Formatting and linking does not work in needtable "content" column

[buhl22]

When creating a needtable to list requirements, the "content" column is neither formatted nor resolves references and links (see screenshots)

Code: Output:

[twodrops]

I never used "content" in this way within needtable and therefore never came across this problem. However, I can confirn this now.

Is this a bug? I hope it is not too late for needtable to render the rST contents.

[danwos]

It is not a bug, as it was never requested and the data itself is just the raw rst data. :)

I don't know if needtable can show the rendered content, as it would need to internally copy the content from the original need to the needtable, so it must somehow behave like needextract.

Do you think this is really a valid use case? I ask this because in my projects I always have some need objects, which content is too complex to be shown nicely in a needtable column. If it is needed for some kind of a fast content-(pre)view, maybe this can be achieved by a workaround, e.g. by using Sphinx-Preview

[twodrops]

@danwos I too think that if the contents are too large it might not really "fit" within a table and/or we will have to deal with even more rendering issues so that the contents shall appear in a readable way in a table. Also, I feel a needtable is meant as an overview table to be able to navigate to the real "needs". However, let us wait for the usecases from @buhl22

Incase we plan not to support it, is it possible to restrict the usage of "content" as a column in needtable

[buhl22]

Thanks for the quick replies. In our case the need objects contain mostly 1-2 lines and therefore would fit into the table quite nicely. For us the table would give a great overview over the requirements and their content without having to jump for and back by clicking on the IDs. I had a quick look at the sphinx-preview and I think it might do the trick for my usecase, if it is possible to get a preview of the need object when hovering over the ID-Link in the needtable. Is that possible, and if yes what would be the right selector for the preview_config

[danwos]

An alternative would also be to use needextract together with some custom layout and style so that the needed content is focused.

sphinx-preview should work out of the box for Sphinx-Needs objects/links. There is also a Sphinx-Needs example in the docs: https://sphinx-preview.readthedocs.io/en/latest/examples/needs.html#SPEC_001. So you could also take a look at its sphinx conf.py.

[buhl22]

I got it to work in a satisfactory way for my usecase with sphinx-preview. I won't use the content column and instead have the preview directly with the ID to avoid jumping back and forth. I still think for short content needs a formatted (and with working linkage) content column would be neat. But you can also close the issue since I found a solution

[danwos]

I keep it open, as I think your described use case may be used in some other projects as well. But I personally do not prioritize it, as they are workarounds available.

[twodrops]

I also observed that, if roles are used within the need contents (for example, :need:), they do not appear when the content is rendered in the table.

[VedAchar]

@danwos : Even we have similar requirement like @buhl22 to list all the requirement listed . The requirements are only one line or 2 line information and doesn't have complex information.

I feel it would be really important if someone would to like collect all the requirement from different rst files, one needn't have to jump between links in ID and even preview won't really help here in the usecase.

Also in my understanding or experience a requirement statement will not be complex, so making such an implementation accessible in a table would be needed. A collective list of requirements is helpful for any project. I would appreciate if such implementation is available.