Re: images as bullets in <UL>

From Charles Payton Taylor

>Date: Thu, 16 May 1996 14:20:43 -0800
>From: Charles Peyton Taylor <CTaylor@wposmtp.nps.navy.mil>
>To: www-html@w3.org
>Subject:  images as bullets in <UL>
>Message-Id: <s19b39da.023@wposmtp.nps.navy.mil>
>content-length: 4375

>I also looked at the object draft, but I don't think 
><object> is the way to go because it not only does 
>images but also other things like quicktime movies,
>which I don't see as being good list bullets.
>(again, this is my opinion.)  On the other hand,
>sounds in a speech browser ...

I'll admit OBJECT would be more flexible, but I think the simplicity of 
just a graphical image will do for now.  But who knows what'll happen 2 
years down the line. (An interactive bullet that "squeaks" when selected??)

>The objection to having src in UL's is that it 
>didn't cover things like height and
>width attributes which really enhance the
>presentation of image.  But, there is no
>overlap of attributes between lists and 
>images. 

There's always the chance that the author will want control over height, 
width, and spacig of the bullet.  But I still think that this sort of 
thing would be better if it was handled by stylesheets.

What if we tried adding a few new property to the CSS draft, such as 
bullet, bullet-height, bullet-spacing, etc.., so you could have the 
following in a stylesheet.

UL.important { bullet: "redball.gif"
     bullet-height: 2ex
     bullet-width: 1em
   }

LI.priority { bullet: "expoint.gif" }

I'll admit it looks really rough, (I'm going by the Feb 20 CSS working 
draft) but it'll make your HTML look more neat (and more managable)

<UL class=important>
<LI>Apples
<LI>Oranges
<LI class=priority>Bananas
</UL>

>The align, usemap, and ismap attributes have no value
>in lists, as far as I can see.  Alt *might* be useful
>for specifying asterisks, exclamation points, etc. to 
>be used instead of an image, perhaps even using a word.

I'd vote against ALT.  It could either get really abused, or ignored like 
ALT always has been by some authors out there.

Also, if we're talking about improving lists, why not talk about wrapping 
lists into columns and list header elements?

----------------------- Christopher P. Josephes ----------------------------
Email |  mailto:cpj1@winternet.com
Web   |  http://www.winternet.com/~cpj1/

Received on Thursday, 16 May 1996 23:08:44 UTC