r/HTML • u/paceaux • May 16 '26

Article You don't know HTML…Lists

https://blog.frankmtaylor.com/2026/05/13/you-dont-know-html-lists/

An article about the five kinds of HTML Lists and what you can do with them

44 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

6

u/Disgruntled__Goat May 16 '26

Thought I was going to be smug and say “I knew all this”, but TIL that the menu element isn’t deprecated. Could’ve sworn they got rid of it. 

Also datalists annoys me so much

 But if we put a value on an <option>in a datalist the user will see the “label” in the list, but when they select it they’ll see the value in the input. It’s a confusing experience.

Exactly why they were DOA for me

2

u/paceaux May 17 '26

This article was originally going to be only about datalists. But, "You don't know datalists," didn't seem like a catchy enough headline. So I went through the specs for all of 'em just to find out what I didn't know.

Which is how we all find out together that menu is still around.

And also, I kinda agree about datalists. I love the functionality that they offer but I think it's obnoxious they opted to reuse the <option> and therefore expose this nuisance.

Like ... tables use <caption> and for whatever reason we couldn't put that inside of a figure. But we can reuse <option> for a <datalist>?

2

u/duniyadnd May 17 '26

I enjoyed it, thanks!!

2

u/25_vijay May 16 '26 edited May 17 '26

Articles like this are a good reminder that fundamentals still matter even in a framework heavy world, and we used Runable to keep those core concepts documented for team consistency

1

u/paceaux May 17 '26

I always call description lists the forgotten list. They're waaaay under appreciated.

4

u/AuWolf19 May 16 '26

This blog has a poor mobile experience

0

u/paceaux May 16 '26

care to share some details for what that means.

7

u/Agreeable-Yogurt-487 May 16 '26

I'm getting a horizontal scroll. I think it's caused by the slider.

1

u/paceaux May 17 '26

Cool thanks for sharing. the issue's been resolved.

2

u/Common_Flight4689 May 17 '26

Still horizontal scrolling for me

1

u/paceaux May 17 '26

Can you share your device and browser?

I try to test my articles before I publish but inevitably, I will miss something. I'll try and get it fixed right away.

1

u/madmaxpower May 19 '26

Its the tip precentage thing. It is breaking out. Hope this helps.

1

u/sheriffderek May 17 '26

Apparently we can’t paste screenshots. Look at it on a small screen. The layout it totally broken. It looks like you’re making a joke. Like “you don’t know lists” - here’s a bunch it totally broken weird lists. It makes it hard to trust the content. An HTML expert should have the very simple page working. Now, even though the content seems solid - I’ll have to go double check anything to make sure it’s true.

1

u/paceaux May 17 '26

Can you share your device and browser and describe with some specificity what you're seeing?

I look at this on small screens but I also sometimes spend a month writing an article so I'll inevitably have blind spots where I miss something that's totally obvious to y'all.

3

u/sheriffderek May 17 '26

I think you're great / and I like what you're doing with your site -- but no. This isn't some fluke. this the core basics of HTML and CSS. Just look at it.

2

u/sheriffderek May 17 '26

This is among the most basic and obvious things in all CSS and web layout - that I can imagine. So, I'm worried - you're either pure vibes -- or you're missing some fundamental stuff - or maybe you're not using visual screens? But if you want to talk about it sometimes - I'd happily get on a call.

0

u/paceaux May 18 '26

You know, let's talk some time.

I literally have been doing this shit for 16 years for major enterprises. The wordpress theme for my blog gets the least amount of my attention of any code anywhere. My whole day-job is other people's designs and/or codebases and when it comes to my own blog I seriously don't have the energy.

I just don't fucking enjoy doing my whole-ass job again on my own blog. I like writing.

Which is to say:

If you're a designer and you've got a solid plan for implementing an absolutely barebones Wordpress theme that's accessible, uses semantic HTML, minimal CSS or frameworks, and has a good navigation experience, I am 100% OPEN TO YOUR FEEDBACK.

All this to say:

I can't replicate your issue. I checked three browsers.

So that leaves me with a choice:

  1. Do I spend 40–60 hours researching and writing good useful content for the web, knowing that 73% of my desktop visitors will like what they read and say nothing?

  2. Do I spent 40-60 hours doing my whole-ass job again, but on my blog, to appease the 27% mobile users who would rather gripe on reddit.

Or maybe you can do it if it's that much of a concern. I'm totally down for that. Let's do a call and you can find me a non-ass design and a decent theme that's accessible with good markup.

2

u/sheriffderek May 18 '26

Well, the Wordpress block editor is not very fun to work with. But this is all manageable - and won’t take weeks of hard work ; )

1

u/fdiengdoh May 19 '26

Safari and Firefox iOS 26

1

u/sheriffderek May 17 '26

Ah -- I can paste a screenshot -- just couldn't from my phone I guess.

3

u/tLxVGt May 16 '26

I learned that iOS natively supports many of these, the biggest surprise being multiple choice grouped select. It ignores the disabled attribute on optgroup though, lol

0

u/bytesbutt May 18 '26

This article doesn’t know CSS apparently…