125506 - [FIX]DIR attribute is ignored in LI element

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Layout, defect, P2)

Description

[Lina Kemmel]

DIR attribute in <LI> element has no effect since mozilla 0.9.2. It's working 
in older builds.
Tested only on Windows NT, but probably happens for all platforms.

Comment 1

[Lina Kemmel]

DIR attribute, inherited by LI from its parent, works fine.

Comment 2

[Simon Montagu :smontagu]

Mozilla's current behaviour is broken, but it's not clear to me what is the
correct rendering of a <li dir="rtl"> within a <ul dir="ltr">. The ordering of
the item's text should definitely be right-to-left, but where should the bullet
be? Is the location of bullets a function of the directionality of the list or
the directionality of the item?

To me it seems more logical and natural to say that it is a function of the
directionality of the list, i.e. that the bullets will be on the same side of
every item in a given list.

By the same token, if you have a <tr dir="ltr"> within a <table dir="rtl">, I
would not expect the order of cells in that row to be right-to-left and other
rows to be left-to-right.

Comment 3

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

The CSS formatting model would suggest that the bullet should be on the side
given by the direction of the list-item, since there is no special list
formatting object -- the UL is just a normal block (with padding-left, though,
which should really be padding-start, which is a rather ugly issue if the
direction changes in the middle).  But the CSS3 lists module may have something
different to say.  cc:ing Ian.

Comment 4

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

Does the CSS 'direction: rtl;' work?

Comment 5

[Simon Montagu :smontagu]

CSS 'direction: rtl;' does work.

Comment 6

[Simon Montagu :smontagu]

To amplify comment 5: using CSS it works according to dbaron's interpretation:
the bullet appears on the right, and the text is orderered from right-to-left.
That was also the formatting preferred by people on the W3C HTML list; see
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-html-wg/2002JanMar/0171.html for those
with access.

Comment 7

[Simon Montagu :smontagu]

Attachment: CSS example

Comment 8

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

Ouch. Nasty issue. I think what David describes is correct though. If you don't
want to move the bullet, then use <span dir=""></span>. No?

Comment 9

[Simon Montagu :smontagu]

OK, it looks as if there is consensus (with me in a dissenting minority of one)
on the correct way to render an RTL list item, and Mozilla renders like that
when the direction is set in CSS. The bug is only when direction is set by the
|dir| attribute in HTML.

Parsing issue?

Comment 10

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Attachment: HTML testcase

Comment 11

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Attachment: Patch to fix

List items were dropping common attributes (dir and lang) on the floor...

Comment 12

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

taking bug.  reviews?

Comment 13

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

Comment on attachment 70871 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch to fix

r=dbaron

Comment 14

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

nsHTMLTableCaptionElement has the same problem.  Want to fix that too?  (cc:ing
bernd so he knows about it, since it would cause all stylistic attributes not to
work on caption elements.)

Comment 15

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Attachment: Patch fixing LI and CAPTION

I checked and all the other classes seem to do this correctly.

Comment 16

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

Comment on attachment 70930 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch fixing LI and CAPTION

r=dbaron

Comment 17

[Marc Attinasi]

Comment on attachment 70930 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch fixing LI and CAPTION

sr=attinasi

Comment 18

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

a=asa (on behalf of drivers) for checkin to 0.9.9

Comment 19

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

checked in