Lists vs. Divs

mrf — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:37:35 +0000

So I took a look at the Drupal Markup Style Guidelines and one passage got me thinking.

If you're in doubt, put it in a div (and give it classes).

Don't leave content adrift on the page with no mark-up at all. Every chunk of html whether in a tpl file or a theme function should have a root DOM element. For module developers this is a div 95% of the time. In page.tpl.php it's the element. (or ?)

If we are truly looking to create semantic HTML throughout Drupal, many areas would be better served using a ul rather than divs wrapped within divs wrapped within divs. I first became introduced to how useful marking up lists of items as actual lists can be through Andy Clarke's Transcending CSS and have found it makes html much easier to comprehend when taken out of the context of its attached styles.

My question, is this really possible to include in Drupal? I already spit out most of my views as lists, this gets me one step closer, but what about including this into other areas of the markup that are also lists?

One problem I see is that the default styling for lists is almost completely unusable, so an approach like this would require a certain level of CSS knowledge to begin styling the lists in useful ways.

Any thoughts?

HTML Working Group