RE: FW: indenting

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.

Received on Tuesday, 14 December 1999 09:39:03 UTC