Currently, only spreadsheet formats like .xls/.xlsx support multiple sheets in a single file. It'd be nice to support this in other formats like ASCII art (.asc) and delimiter separated (.csv, .ssv, .tsv). Example applications:
GUI probably wants to work in a simple format like tsv, or at least have that option
If we define a way for mappings to work with an entire Drawings, e.g. for multiple overlaid drawings (#97).
Convenient way to cluster drawings together, e.g. subfigures of a figure or a sequence of frames.
The challenge of course is defining a sheet delimiter format. One idea that comes to mind is to use an ASCII control code, followed by a sheet name. Some options that seem to fit:
1 ^A SOH Start of Header indicates "head of data broadcast/message"
2 ^B STX Start of Text indicates "end of header, start of text" (so could be ^A<sheet name>^B)
3 ^C ETX End of Text indicates "end of text"
4 ^D EOT End of Transmission indicates "end of transmission of one or more texts"
11 ^K\v Vertical tab , which is for "vertical tabulation"
12 ^L\f Form feed, which indicates "go to new page"
A simple proposal would be that ^A indicates a sheet name that occupies the rest of the line, and is terminated by ^B or a newline.
Alternatively, we might want to use headers to do more than just specify subsheets, for example to inline multiple text files into one (#68). This might just be a different extension, like .multi; but then we ideally need a way to put subsheets that doesn't involve a second level of ^A. One possibility is to use # for sheets:
Currently, only spreadsheet formats like
.xls/.xlsxsupport multiple sheets in a single file. It'd be nice to support this in other formats like ASCII art (.asc) and delimiter separated (.csv,.ssv,.tsv). Example applications:tsv, or at least have that optionThe challenge of course is defining a sheet delimiter format. One idea that comes to mind is to use an ASCII control code, followed by a sheet name. Some options that seem to fit:
^A<sheet name>^B)\vVertical tab , which is for "vertical tabulation"\fForm feed, which indicates "go to new page"A simple proposal would be that
^Aindicates a sheet name that occupies the rest of the line, and is terminated by^Bor a newline.Alternatively, we might want to use headers to do more than just specify subsheets, for example to inline multiple text files into one (#68). This might just be a different extension, like
.multi; but then we ideally need a way to put subsheets that doesn't involve a second level of^A. One possibility is to use#for sheets:In Vim, you can enter
^Avia ^V^A. In VSCode, the insert-unicode extension seems like a decent way.