Hi guys
Currently, Volto's content editor uses a content editor called Slate, which does not support merging rows or cells by default.
I need support to merge rows or cells by default
I've been researching how to enable this behavior and found the library slate-table.
Question: How can add icon to merge rows or cells in the `volto-slate` toolbar?
@sneridagh @erral Any idea how to implement this feature?
We also found out that the slate-table plugin is a bit limited but didn’t go further in the investigation of a solution.
There might be a reason behind this (I suspect). Merging table cells (rows or columns) is generally not advisable for accessibility compliance, including Section 508 and WCAG guidelines. This is because merged cells can pose challenges for screen readers and other assistive technologies, hindering users’ ability to navigate and interpret tabular data accurately.
I get this at first sight. But like I positioned myself on the topic of using unicode special formatted latin characters, it should be up to the screenreaders to make sense of the table for the disabled visitors. At the end proper information design should always be for sure not how the data looks, but how understandable it is from the semantic point of view.
This is is the main challenge for untrained authors and editors (two different jobs!).
Most people using Office style programs think about text looks, and not how to do proper semantic markup.
Here we can expect a lot improvement by AI agentic assistance. I am not a fan of AI generated content, but juggling through rules and make useful suggestions, leaving the decision to people able to think themselves is a benefit (except you are showing up like Microsofts legendary annoying "Clippy" paperclip cartoon character).
Not only can you be sued for non-compliance with accessibility standards (as evidenced by cases involving Target, Harvard, and Netflix), but many users of Microsoft Office are unaware of the distinction between a paragraph and a line break. We feed our enterprise AI/GPT with Plone content, and correctly semantic content yields superior results.
