whatwg / whatwg/html

Allow type attribute on <ul>

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#3,979 28 comments 4 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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addition/proposal document conformance impacts documentation interop needs implementer interest topic: rendering
Dominant language
HTML
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Description

<ol> represents an “ordered list”., whereas <ul> represents an unordered list. But frequently, one wants an unordered list with labels (1, 2, 3, or A, B, C). The options here are to either use a <ol> anyway (which falsely marks the list as ordered), or to use <ul> with CSS (which means the referencing system is CSS-dependent).

It would be great if HTML would allow the type attribute on <ul> to solve this problem.

Note: Firefox already implements the requisite functionality, and Chrome already handles it for <li> inside <ul> (just not for <ul> itself). Testcase

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the HTML Standard's list-element rules and the linked live DOM viewer testcase. Review the 28-comment discussion and existing browser behavior to determine the intended standard change; done means the specification has a settled, interoperable definition for type on ul.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
html
Domain
web-dev
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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