dolphinling wrote:
HTML5 brings back the |start| attribute on ordered lists. This allows a
list to semantically start with a number other than one. It seems like
the major use case for this is to split lists up, so that a single list
is marked by multiple <ol>s.
Would it therefore make sense to allow named start values, so that the
author doesn't have to go through and re-number everything when a new
item is added at the top? And if so, should they be considered
semantically one list? And if so, would it make sense for it to also
apply to unordered lists, so that they can be split up, too?
Or would all that be an abuse, and something that's one list should use
only one <?l> ?
I've thought a bit more, and *assuming semantically linked,
automatically numbered split lists should be allowed* (which so far only
one other person has even touched on!), I think the best solution would
be something like the following:
<p>Chores for today:</p>
<ol listname="chores">
<li>Clean living room</li>
<li>Clean bathroom</li>
</ol>
<p>When cleaning bathroom, make sure to get all the grout between the
shower tiles. Also, the sink needs to be scrubbed, too.</p>
<ol listname="chores">
<li>Sweep kitchen</li>
<li>Wash dishes</li>
</ol>
Numbering would start at 1, and continue in source order (superseded, of
course, by any start= or value= attributes).
This gives the author the power to number however they want, while being
much less complex spec- and implementation-wise. A few cases where a
list is not only split, but the sections are rearranged on the page,
require the author to fall back on start=, but since it doesn't actually
remove any functionality, I think that's an acceptable tradeoff.
As for how this would interact with CSS Counters... It appears counters
in CSS 3 are insufficient even to handle the already-in-spec start= and
value= attributes. That should probably be taken up with the CSS WG.
--
dolphinling
<http://dolphinling.net/>
