support csv tables

[alan-isaac]

Description

Fairly often it is convenient to add short illustrative tables by hand. The core markdown notation for this is very clunky. A Pandoc extension supports CSV tables, but an even better approach is in reStructedText. It would be nice if Quarto natively supported CSV tables similar to those in reStructuredText.

[mcanouil]

In general, it's best to start with extensions as the cost of implementing this natively might be higher than the interest this feature can have for the community.
Since you said there is a "Pandoc extension" (don't know what exactly you meant here as you did not provide any reference to it), assuming it's a Lua filter, you can easily turn it into a Quarto extension for easier reuse or use it directly. See the extension documentation.

[alan-isaac]

• pantable is written in Python
• I have never met anyone who likes writing tables in markdown syntax, so I imagine community interest will be substantial
• As a little evidence, people have asked for pandoc filters, and reStructuredText found demand high enough to provide a good syntax. (It is quite good. See link above.)

Thanks for your interest.

[mcanouil]

I have never met anyone who likes writing tables in markdown syntax, so I imagine community interest will be substantial

Have you tried the Visual Editor?

[alan-isaac]

Although I avoid the Visual Editor, your point is taken. However, the csv-table in reStructuredText supports file inclusion---so the CSV for the table can be in an external file, which may be programmatically updated. This is great for smallish but not tiny tables, since CSV is such a "low noise" format.