Re: OL needs the start attribute

>> Againg, this is another thing, which probably should be available in 
>> the "content" domain. (It would be at least easier to implement in UAs)
> 
> 
> I tend to disagree, if for nothing else due to the variety of strings 
> that authors would want to express. Unlike start/value there is no 
> actual information that is lost if the list is unstyled. -- Jonny Axelsson,
> Web Standards,
> Opera Software
> 

I totaly agree that the numbering described in CSS2 offers much more 
than any markup could.
But I think a boolean attribute telling whether to display the value of 
the parent <li> tag of an ordered list or not would not be so redundant. 
Such listts are used quite often - by the W3C example - to reflect the 
logical structure of the list (which should not depend on the stylesheet).

Compare this markup, where the author has to do the counting /manually/:

<ul>
   <li>1. some text</li>
   <li>2. blah blah
   <ul>
     <li>2.1. some other text</li>
     <li>2.2. blah blah blah</li>
   </ul>
   <li>3. etc...</li>
</ul>

with a much simpler and easier-to-edit way:

<ol>
   <li>some text</li>
   <li>blah blah
   <ol parentval="parentval"> <!-- or another name -->
     <li>some other text</li>
     <li>blah blah blah</li>
   </ol>
   <li>etc...</li>
</ol>

Of course, this atribute would be overridden by the stylesheet, but it 
could be also /used/ by the stylesheet (a [parentval] selector), 
especially when writing shared stylesheets.

-- 
Michal Marek

http://cyklopraha.cz/

Received on Wednesday, 16 October 2002 14:01:16 UTC