Problems Starting an Ordered List at Zero

[Jim Cobban]

I cannot get Netscape 4.79 to properly display the ordered list in the
following fragment.

<P>Get a specific portion of the date.
Depending upon the value of index:
<ol start=0>
<li>complete value, usually as a <code>String</code>, or if
an integral value as an <code>Integer </code>.
<li>year as an <code>Integer </code>
<li>month number as an <code>Integer </code>
<li>day as an <code>Integer </code>
<li>month name as a <code>String</code>
</ol>
....

When viewed under IE6 the ordered list starts with item 0 as I have
requested, but when viewed in Netscape 4.79 the start=0 attribute is ignored
and the list is displayed starting with item 1. Since this web page is part
of the documentation of the product it is essential that the displayed
indexes be correspond to the behavior of the program.

When I go to the W3C website I am informed that the start= attribute is
"DEPRECATED ". However I cannot find any alternative way to achieve this
result that is not deprecated.

Any ideas?

--
Jim Cobban jc*****@magma.c a
34 Palomino Dr.
Kanata, ON, CANADA
K2M 1M1
[phone]

[Neal]

On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 13:33:12 -0400, Jim Cobban <jc*****@magma. ca> wrote:

I cannot get Netscape 4.79 to properly display the ordered list in the
following fragment.
That browser is antique. If it will not observe the start attribute, and
you must accommodate NN4, you'll ned to number manually.
When I go to the W3C website I am informed that the start= attribute is
"DEPRECATED ". However I cannot find any alternative way to achieve this
result that is not deprecated.

Deprecated markup is allowed in the Transitional DTD. But as you seem to
need to work with a browser that can't handle it anyway, you might need to
do it differently anyhow.

[Jim Cobban]

"Neal" <ne*****@yahoo. com> wrote in message
news:op******** ******@news.ind ividual.net...

On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 13:33:12 -0400, Jim Cobban <jc*****@magma. ca> wrote:

I cannot get Netscape 4.79 to properly display the ordered list in the
following fragment.

That browser is antique. If it will not observe the start attribute, and
you must accommodate NN4, you'll ned to number manually.

I appreciate that 4.79 is antique, however several of the web sites that I
deal with use a tool, MrSid, that does not support any more recent Mozilla
based browser. That is the tool refuses to install itself into the newer
browsers.

[Dave Patton]

"Jim Cobban" <jc*****@magma. ca> wrote in
news:0Y******** ************@ma gma.ca:

I appreciate that 4.79 is antique, however several of the web sites
that I deal with use a tool, MrSid, that does not support any more
recent Mozilla based browser. That is the tool refuses to install
itself into the newer browsers.

LizardTech's MrSid isn't a tool, but a compression method.
If you are using websites that have images that are in
MrSid format, there are a number of ways to deal with such
images, including using a browser plugin, which will work
with more modern browsers than Netscape 4.79 - do a google
search and you'll find info about people getting the plugin
to work in various browser versions, or you could ask in
a browser-specific newsgroup.

--
Dave Patton
Canadian Coordinator, Degree Confluence Project
http://www.confluence.org/
My website: http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Neal <ne*****@yahoo. com> wrote:

I cannot get Netscape 4.79 to properly display the ordered list in
the following fragment.
That browser is antique. If it will not observe the start attribute,

It observes the start attribute but does not support a value of "0".
There are some odd deficiencies in browser support to this attribute
(e.g., when you use "0", or negative numbers, or large numbers).
and you must accommodate NN4, you'll ned to number manually.

Indeed, because there's no CSS equivalent to the start attribute.

When the numbers are _essential_, it's probably best to make them part of
the content. The best approach is usually to use a <ul> element, with a
class attribute, say <ul class="numbered ">, with numbers in the <li>
elements (<li>0. foo bar</li>) and with a CSS rule like
ul.numbered { list-style-type: none; }

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

[Jim Cobban]

"Jukka K. Korpela" <jk******@cs.tu t.fi> wrote in message
news:Xn******** *************** ******@193.229. 0.31...

Neal <ne*****@yahoo. com> wrote:

When the numbers are _essential_, it's probably best to make them part of
the content. The best approach is usually to use a <ul> element, with a
class attribute, say <ul class="numbered ">, with numbers in the <li>
elements (<li>0. foo bar</li>) and with a CSS rule like
ul.numbered { list-style-type: none; }

If the text of the list item is too long to fit on one line won't it wrap
back to the left margin, rather than being indented to the same horizontal
position as the first letter of the text on the first line?

[Jukka K. Korpela]

"Jim Cobban" <jc*****@magma. ca> wrote:

When the numbers are _essential_, it's probably best to make them
part of the content. The best approach is usually to use a <ul>
element, with a class attribute, say <ul class="numbered ">, with
numbers in the <li> elements (<li>0. foo bar</li>) and with a CSS
rule like ul.numbered { list-style-type: none; }

If the text of the list item is too long to fit on one line won't it
wrap back to the left margin, rather than being indented to the same
horizontal position as the first letter of the text on the first
line?

Typically, yes. I didn't want to go into the presentational details, but
if you wish to simulate the typical appearance of <ol>, you need to add
some CSS code and probably extra HTML markup (for the numbers) too.
On the other hand, it gets a bit awkward then, so you might also consider
using a table:

<table class="numbered " summary=
"This table corresponds to a numbered list, so that the first
column has item numbers, the second column contains the items."
cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" >
<tr><td align="right" valign="top">0. &nbsp;&nbsp; </td>
<td>foo bar</td></tr>
....
</table>

It's a bit clumsy too, of course, and a bit illogical, since the cells of
the first column should really be headers for the cells of the second
column (<th scope="row">0.</th>). But I just sketched an approach that
works in "pure" (though surely not Puristic) HTML. Of course you could
also use table markup with no presentational attributes (and no &nbsp;
trickery) and handle the rendering in CSS, though then the list would
look a bit odd in CSS-disabled browsing.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

[Toby Inkster]

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

When the numbers are _essential_, it's probably best to make them part of
the content. The best approach is usually to use a <ul> element, with a
class attribute, say <ul class="numbered ">, with numbers in the <li>
elements (<li>0. foo bar</li>) and with a CSS rule like
ul.numbered { list-style-type: none; }

Seems nasty though to suggest the use of a <ul> element in a situation
where the numbers (and thus presumably the ordering) are so important.

I guess this would end up producing the correct result in the most
situations though.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact
Now Playing ~ ./white_town_-_your_woman.ogg

[Stan Brown]

"Jukka K. Korpela" <jk******@cs.tu t.fi> wrote in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html:

Indeed, because there's no CSS equivalent to the start attribute.

I wonder why, given that the attribute is deprecated in HTML 4.01
Strict.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Jim Cobban]

"Stan Brown" <th************ @fastmail.fm> wrote in message
news:MP******** *************** *@news.odyssey. net...

"Jukka K. Korpela" <jk******@cs.tu t.fi> wrote in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html:

Indeed, because there's no CSS equivalent to the start attribute.

I wonder why, given that the attribute is deprecated in HTML 4.01
Strict.

Apparently you are supposed to write some complicated CSS code to implement
the counter yourself. Seems overkill, and if they are going to propose such
a complicated workaround I feel they should describe the workaround in the
specification.