# prosemirror-tables supporting table sections(thead, tbody, tfoot) - problem with colgroup
**URL:** https://discuss.prosemirror.net/t/prosemirror-tables-supporting-table-sections-thead-tbody-tfoot-problem-with-colgroup/5331
**Category:** Uncategorized
**Created:** [March 20, 2023, 6:03pm UTC](https://discuss.prosemirror.net/t/prosemirror-tables-supporting-table-sections-thead-tbody-tfoot-problem-with-colgroup/5331 "2023-03-20T18:03:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@massi](https://discuss.prosemirror.net/u/massi)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2023, 6:03pm UTC](https://discuss.prosemirror.net/t/prosemirror-tables-supporting-table-sections-thead-tbody-tfoot-problem-with-colgroup/5331/1 "2023-03-20T18:03:48Z")
Hello, I modified the code of prosemirror-tables to support table sections: thead, tbody, tfoot (and caption).
My goal is supporting the table [structure of Pandoc](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/pandoc-types-1.23/docs/Text-Pandoc-Definition.html#t:Block).
I’m going to publish it on github, but I have two problems:
- choosing an appropriate name: `prosemirror-tables-sections`, `prosemirror-tables-plus`, something else?
- how to implement the colgroup DOM element
The code seems to work fine, I’ve adapted the tests and they all pass. I’m getting rid of the custom TableView of prosemirror-tables, because this is the new schema:
```typescript
const schema = {
table: {
// content: 'table_row+',
content: 'table_caption? table_head? table_body+ table_foot?',
tableRole: 'table',
isolating: true,
group: options.tableGroup,
attrs: tableAttrs,
parseDOM: [{ tag: 'table' }],
toDOM() {
// return ['table', ['tbody', 0]];
return ['table']
},
},
table_caption: {
content: 'block+',
tableRole: 'caption',
isolating: true,
parseDOM: [{ tag: 'caption' }],
toDOM() {
return ['caption', 0];
},
},
table_head: {
content: 'table_row+',
tableRole: 'table_section',
isolating: true,
parseDOM: [{ tag: 'thead' }],
toDOM() {
return ['thead', 0];
},
},
table_foot: {
content: 'table_row+',
tableRole: 'table_section',
isolating: true,
parseDOM: [{ tag: 'tfoot' }],
toDOM() {
return ['tfoot', 0];
},
},
table_body: {
content: 'table_row+',
tableRole: 'table_section',
isolating: true,
parseDOM: [{ tag: 'tbody' }],
toDOM() {
return ['tbody', 0];
},
},
table_row: {
content: '(table_cell | table_header)*',
tableRole: 'row',
parseDOM: [{ tag: 'tr' }],
toDOM() {
return ['tr', 0];
},
},
table_cell: {
content: options.cellContent,
attrs: cellAttrs,
tableRole: 'cell',
isolating: true,
parseDOM: [
{ tag: 'td', getAttrs: (dom) => getCellAttrs(dom, extraAttrs) },
],
toDOM(node) {
return ['td', setCellAttrs(node, extraAttrs), 0];
},
},
table_header: {
content: options.cellContent,
attrs: cellAttrs,
tableRole: 'header_cell',
isolating: true,
parseDOM: [
{ tag: 'th', getAttrs: (dom) => getCellAttrs(dom, extraAttrs) },
],
toDOM(node) {
return ['th', setCellAttrs(node, extraAttrs), 0];
},
},
};
```
TableView created and managed the `colgroup` element. Since I can’t write something like this for the `table` node:
```typescript
toDOM() {
// return ['table', ['tbody', 0]];
return ['table', ['colgroup'], 0]
},
```
A solution could be setting the `content` of a table to:
```auto
'colgroup table_caption? table_head? table_body+ table_foot?'
```
where `colgroup` would be an atomic element to be created automatically.
Is there a better solution?
---
### Author:  [@massi](https://discuss.prosemirror.net/u/massi)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2023, 7:24pm UTC](https://discuss.prosemirror.net/t/prosemirror-tables-supporting-table-sections-thead-tbody-tfoot-problem-with-colgroup/5331/2 "2023-03-20T19:24:00Z")
Sorry for the poor explanation of the `colgroup` problem.
I’ll try to explain it better:
`prosemirror-tables` (PMT from now on) defines a custom view (TableView) for the `table` Node, that automatically creates a `colgroup` and a `tbody` elements. The custom View also manages the `col` DOM elements under `colgroup`, according to the value of the columns’ widths. The `tbody` is the `contentDOM` element to which the children of the table Node are attached. The `contentDOM` must be a single HTML DOM element.
In my implementation – let’s call it `prosemirror-table-sections`, PMTS – the HTML `table` element is the contentDOM of an ordinary (non custom) View. The caption, table head, bodies and foot of the table have their own `Node`s in the schema (see above), and they are rendered with HTML `caption`, `thead`, `tbody` and `tfoot` elements.
The problem is `colgroup`, which is child of the `table` element in the DOM, but it should be automatically generated.
And `colgroup` is necessary to let users modify column widths, as it happens in PMT.
I thought of two ways:
- make the colgroup node explicit and compulsory in the schema
- make it a widget decoration of a table (this is a dirty trick)
---
### Author:  [@massi](https://discuss.prosemirror.net/u/massi)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2023, 1:30pm UTC](https://discuss.prosemirror.net/t/prosemirror-tables-supporting-table-sections-thead-tbody-tfoot-problem-with-colgroup/5331/3 "2023-03-23T13:30:36Z")
[prosemirror-tables-sections](https://github.com/massifrg/prosemirror-tables-sections) is online.
I’m using decorations to generate the `colgroup` element and no TableView.