UL - Unordered List

Summary

Syntax	<UL>...</UL>
Attribute Specifications	TYPE=[ disc | square | circle ] (bullet style) COMPACT (compact display) common attributes
Contents	One or more LI elements
Contained in	APPLET, BLOCKQUOTE, BODY, BUTTON, CENTER, DD, DEL, DIV, FIELDSET, FORM, IFRAME, INS, LI, MAP, NOFRAMES, NOSCRIPT, OBJECT, TD, TH

Details

The UL element defines an unordered list. The element contains one or more LI elements that define the actual items of the list.

Unlike with an ordered list (OL), the items of an unordered list have no sequence. In theory, users should be able to change the order of items in an unordered list (e.g., alphabetizing them).

Visual browsers typically render UL with a bullet preceding each list item, but authors can suggest various presentations using style sheets. The list-style property of Cascading Style Sheets allows authors to suppress bullets, use images as list item markers, and more.

The deprecated TYPE attribute of UL suggests the bullet style on visual browsers. Possible values are as follows:

• disc (a filled-in circle)
• square (a square outline)
• circle (a circle outline)

The bullet style on an individual list item can be suggested using the TYPE attribute of LI. The list-style-type property of CSS provides greater flexibility in suggesting bullet styles.

The deprecated COMPACT attribute suggests that visual browsers render the list compactly, perhaps with reduced spacing between items. This attribute is not well supported among browsers.

More Information

• UL in W3C HTML 4.0 Recommendation
• UL in W3C HTML 3.2 Recommendation
• UL in HTML 2.0 Standard
• UL in WDG HTML 3.2 Reference
• UL in Learning HTML 3.2 by Examples

Copyright © John Pozadzides and Liam Quinn. All rights reserved.