Re: lists - very strange

On Tue, 27 Dec 2005 02:48:28 -0800 "Tom Cloyd" <tomcloyd@bestmindhealth.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm struggling to understand how to easily create a list in Amaya. It's  
> behavior is beyond comprehension, for me,

OK, let me try to explain how it works.

> and there appears to be no  
> useful documentation, which is baffling.

Have you tried the Help menu? It provides an entry "Creating elements"
that could help you. See sections  "The Enter Key" and "Creating
Nested Structures".

> Here's what I'm doing:
> 
> * I type a word in Amaya - "one"
> * I press F2 to select the line
> * I press Ctrl+h+l to create list element

Right. Ctrl+h+l creates a list (<ul>) element. As a <ul> can only contain
list item (<li>) elements, it also creates a <li> child element and it puts
the character string "one" in that <li>. Finally the new <ul> element is
selected. The status line (bottom of the window) tells you that a <ul> element
is selected. You can also ask Amaya to show the Structure of your document
to check how it works (use the Views menu).

> * I press Enter, to get a new, empty list element, but I get a paragraph  
> instead!
> There seems to be no way out of this.

That's correct. When an element is selected, the Enter key always creates
a sibling element after the selected element. The type of the new element
depends on the context, but its position is always the same: a sibling
after the selected element. In that case, it creates a paragraph after
the <ul> element. In the body of an XHTML document you can create
many types of element. By default, Amaya creates a paragraph. If you
want something else, just choose another type in the XHTML menu: the
new paragraph will be replaced by the type of your choice.

If you want to create a second list item (<li>) within the list (<ul>) you have just
created, select the first list item (<li>), for instance by clicking its bullet. But you
can also click on any character in the list item and press F2. When the <li> is
selected (check the status line or the Structure view), press Enter. No
surprise, you will get a sibling element after the selected <li>. As only <li>
elements are permitted as children of a <ul>, this new element is a <li>.

Another way to create a second <li> once the <ul> is created is to
click at the end of the first <li> (after "one") and to press Enter twice.
The first Enter allows you to create a new paragraph <p> within the
<li>, the second Enter creates a sibling <li> instead of that <p>. More
details on list editing are provided in section "Creating Nested Structures".

> Entering another word - "two" -  
> selecting and trying to convert this to a list element creates a  
> hierarchical list, which is plain wrong.
> 
> So, this --
> 
> <ul>
>    <li>one
>      <p>two</p>
>    </li>
> </ul>
> 
> gets converted to --
> 
> <ul>
>    <li><p>one</p>
>      <ul>
>        <li>two</li>
>      </ul>
>    </li>
> </ul>
> 
> This is wrong, AND a mess.

This is the way to create nested lists. When you want to create a plain list,
you may consider this as a mess, but sometimes you really need to create
nested lists. This process is the same as above: you select an element
(the paragraph containing "two") and you turn it into a <ul>.

> Can someone please explain this to me, and tell me if there's a simple way  
> to create lists in Amaya that doesn't involved hand editing the source?

There are at least two other ways to create a simple list. You can provide the
contents first and set the structure afterwards. Just type "one", Enter, "two",
Enter, "three", etc. You get a sequence of paragraphs. Then select all the text
you have typed and press Ctrl+h+l. The sequence of paragraphs is transformed
into a <ul> and each paragraph is turned into a <li>.

The other way is to create the structure first and then to enter some content
into the structure. Start by pressing Ctrl+h+l (this creates a <ul> with an
initial <li> child), then type "one" (content of the <li>), Enter, Enter (twice, for
the reason explained above, this creates a new <li>), "two" (content of the <li>),
Enter, Enter, "three", etc.

> Whatever it's doing, it's simply not usable when there's no documatation  
> that easily locatable.
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> -- Tom
> 
> ================================================
> Tom Cloyd
> Bellingham, Washington, U.S.A.
> << TC.BestMindHealth.com / BestMindHealth.com >>
> << tomcloyd@bestmindhealth.com >>
> ================================================

--------------
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INRIA                               ZIRST
e-mail: Vincent.Quint@inria.fr      655 avenue de l'Europe
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Received on Tuesday, 27 December 2005 13:38:26 UTC