Re: [CSSWG] Your opinion needed : Position of list-item markers

On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 5:31 PM, L. David Baron <dbaron@dbaron.org> wrote:
> On Wednesday 2008-11-26 17:23 -0600, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
>> If list-style-position is set to inside, the marker should follow the
>> text.  If it's set to outside, it should stay on the edge where it
>> would normally be.
>
> One thing to consider here is that 'list-style-position' defaults to
> 'outside'.  Is this the correct default in this case?  This is a
> default that affects authors who don't use CSS at all or only use it
> a little.
>
> I think that's why browser vendors have been under a lot of pressure
> not to follow the spec here.

True, but it's also only affecting lists which are text-align:
centered.  How common of a case is this in the wild?

(Also, authors who don't use CSS at all won't suffer either way from
this decision, because you can't text-align without CSS.  Authors who
know a little bit of CSS will find that the problem is trivial to fix
and well within their skill level and capability when they ask around
on forums or read blog posts or just poke around a bit by themselves.)

I think that having the marker not follow the text when set to outside
would be fairly reasonable to most layouts that *do* have centered
lists, in any case.  Speaking as a web designer, the display glitch
caused by this doesn't seem unacceptable to me.  A user unexpectedly
using a browser following this suggestion, when I had only tested it
on noncompliant browsers and assumed that the marker would follow the
text, would still have an adequate experience imo.  It wouldn't be
quite as pretty, but that's all.  And luckily, the fix doesn't have an
appreciable effect on the layout either (centered multi-line text with
a visible marker is roughly equally ugly with the marker inside or
outside, unlike left-aligned multi-line text where the visual
difference is significant).

Vendors will of course get bugs filed against them with this change,
but I don't think this will lead to any site-breaking display issues.

~TJ

Received on Wednesday, 26 November 2008 23:51:34 UTC