feature: BlockItemContainer.content

[gtozzi]

Hi there,

I've been working on the original python-docs module some years ago. I've seen you've done HUGE steps forward meanwhile: thank you for sharing your work.

I am now using this module again and developing some news features in top of it. If you are interested, please let me know and I'll move them to the module itself and send a pull request. At the moment, I have implemented:

• a Table.cells property (easy): returns all UNIQUE cells from a table, useful for iterating (see after)
• a Paragraph.replace() method: given a regex, searches for all the non-overlapping matches and replaces them with the given data, without destroying the "runs" structure: data is replaced in the run(s) it has been found (the first one gets all the data)
• a Document.all_paragraphs method: returns paragraphs even if they are found inside of a table (may not really find all of them)

[scanny]

Hi @gtozzi, thanks for reaching out :)

We're always interested in contributions, and it's very wise to do as you've done to reach out before investing time in a pull request.

Contributing is a bit challenging for most folks, in many cases because they are unaccustomed to the Test-driven approach we use here. No code, no matter how clever or useful, is merged without the tests to support it. And in general, a successful contribution requires an analysis page such as those you can find in the documentation here:
http://python-docx.readthedocs.org/en/latest/dev/analysis/features/text/font-color.html

So the first question would be whether you were willing to develop those items in conjunction with your code. Most folks who have tried it so far have found it a rewarding learning experience, but many folks prefer to work without supporting tests.

Let me know what you think. If you can point me to the code or other items where you've implemented those features I'd love to take a look.

[gtozzi]

Hi @scanny,

thank you for you quick answer.

I didn't notice the analysis and the tests in the repo, thank you for pointing them out. I completely understand what you mean: I am not new to it.

Anyway, I have to check if I can have enough time allocated for this task: what I am working on is a quite low budget commercial project with a near deadline, but I would love to contribute back by moving portions of the code into the library itself.

As you could've imagined, what we are developing is, in short, a mini template engine: search&replace for special tags in document; with support for some extra syntax (if, for, etc...).
I am not allowed to release the whole engine (and it is anyway not related to the project), but I think the "base" functions (like the ones I've described before), could be useful to others too.

I'll try to show you some code in next days.

[scanny]

Great, thanks Gabriele, will look forward to it :)

[gtozzi]

Ok, so 90fa848 is an example for a potential pull request.
Please have a look to it and let me know if it does comply.

Thank you