[whatwg] <p> elements containing other block-level elements

[Matthew Thomas]

Anne van Kesteren wrote:
>...
>> Lists should not be classified as block level or inline level
>> elements within the spec.
> 
> I think they should. (Note that block and inline are different here from
> the definition CSS applies to them.) That way they get another content
> model that might be more suited for inline situations.

You mean perhaps a content model like this? <p>For this recipe you need 
<ul><li>an egg</li>, <li>flour</li>, and <li>butter</li></ul>. Mix it 
all together and so forth.</p>

I think such a content model would have exactly the same problem as 
Ian's semantically inferior example (<ul><li>an egg,</li> <li>flour, 
and</li> <li>butter.</li></ul>): no-one[1] would use it, because they 
wouldn't get any benefit. Most authors use <ul> and <ol> only because 
it's an easy way of achieving bulleted and numbered lists -- as shown by 
their willingness to run to <div> (or worse, <br>) for any list that 
they don't want bulleted.

<p>It makes sense to allow bulleted/numbered lists inside paragraphs, 
for two reasons:<ul>
<li>such lists are already used in typography</li>
<li>they would have acceptable presentation in UAs that claim HTML4
     support.</li>
</ul>But as for inline lists, I think creating markup for them would be 
a waste of time.</p>

Agreed with the rest of what you said, though. The content model for any 
block element allowed inside paragraphs should be tweaked to not allow 
paragraphs when it's inside a paragraph, because nested paragraphs don't 
make sense.

[1] By which of course I mean "no-one except the sort of people who 
write about markup in their Weblogs". :-)

-- 
Matthew Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/