expect? Fixed Width or Automatic Width?

Henk Kleynhans September 14, 2015

Hi, this is Henk. I'm a product manager on the Confluence Editor team and we've recently started working on making table columns resizable! See the JIRA ticket here: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-3393 

We plan to introduce a new table "mode" with "Fixed Width Columns" and it will be possible to switch between the current, "Fluid Width Columns" mode and the new mode.

One question we've been wondering about: Would you prefer new tables to be created as:

  1. "Fluid" (like today, meaning the column resizes automatically as you add content), or as
  2. "Fixed" (meaning the table columns are a fixed width, but can be resized by clicking and dragging the cell borders) 

We'd greatly appreciate your feedback. 

Kind regards,

Henk Kleynhans | Senior PM - Confluence

 

39 answers

16 votes
Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
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September 14, 2015

I'd prefer a default of fluid, because it works fine for most of the stuff I write.  The ability to do fixed width would be very welcome for the times when fluid doesn't work for me, but that's maybe 20% of my tables at most.  I think the main reason for choosing fluid is that I don't want to have to think about column widths most of the time - I'd rather not default to having to adjust my columns for 80% of the tables I write.

But

  • I don't write huge amounts in tables, and I'd like to hear from heavier users.
  • My ideal implementation would be to have the default set in my profile, so I can set "fluid" and other people can choose "fixed" for themselves.
Richard Witt April 7, 2016

If fluid means that the column won't wrap until I tell it too, then that's fine.  I find that almost every new table currently creates the problem of wrapping things that I don't want wrapped, due to the page width.  I would prefer to choose which columns wrap and at what width.  This is especially true with the many small tables that I tend to create or maintain regarding contact information, financial figures, etc.

I would prefer the width to be fluid at time of creation, but stay fixed at time of edit.

8 votes
Ray McDermott September 14, 2015

Why not have a third option which is % so that the table remains responsive?

5 votes
Alice September 14, 2015

Fixed!

Fluid is the entire issue with tables right now - there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to how they auto-resize meaning I have columns in some of my tables that are 3 words wide and 20 rows long which is awful to read and makes the page unduly long. I'm shocked to see everyone saying "fluid" as this has been the issue on the JIRA ticket all along.

If "fluid" is the default, there must be the option to resize by clicking/dragging cell borders. 

Volodymyr Krupach
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September 14, 2015

Agree! All my tables look awful due to fluid re-sizing.

Nick Lampp September 14, 2015

I understand where you are coming from but my thinking is that it would be best to have it fluid while you are adding info to the table and then be able to specify the widths once the table is populated. Having to specify fixed widths at the start when the table is created will just add an extra step as the widths are bound to need adjusting after you have populated the table.

Alice September 14, 2015

That's a good point, Nick. As long as I have the option to manually redefine the widths, I'm happy with whatever the default is.

3 votes
Maurycy Widera September 14, 2015

I agree - my personal preference is to default to fluid

2 votes
William Smithee September 14, 2015

Fluid

  • However, it should never break in the middle of a word or a non-breaking space.

I also agree with previous posters that we should have a min/fixed/max width options.  %'s would be great, but the min/max/fixed options along with never breaking in the middle of non-whitespace would cover all my needs I would think.

2 votes
Paul D. Walker September 14, 2015

Fluid as a default.  

It follows the principle of "least surprise" as that is what everyone is used to while "fixed" sizes are available to those who'll need the additional functionality.

2 votes
An Nguyen
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September 14, 2015

I wonder whether it is necessary to have 2 modes and allows switching mode.

As I see, "Fluid" is what we have in MS Word. and "Fixed" is being in Google Drive (if I remember correctly). However, from developer's point of view, I think it would be better with "Fixed" mode and "wrap" or "pre-wrap" whitespace.  "Fluid" mode will give us more table's behaviors to take into account and make the UI a bit unstable and things will get more complicated when we have more features. One question should be "is it worth to do that?". 

Since customers like to have more control and so do I. I vote for "Fixed" mode, simple and sufficient.

2 votes
Alan Sigus September 14, 2015

Fluid as default would be preferable for most users, as usability will continue "as is" and extra format option is introduced for those who actually need it.

Resize feature is needed, but only in some cases. For most of the time current Confluence way to handle it is good enough.

2 votes
Claire Nelson September 14, 2015

I'd prefer a default of fluid too for the same reason as Nic.  I like his idea of being able to set a default in your profile.

