CSS WG Blog CSS Lists Level 3 WD Published!

CSS Lists Level 3 WD Published!

Posting on behalf of Tab Atkins:

The CSS Lists module was just published as a Working Draft yesterday. The previous WD was published 8½ years ago. Unless I get hit by a bus, we’ll finish the process to Rec in less time than that. ^_^

A quick summary of the changes since the last WD:

• Split the outside value for list-style-position into two values: outside and hanging, reflecting the two classes of outside positioning that browsers actually do (Webkit and IE’s behavior is
  close to the new outside, while Firefox and Opera are close to the
  new hanging). hanging attaches the marker to the outside of the
  text, while outside attaches it to the box, and makes it draw some
  things (like ‘direction’) from the parent element.
• You can now specify a string as the value to list-style-type to
  use that as the list marker.
• The inline value for list-style-type was added, alongside the new (well, repurposed) marker value for display. Using these in concert makes the first element with display:marker use its text
  contents as the marker value. This is useful for documents where the list marker is a vital part of the content, and so must be included inline to ensure that it is displayed properly even when CSS is missing.
• The ::marker pseudoelement was defined, representing the list marker. It’s treated similarly to ::before and ::after in that it
  accepts all properties.
• Most significantly, the @counter-style rule was added, to allow
  authors to define their own counter styles. As well, the giant list of counter styles in the old WD was recast as @counter-style rules in the UA style sheet.
• Processed a lot of corrections and feedback about the list of predefined counter styles.

The module should be feature-complete now, so I’m primarily seeking feedback on the new features. Are they defined well? Are there holes? Blatant mistakes? I’m also interested in any feedback on the predefined counter styles, as it’s still very possible that there are lingering mistakes I can’t catch because I’m solely an English speaker.

~TJ

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