RE: About list inside a paragraph

                Hi, can you tell me what the list name is, so I can set it to digest mode.

Thanks.

 

From: James Cobban [mailto:webmaster@Jamescobban.net] 
Sent: Monday, 26 September 2016 11:41 AM
To: public-html@w3.org
Subject: Re: About list inside a paragraph

 

On 2016-09-25 06:18 PM, Patrick H. Lauke wrote:

On 25/09/2016 23:03, James Cobban wrote: 




You should use a <span> tag with an appropriate style, for example <span 
class="list-item"> to contain each of the items.  This makes each item 
an HTML element that you can treat just like a <li>. 


Except that lacks any semantic "listiness", as that's not a list anymore then, just a series of semantically neutral spans... 

P 

The semantics of lists in HTML includes that lists are paragraphs.  Changing that would break all existing web-sites that use <ul> or <ol>, so it ain't gonna happen.  However using span tags with class names, or id values, that imply "listiness" means that "list-item" spans can be, for example, selected by JQuery.  The web developer can apply whatever behavior or appearance that is required to these "list-items".  Semantics are ultimately a result of how objects behave, appear to the viewer, and are viewed by the developer, not a consequence of exactly which tag name is used.  

If it is absolutely essential that the specific tags <ul>, <ol>, and <li> be used, which has not been justified, then the presentation can be changed by using a style of display: inline.  <ul style="display: inline"> still starts a new paragraph from the point of the browser, since the preceding <p> is terminated, but using display: inline causes the output of the list to be displayed after the last character of the preceding paragraph instead of at the left margin of the container.  You will have to override a bunch of other style fields to get the list to align with the text of the paragraph.  This is not necessary when using <span> because <span> inherits style from the <p> it is contained in.  Forcing the HTML tags to behave in a way that is inconsistent with the semantics defined by the standard is only going to cause the developer grief.

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