F7: Common Lists

Overview

Lists are probably the second most important and common document text structure after the core bodytext, headers and titles groups. There are two distinct types of lists:

a) Common lists are those that are part of the primary galley content flow and are standard XHTML lists. This includes ordered, bulleted and definition lists.

b) What FX calls "Named Lists" which are nearly always referenced or generated structures. These are defined in Topic F8: Common Named Lists.

Content Lists

Content lists are the standard ordered, bulleted and definition structures built into XHTML. the XHTML Lists are:

1. <ul> <li> … </li></ul>
   Bulleted or unordered list.
2. <ol> <li> … </li> </ol>
   Numbered or ordered list  
3. <dl><dt> … </dt> <dd> … </dd></dl>
   Definition List

In books, and occasionally other document types, author and editorial list presentation constructions often do not conform to the strict requirements of XHTML 1.1 Strict. The interupted number problem is perhaps the biggest of these. XHTML Modularization would have allowed us to apply attributes to list elements, but in this version of FX we decided to avoid Modularization, and since modularization has been explicitly stopped by the W3C, there was no point to pursue this. A file containing list properties should use XHTML 1.1 Transitional if it needs to be validated.

The interrupted ordered list problem is more common with content sourced for retro-digitization, as with front-list production, such structures can be avoided. Notwithstanding this, strategies must exist to handle the following:

1. Interrupted lists
2. Nested-number lists
3. Lists with numbering and bullets other than the defaults
4. Unordered lists with graphics as the bullets
5. Lists without marks
6. Special named list
7. Lists that are not lists

XHTML Lists

Unordered (Bullet) List

This list stands alone and uses the standard XHTML tagging patterns. Start and continue numbers are included in the list property for list continues. The standard <ul> has no CSS selectors by default, and if there is specific list styling requirements these must be applied by CSS selectors.

The class statement is put on the following lists for completeness, but these are seldom required as special list styling should inherit their styling requirements from parent containers where possible.

<ul class=" ">
   <li> ... </li>
   <li> ... </li>
   <li> ... </li>
</ul>

Ordered (Numbered) Lists

This list stands alone and uses the standard XHTML tagging. Start and continue numbers are included in the list property for list continues. The standard <ol> has no CSS selectors and if there is specific block styling requirements these are applied by CSS selectors.

<ol class=" ">
   <li> ... </li>
   <li> ... </li>
   <li> ... </li>
</ol>

The numbering patterns should be defined from the standard CSS options of decimal, Upper-alpha, Lower-alpha, Upper-roman and Lower-roman. However this does not affect the structure of the content. 

Definition Lists

Definition lists are widely used in named list blocks, and seldom used alone. Where they are used in the document <galley> they are used without CSS selectors.

<dl>
   <dt> ... </dt>
   <dd> ... </dd>
   <dt> ... </dt>
   <dd> ... </dd>
   <dd> ... </dd>
</dl>

Simple list

A simple list is a clear block structure of separate lines which has the attributes and reusability of a list. The simple list is a standard sequence of paragraphs with a selector <div class="list-simple-rw">.

<div class="list-simple-rw">
   <p> ... </p>
   <p> ... </p>
   <p> ... </p>
</div>

Because this is standard XHTML, other structures can be used inside the simple list structure. The primary effect is to give a list semantic, and a target for appropriate visual styling or extraction if required.

Pseudo Lists – numbered and bulleted paras

 This is also covered in bodytext.

There are often issues with respect to styling numbered or bulleted paragraphs where due to the layout of structure of a book, creating a list is not practical, nor a correct structural interpretation.

For example there may be a set of numbered paragraphs that have one or more un-numbered paragraphs following. These do not make an elegant list structure.
Note that there is no attempt to auto number here, although a suitable XSL or Javascript component could be used if appropriate. The span element is also a specific target for a CSS-3 counter. If multiple numbered paragraph sequences are required then it would be appropriate to add a general Block class general element with an ID around the numbered paragraphs.

<p class= "b-number-para-rw">
<span class= "para-number-rw">1</para-number>. 
Paragraph text
</p>
<p class= "b-bullet-para-rw">
<span class= "para-bullet-rw">●</para-number>. 
... Paragraph text ....
</p>