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RE: How to present lists within lists

for

From: Patrick Lauke
Date: Jun 21, 2006 7:10PM

> Penny Roberts

> What is the best way to present the following type of information?

I'd say there isn't a "best" way. Any way you're going to mark this up
will be imperfect, for different reasons. In some cases, it may even be
clear if you just did something like:

<h1>List of companies</h1>
<h2>Company 1 name</h2>
<p>URL</p>
<p>e-mail</p>
...
<h2>Company 2 name</h2>
...

I'd tend to go for a definition list, mainly due to the very vague and
fluffy way in which the DL's semantics have been defined in the spec
(some might argue, wrongly). Keep in mind that some screen readers will
read it out as if it were a "true" definition list, i.e. the DDs define
the DT...so something like "Company 1 name equals URL" or similar.

<dl>
<dt>Company 1 name</dt>
<dd>URL</dd>
<dd>e-mail</dd>
<dd>phone</dd>
<dt>Company 2 name</dt>
<dd>URL</dd>
<dd>US phone</dd>
<dd>Euro phone</dd>
<dt>Company 3 name</dt>
<dd>Phone</dd>
</dl>

> and the associated information is not uniform.

Shame, otherwise I would have said it's a clear case for a nice table, a la

<table>
<thead>
<tr><th scope="col">Company</th><th>URL</th><th>Email</th>...</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td scope="row">Company 1 name</td><td>www...</td><td> <EMAIL REMOVED> </td>
...
</tr>
</tbody>
<table>

P
________________________________
Patrick H. Lauke
Web Editor
External Relations Division
University of Salford
Room 113, Faraday House
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T +44 (0) 161 295 4779
<EMAIL REMOVED>

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