1 vote
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September 16, 2015

Fixed. My use-case is text-dominated tables where one column, typically, will contain very little text. That works well. But as soon as you have a single "text-heavy" cell in the "text-light" column, the whole table re-sizes and it looks dreadful. 

1 vote
David Luke September 14, 2015

My vote: default to fluid.

also, I hope that there can be a combination of fixed columns and fluid columns within a single table.

1 vote
TomC
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September 14, 2015

I like fluid as default as well. When a table is being quickly produced its just one less thing to think about. And in many cases, speed (for default options) is king.

That being said... we have a large Confluence implementation touched by thousands of users and its when a table is in a space open to all of our employees that the refinement of fixed width columns would be most welcomed. Looking forward to this being implemented.

Also, liked the idea of posting this question out on Answers as we're all not necessarily plugged in to feature requests that we have interest in. This new table feature will be most welcomed! 

TomC
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September 14, 2015

An additional comment from one of my 'power' Confluence users, is a request to add a table property to suppress the table border display. This is helpful when one of the 'Page Layout' options does not quite fit a preferred layout requiring say 3 columns of differing widths or more than 3 columns. A table with defined widths could fill in, but having borders could get in the way.

1 vote
CLOOS IT-Department September 14, 2015

I would also prefer the fluid mode as default.

1 vote
Kevin September 14, 2015

I would prefer the functionality to match MS-Word's implementation of tables as closely as possible. i.e. "Fixed" (meaning the table columns are a fixed width and you need to manually resize the columns, by clicking and dragging the cell borders) 

0 votes
Paul Van Hoorickx November 17, 2016

Fixed by default. Column widths can always be adjusted for maximum readability. Fluid can't achieve this.

0 votes
Tom November 12, 2015

The default should be fluid so there is no change in behaviour from currently.

My biggest issue is when I have two columns containing lengthy descriptions; the outcome is that one gets stretched and the other is not . I was able in previous version to pad out a header with spaces to essentially fix the width but that doesn't seem to work any more - may be browser related.  So for the fixed version the absolute minimum needed is to set the percentage of total column width, or relative width.  


 

0 votes
Julien Benzimra October 12, 2015

For me, fluid as default is fine.

But sometimes (20% on the cases actually), I have several tables in the same page, and I want them to have the same column width. So I definitely need to be able to fix the width, ideally by seting a table parameter (pixels or %) or by dragging the column.

0 votes
Atle Tokle October 11, 2015

columns should be deafult fluid.

Width of table should default be maximum the width of the page. On screen and when exported to pdf.

0 votes
Luke Hart October 8, 2015

Default should be fluid since most of the time fluid gets it right.

The fixed version should at a minimum have the following features:

  • able to specify column width by percentage of total column width
  • able to specify column width by pixels
  • able to drag columns with mouse to resize

Thank you.

0 votes
Joshua Dion October 7, 2015

Making fluid the default would be the least impact.  REALLY looking forward to seeing this improvement go live.

0 votes
Natasha Liberman September 23, 2015

I think dragging border approach would be tricky to undo and switch to fluid. It is also would not be apparent as to whether the column had been dragged in the past and is already fixed, or is it still fluid.

0 votes
Anthony Holmes September 23, 2015

I would prefer "fluid" by default and "fixed" when explicitly requested.

0 votes
Anna Zekunova September 23, 2015

I like the idea of Volodymyr Krupach. Most of the time i don't need fixed borders for my tables but in some cases i need to have wide blank cell (for example in template). Dragging a border to make it fixed is intuitive to me as well. Thank you.

0 votes
bmamlin September 21, 2015

Given the rest of the internet does this on a column level using a "fluid width by default, fixed width when explictly specified (px or %)" approach, it's unfortunate to have to decide between "fluid" or "fixed" behavior at the table level.

If we are forced to specify one behavior for the entire table, then there really is only one choice:

"fluid" by default and "fixed" when explictly requested.

This will allow confluence tables to continue to behave like expected (like the rest of the internet does) with fluid sizing and allow people to switch to  a "fixed width table" to enforce specific column widths for every column when any column(s) is/are misbehaving. Confluence tables will still be bogus... but slightly less bogus. wink

Eventually, you'll find a way to apply the "fixed" mode as needed at the column level like the rest of the internet. smile

0 votes
Paul Brunckhurst September 17, 2015

I like the idea of Volodymyr Krupach. Dragging a border to make it fixed is intuitive to me. Thank you.

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