lists and their introductions
Forum topic: Submitted by ngn_at_ebbr on Mon, 2009-03-09 10:36.
Typographically, a paragraph is one thing and a list is another - even if the content of the paragraph is nothing than more the lead-in to the list. That would suggest something like [paragraph] [/paragraph] [ul] [/ul]
Logically, the introductory paragraph and the list form a unit of information. That would suggest something like [paragraph] [ul] [/ul] [/paragraph].
The 1.1 language spec. I have to hand appears to allow both. What do you experienced users think?
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Split opinions
Some folks prefer one, some the other. The p containing ul is logically more consistent (you can move them as a block), but opens up the possibility of text after the ul but still contained by the p, which would be a pain for translation.
The section containment would only work in generic topics, and might imply too much about the relative importance of the unit (sections are typically more important than paragraphs, while this is just a paragraph that happens to contain a list).
Michael Priestley
Thanks for the comments!
Thanks for the comments!
My use of DITA is still pretty theoretical, but from the documents I've been experimenting with so far, the use of sections would be excluded by the need to nest the blocks containing the lists. (which is not to say there might not be other approaches to my current experimental use of sections ...)
I'll try a deliberate mix of [ul] after [p] and [ul] within [p] and see whether I often benefit from being able to move a block.
Niels Grundtvig Nielsen
wrap into section instead
I don't really like the idea of wrapping ul into the p element. Especially as ul's li childs can also have p childs. That is, in this szenario it would look like this:
<p>Here we go with a list:
<ul>
<li><p>list item 1</p></li>
<li><p>list item 2</p></li>
<li><p>list item 3</p></li>
</ul>
</p>
<p>Thank you for reading this list.</p>
Logically, the introductory paragraph and the list form a unit of information.
Agreed. So, if you want to keep them together, maybe the section element is an alternative? Like this:
Kind regards, Stefan Gentz<section>
<p>Here we go with a list:</p>
<ul>
<li>list item 1</li>
<li>list item 2</li>
<li>list item 3</li>
</ul>
<p>Thank you for reading this list.</p>
</section>