67941 - Should we reduce the indentation of <li>?

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Core :: Layout, defect)

Description

[tapio.markula]

I put at this way to http://www.nic.fi/~tapio1/Teaching/CSSNotes.html#DL

Mozilla 0.7 calculates the margin property to LI differently as MS IE and Opera. It starts calculating from the default (30 pixel) value of the element, but defining the margin with CSS in Opera and IE reset the margin ignoring the default value. In my mind Opera and MS IE works more consistent.

In my mind the interpretation of Netscape just cause headashe to wed-designers!
Because in your mind the interpretation is correct, this headashe might be permament. Frustrating.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Could you please attach a testcase demonstrating what you believe is an
incorrect rendering of LI elements?  and maybe a ascreenshot of what opera does
with it?

Comment 2

[Henri Sivonen (:hsivonen)]

I don't know what is mean here, but is you set
ul {
  margin-left: 0;
}
in IE 5 for Mac, the text in the list items becomes aligned with normal 
paragraphs and the bullets are placed to the left of the left edge of the 
paragraphs (and the list item text). The same rule has no effect in Mozilla, 
because in Mozilla the margin-left property of <ul> is already 0 (see html.css) 
and the item indentation apparently handled using a non-standard -moz-float-
edge property.

Comment 3

[Henri Sivonen (:hsivonen)]

IE 5 for Windows handles margin-left of <ul> the same way as IE 5 for Mac.

Comment 4

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

If you look at the definition of ul in html.css, you see:

ul, menu, dir {
  display: block;
  list-style-type: disc;
  margin: 1em 0;
  padding-left: 40px;
  counter-reset: -html-counter 0;
}

the "padding-left: 40px" is what is causing the offset of the LI elements.  

setting "ul { margin: 0; padding: 0}" will create the behavior you want in
Mozilla (the margin: 0 is there for IE/Opera/other browsers that have a left
margin on ul instead of left padding).

Comment 5

[James Green]

The informative sample stylesheet for HTML 4.01 given in CSS2 gives:

OL, UL, DIR,
MENU, DD        { margin-left: 40px }

I'm guessing that has the same effect as what we do. Question is, do we want to
reduce the indentation size or not? Updating summary to reflect the question.
All/All/Minor. CC dbaran, hixie who may provide input.

Comment 6

[James Green]

Removing hixie since he seems to be invisibly cc'ed already.

Comment 7

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

See bug 2038 for why we use padding rather than margin.

Comment 8

[Keyser Sose]

Marking NEW while you guys sort it out.

Comment 9

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

This bug was not about indentation size.  It was about the fact that setting
margin:0 on the UL does not get rid of the indentation.  Since we indent using
padding, not margin, and have good reasons for it, I suggest WONTFIX.

Comment 10

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

Since this bug was confirmed, marking WONTFIX to get it off the radar.  Please
reopen if you disagree.

Comment 11

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

VERIFIED. If we change this we'll be breaking backwards-compatability in ways we
probably can't even think of.