Re: 3.11 Lists Review Comments

Debi Orton wrote:
> 3.11 Lists – Review Notes
> 
> 3.11.1 The ol element
> 
> "If the start attribute is present, user agents must parse it as an 
> integer in order to determine the attribute's value.  The default value, 
> used if the attribute is missing or if the value cannot be converted to 
> a number according to the referenced algorithm, is 1."
> 
> The start attribute was deprecated in HTML 4.01.  See 
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/index/attributes.html>http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/index/attributes.html. 

[...]

> Given that both the start attribute of the ol element and the value 
> attribute of the li element were deprecated in HTML 4.01, what is the 
> compelling case for resurrecting them?

I would suggest the facts that:
  * <ol start="">, at least, is widely used (see e.g. [1] although beware of the 
relatively small sample size - this makes it hard to see use of <li value=""> if 
it is present on < 1% of pages)

* Both <ol start=""> and <li value=""> are well supported in UAs

* When used, they convey important information about the list items - 
information that is not, in general, presentational

are good enough good reasons for including them (indeed I would question why 
HTML4 ever deprecated them). More specific use cases are given in e.g. the top 
of [2].

> 3.11.3 The li element
> 
> "When <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#determining1>used as an 
> inline-level content container, the list item represents a single 
> <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#paragraph>paragraph. "
> 
> What happens when an li element's content is comprised text of more than 
> one paragraph?   That situation is not clear to me given this rule.

This rule only applies if there is only inline content in the list item. If 
there are multiple paragraphs, presumably marked up with multiple <p> elements, 
the rule doesn't apply.

[1] http://canvex.lazyilluminati.com/misc/stats/2/analyse.cgi/tag/ol
[2] http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2006-June/006818.html
-- 
"Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end?"
  -- Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Received on Tuesday, 17 July 2007 17:19:14 UTC