226202 - colspan does not span columns

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 187550

(Core :: Layout: Tables, defect)

Description

[Patrick Godeau]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; fr-FR; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; fr-FR; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007

The example demonstrates the problem.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Actual Results:  
The red cell is layered on several lines and does not span.

Expected Results:  
The red cell should span on 4 columns, which would be much more readable.

I'd like to know if there is a workaround (or a fix :-) because I need a correct
rendering for the application I'm developing now. Thanks!

Comment 1

[Patrick Godeau]

Attachment: Test case (works in IE and links)

Comment 2

[Alfonso Martinez]

the colspan is working, but the problem is that you haven't specify the width
for any column, so Mozilla is guessing and some columns get *very* narrow.

You can solve this by specifying the widths:
    <table>
     <colgroup><col span="6" width="16%"></colgroup>
      <tr align=center>

Comment 3

[Patrick Godeau]

So maybe Mozilla is not guessing right, because all othe browsers I know manage
to layout the cell on several columns.
Thanks for the colgroup tip, I'll use it even if I consider it's a hack...

Comment 4

[Patrick Godeau]

I'll not use this hack after all, because rendering is not what is expected.

The expected behaviour is to expand text cells horizontally as much as needed,
and to narrow empty cells if necessary. The col width hack sets unnecessary
horizontal space for empty cells.

Here is how the page is rendered in Links browser (similar in IE):

                         this text should fit on one line
                                        |
                    |                                     |
  text text text text text text text      text text text text text text text
  text text text text text text text      text text text text text text text
  text text text text text text text      text text text text text text text
  text text text text text text text      text text text text text text text

Comment 5

[Alfonso Martinez]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 187550 ***