A few days again, among the many tens of crypto-scams that flood our contact inbox, we discovered an attention-grabbing query on nested lists from one among our readers.
I’ve an issue (associated to list-numbering) that appears commonplace, however I can’t appear to resolve it or discover any answer for. If any of your geniuses can reply this, I’m certain there are going to be lots of people .
Styling lists? Sufficient to catch my consideration. In any case, I simply accomplished a whole information about CSS counters. The message continues:
Right here’s the issue. It’s a routine numbering sequence, of various ranges, present in (for instance) [government], laws, and in my case, condominium bylaws. I’ve 5 ranges represented by the primary quantity at every degree of 1., (1), (a) (lower-alpha), (i) (lower-roman), (A) (upper-alpha). After all, I’ve 5 ranges right here, however for those who might show an answer for 3 ranges.
Honest sufficient! So, what we wish to obtain is a nested listing, the place every sublist marker/counter is of a unique type. The instance linked within the message is the next:
8 The strata company should restore and preserve all the following:
(a) widespread belongings of the strata company;
(b) widespread property that has not been designated as restricted widespread property;
(c) restricted widespread property, however the obligation to restore and preserve it's restricted to
(i) restore and upkeep that within the extraordinary course of occasions happens much less usually than every year, and
(ii) the next, irrespective of how usually the restore or upkeep ordinarily happens:
(A) the construction of a constructing;
(B) the outside of a constructing;
(C) chimneys, stairs, balconies and different issues hooked up to the outside of a constructing;
(D) doorways, home windows and skylights on the outside of a constructing or that entrance on the widespread property;Whereas easy at first look, it nonetheless has some nuance, so let’s attempt to provide you with probably the most maintainable answer right here.
The ugly manner
My first method to this drawback was no method in any respect; I simply opened CodePen, wrote up the HTML, and tried to get my CSS to work in the direction of the ultimate outcome. After translating the Markdown into ol and li components, and with no particular styling on every listing, the bottom listing would appear like the next:
As soon as there, my first intuition was to pick out every ol component after which change its list-style-type to the specified one. To focus on every degree, I chosen every ol relying on its variety of ol ancestors, then let the specificity deal with the remaining:
ol {
list-style-type: decimal; /* Pointless; only for demo */
}
ol ol {
list-style-type: lower-alpha;
}
ol ol ol {
list-style-type: lower-roman;
}
ol ol ol ol {
list-style-type: upper-alpha;
}And as you’ll be able to see, this works… However we will agree it’s an unsightly option to go about it.
Nesting to the rescue
Fortunately, CSS nesting has been baseline for a few years now, so we might save ourselves lots of ol selectors by simply nesting every component inside the following one.
ol {
list-style-type: decimal;
ol {
list-style-type: lower-alpha;
ol {
list-style-type: lower-roman;
ol {
list-style-type: upper-alpha;
}
}
}
}
Whereas an excessive amount of nesting is often frowned upon, I believe that, for this case specifically, it makes the CSS clearer on what it intends to do — particularly for the reason that CSS construction matches the HTML itself, and it additionally retains all of the listing kinds in a single place. All to the identical outcome:
It’s authorized
I don’t know something about authorized paperwork, nor do I intend to study them. Nevertheless, I do know the legislation, and by extension, attorneys are finicky about how they’re formatted due to authorized technicalities and whatnot. The purpose is that for a authorized doc, these parentheses surrounding every listing marker — like (A) or (ii) — are greater than mere ornament and should be included in our lists, which our present answer doesn’t.
A few years again, we might have wanted to set a counter for every listing after which embrace the parentheses alongside the counter() output; repetitive and ugly. These days, we will use the @counter-style at rule, which as its identify implies, permits us to create customized counter kinds that can be utilized (amongst different locations) within the list-style-type property.
In case you’re unfamiliar with the @counter-style syntax, what we have to know is that it may be used to increase predefined counter kinds (like decimal or upper-alpha), and connect to them a unique suffix or prefix. For instance, the next counter fashion extends the widespread decimal fashion and provides a sprint (-) as a prefix and a colon (:) as a suffix.
@counter-style my-counter-style {
system: extends decimal;
prefix: "- ";
suffix: ": ";
}
ol {
list-style-type: my-counter-style;
}In our case, we’ll want 4 counter kinds:
- A decimal marker, with out the ending dot. The preliminary submission doesn’t make it clear if it’s with or with out the dot, however let’s assume it’s with out.
- A decrease alpha marker, enclosed in parentheses.
- A decrease Roman marker, additionally enclosed in parentheses.
- An higher alpha marker, enclosed in parentheses as nicely.
All these would translate to the next @counter-style guidelines:
@counter-style trimmed-decimal {
system: extends decimal;
suffix: " ";
}
@counter-style enclosed-lower-alpha {
system: extends lower-alpha;
prefix: "(";
suffix: ") ";
}
@counter-style enclosed-lower-roman {
system: extends lower-roman;
prefix: "(";
suffix: ") ";
}
@counter-style enclosed-upper-alpha {
system: extends upper-alpha;
prefix: "(";
suffix: ") ";
}After which, we simply gotta change every with its equal in our preliminary ol declarations:
ol {
list-style-type: trimmed-decimal;
ol {
list-style-type: enclosed-lower-alpha;
ol {
list-style-type: enclosed-lower-roman;
ol {
list-style-type: enclosed-upper-alpha;
}
}
}
}It ought to work with out CSS!
Keep in mind, although, it’s a authorized doc, so what occurs if the web is weak sufficient in order that solely the HTML hundreds appropriately, or if somebody checks the web page from an outdated browser that doesn’t assist nesting or @counter-style?
Pondering solely in regards to the listing, in most web sites, it could be a gentle annoyance the place the markers return to decimal, and you need to go by padding to know the place every sublist begins. Nevertheless, in a authorized doc, it may be a giant deal. How massive? I’m no lawyer, so it beats me, however we nonetheless can be certain the listing retains its authentic numbering even with out CSS.
For the duty, we will use the HTML sort attribute. It’s much like CSS list-style-type however with its personal restricted makes use of. First, its use with ul components is deprecated, whereas it may be utilized in ol components to maintain the lists appropriately numbered even with out CSS, like in authorized or technical paperwork similar to ours. It has the next values:
"1"for decimal numbers (default)"a"for lowercase alphabetic"A"for uppercase alphabetic"i"for lowercase Roman numbers"I"for uppercase Roman numbers
Inside our HTML listing, we might assign the right numbering for every ol degree:
Relying on how lengthy the doc is, it might be extra the trouble than the profit, however it’s nonetheless good to know. Though this type of doc doesn’t change always, so it wouldn’t damage so as to add this further security internet.
Welp, that was kinda an excessive amount of for a listing! However that’s one thing intrinsic to authorized paperwork. Nonetheless, I believe it’s the best option to obtain the preliminary reader’s objective. Let me know within the feedback for those who suppose that is overengineered or if there may be a better manner.
