Custom tabular environments

Question

I'm trying to create the following structure using the best possible "user-interface" in LaTeX:

 ---------------------------------------------
|  Week 1  |  1.  Topic 1                        |
|          |  2.  Topic 2                        |
 ---------------------------------------------
| Week 2   |  1.  Topic 3                        | 
|          |  2.  Topic 4                        |
 ---------------------------------------------

I can, of course create this using a nested enumerate inside a tabular but it would be ugly to look at and difficult to maintain with all the & and the \\ characters.

What I need is a way to cleanly define this structure so that the code looks pretty. The only requirements is the numbering, the tabular structure and of course, page-spanning outlines. If there's a package available, I'd be happy to modify it. (I found the courseoutline package on CTAN by it doesn't have weekly topic breakdown.)

Answer 1

I build a custom enviroment with nice looking tables. The result will be:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{etoolbox}
\usepackage{booktabs}

\newcounter{a}
\newcounter{b}[a]
\newbool{firstline}

\newenvironment{mytabular}{%
    \setcounter{a}{0}%
    \setcounter{b}{0}%
    \booltrue{firstline}%
    \begin{tabular}{ll}
        \toprule}
    {\\ \bottomrule\end{tabular}}

\newcommand{\mitem}[2][]{%
    \ifbool{firstline}{}{\ifblank{#1}{\\\cmidrule{2-2}}{\\\midrule}}%
    \global\boolfalse{firstline}%
    #1 \ifblank{#1}{}{\stepcounter{a}\thea}%
    \addtocounter{b}{1} %
    &\theb. #2%
}
\newcommand{\witem}[1]{\mitem[Week]{#1}}

\begin{document}
    \begin{mytabular}
        \mitem[Week]{Subject}
        \mitem{Another subject}
        \mitem{And another}
        \witem{Usage of witem}
    \end{mytabular}
\end{document}

or if you don't like this tabular style, you could use this one:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{etoolbox}

\newcounter{a}
\newcounter{b}[a]
\newbool{firstline}


\newenvironment{mytabular}{%
    \setcounter{a}{0}%
    \setcounter{b}{0}%
    \booltrue{firstline}%
    \begin{tabular}{|l|l|}
        \hline}
    {\\ \hline\end{tabular}}

\newcommand{\mitem}[2][]{%
    \ifbool{firstline}{}{\ifblank{#1}{\\\cline{2-2}}{\\\hline}}%
    \global\boolfalse{firstline}%
    #1 \ifblank{#1}{}{\stepcounter{a}\thea}%
    \addtocounter{b}{1} %
    &\theb. #2%
}
\newcommand{\witem}[1]{\mitem[Week]{#1}}

\begin{document}
    \begin{mytabular}
        \mitem[Week]{Subject}
        \mitem{Another subject}
        \mitem{And another}
        \witem{Usage of witem}
    \end{mytabular}
\end{document}