Posted by dorayme on 05/06/06 06:22

In article <op.s82tq3x7l8uz2z@zoete_b>,
"Barbara de Zoete" <trashbin@pretletters.net> wrote:

> On Fri, 05 May 2006 13:41:31 +0200, <sorry.no.email@post_NG.com> wrote:
>
> > I have several short lists (about 10 to 20 lines each) that at the
> > moment are simply set up with <br /> tags.
>
> Then it is not a list.
>

This is too much! It is a list in ordinary terms and this is
exactly what the OP meant. He is, as you know, asking about html
lists (on which, I know, you do have good advice.)

> > Are there any advantages to changing these to unordered lists
>
> Of course there is the advantage that all of a sudden it *is* a list then.
>

The advantage is actually this: if you mark up lists of things
(there, you see, Barbara, I said something you deny is correct )
with html lists, ie. <li>s and associated markup, you gain a
uniform power over them. Many lists can simply be marked up as

<ul>
<li>Link or otherwise</li>
<li>Link or otherwise</li>
....
</ul>

as you make up a site. It is a simple rule. You later can turn
your mind to style these in css by way of assigning styles to
ul's and li's or to various classes, ids that they can then be
assigned. You can also change these styles to change the
appearance in later revisions or updates of the site.

> > by adding something like this to my CSS and applying a class:
> >
> > .ul-nobullets {
>
> I would create selectors for class names that have any relevance as to
> *why* you want the content that it effects to have a different look. What
> if later on you decide to do bullets? The class name with 'nobullets' in
> it gets useles.

This is quite difficult advice to follow in practice. It is just
simply a fact that quite often website makers have no particular
quite general reason to make a list look one way or another.
Sometimes the content of the whole page or other elements dictate
a choice. It is hard to generalise at the beginning.

So go ahead and use appearance names to get going and later see
if there is a more underlying thing that links all the lists of
that appearance. Like that they are lists of bookmarks or places
to visit by bus or countries that are good to walk in. At first
you might not know, but then discover that you are tending to
make such lists with special types of bullets. Then you can class
the lot under a name that reflects what might be an underlying
general pattern.

You will find that the advice that folk here give often fails to
take into account the difference between the finished product
(which is used to show the site, also to what you turn when you
update or revise the site or give it to someone else) and the
actual process of making it. These are different things and it is
a confusion to conflate the two.

--
dorayme

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