Order attribute for lists

Floated list items are rendered left to right, which isn't the way most 
people read lists. When the ul tag is used but the list still "ordered" (see 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/2005Jun/0011.html ) it's 
preferable for each column of a multicolumn list (a list with floated li 
elements) to be ordered from top to bottom.

I think that floating list items is one of the few if not the only style 
that could change semantics inappropriately. Maybe not for user agents, 
which would read the list in the same order whether it's floating or not, 
but for humans. A CSS coder doesn't usually have to worry about changing 
semantics, but to prevent this issue he would. He might be forced to choose 
a space wasting, single column, non-floating list, rather than risk the list 
being read left to right rather than top to bottom. This problem can be 
solved with an HTML order attribute for list elements that would tell CSS to 
order each column of a floated list from top to bottom.

For now, I have my custom written Javascript that reorders lists using CSS 
(position/top/left). An order attribute would be much better. 



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Received on Saturday, 30 September 2006 02:29:39 UTC