[whatwg] [HTML5] Named start values for lists?

[Ian Hickson]

On Mon, 26 Jun 2006, dolphinling wrote:
>
> HTML5 brings back the |start| attribute on ordered lists. This allows a 
> list to semantically start with a number other than one. It seems like 
> the major use case for this is to split lists up, so that a single list 
> is marked by multiple <ol>s.
> 
> Would it therefore make sense to allow named start values, so that the 
> author doesn't have to go through and re-number everything when a new 
> item is added at the top? And if so, should they be considered 
> semantically one list? And if so, would it make sense for it to also 
> apply to unordered lists, so that they can be split up, too?

I'm not sure we can put non-numeric values in start="", but I agree with 
your basic proposal. I'm not sure it makes sense for us to add it to HTML5 
at this time -- we have a number of semantic things already added to the 
spec and we don't want to get too far ahead of implementations otherwise 
they'll all start doing different parts and it'll take years to get a 
common subset implemented -- but I think it's something we should consider 
for a future version, certainly.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
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