- From: Charles McCathieNevile <charles@w3.org>
- Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 02:15:34 -0500 (EST)
- To: "webmaster@dors.sailorsite.net" <webmaster@dors.sailorsite.net>
- cc: "'jfox@fenix2.dol-esa.gov'" <jfox@fenix2.dol-esa.gov>, "'Web Accessibility Initiative'" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Actually, CSS2 does support cascading numbers. Harass the makers of your browser... Charles McCN On Tue, 14 Dec 1999, Bruce Bailey wrote: Well, it is not as much an abuse as BLOCKQUOTE (smile) ! Technically, the material IS a list. The list happens to be one where each item is very long! The abuse is using <P> (or <BR><BR>) within <LI>, but that is perfectly valid HTML. If you liked the effects of this technique, one COULD argue that it is appropriate that each list only have one (or two) items (albeit, very long, nested items). It is easy for the discussion to move from proper html use (technical) to one about poor choices of style (artistic) -- and at that point one is arguing aesthetics, so no one wins. A better approach would be to use OL (instead of UL), accept the LI markers, and not use <P> to suppress the bullets. One could use the (deprecated) TYPE and START attributes to general "legal" or "Harvard" style structured paragraph numbering. This would be backwards compatible, highly structured, and get the "presentation effects" (indenting) desired. Any complaints? It is interesting to me that even with HTML 4 and CSS that OL is still not robust enough to support "cascading" paragraph numbers. For example, I would like, given a suitable style sheet, for <LI> to be able to generate something like 3.1.2 or C1ii) -- for the second item in the first sub-section of the third section. Am I correct that this is not possible? I was sorry to see that the WCAG (for example) puts in the paragraph numbering by hand. Is this by necessity, or for reasons of backwards compatibility or style? On Monday, December 13, 1999 7:27 PM, Charles McCathieNevile [SMTP:charles@w3.org] wrote: > Except that using UL for indentation (as a presentation effect) is WRONG - > see the HTML specification. People who are looking for lists want to know > what is a list, not what has been indented. > > On Wed, 8 Dec 1999, Bruce Bailey wrote: >> Okay, if not tables (and not CSS) you could always use <UL>. This gets you >> the indentation and is not an abuse of HTML, but it will also start each >> indented section with a bullet. -- Charles McCathieNevile mailto:charles@w3.org phone: +61 409 134 136 W3C Web Accessibility Initiative http://www.w3.org/WAI 21 Mitchell Street, Footscray, VIC 3011, Australia (I've moved!)
Received on Wednesday, 15 December 1999 02:16:14 UTC