Using CSS to style lists
February 14th, 2006
/***********************************************************************************/
/* Styling a list using CSS */
/* ------------------------------------------------------------- */
/* The design for this list was taken from the article "CSS Design: Taming Lists" */
/* by Mark Newhouse, published in A List Apart, September 27, 2002 */
/* http://www.alistapart.com/articles/taminglists/ */
/***********************************************************************************/
#NewhouseList {
display: none;
width: 20em;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Lucida Grande',
Verdana, Lucida, Geneva, Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif;
background-color: #90bade;
color: #333;
}
#NewhouseList ul {
list-style: none;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: none;
}
#NewhouseList li {
border-bottom: 1px solid #90bade;
margin: 0;
}
#NewhouseList li a {
display: block;
padding: 5px 5px 5px 0.5em;
border-left: 10px solid #1958b7;
border-right: 10px solid #508fc4;
background-color: #2175bc;
color: #fff;
text-decoration: none;
width: 100%;
}
html>body #NewhouseList li a {
width: auto;
}
#NewhouseList li a:hover {
border-left: 10px solid #1c64d1;
border-right: 10px solid #5ba3e0;
background-color: #2586d7;
color: #fff;
}
I came across this handy technique of using pure CSS to design nice looking lists. It's from an article on A List Apart by Mark Newhouse, written back in 2002. There's a link to this article in the list below.
I was going to use this for a show/hide list of related topics (hence the link below). In the end I decided not to because it didn't fit with the rest of the page design.
Click the following link to show/hide the list.
The source that produced this:
<STYLE type="text/css">
/***********************************************************************************/
/* Styling a list using CSS */
/* ------------------------------------------------------------- */
/* The design for this list was taken from the article "CSS Design: Taming Lists" */
/* by Mark Newhouse, published in A List Apart, September 27, 2002 */
/* http://www.alistapart.com/articles/taminglists/ */
/***********************************************************************************/
#NewhouseList {
display: none;
width: 20em;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Lucida Grande',
Verdana, Lucida, Geneva, Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif;
background-color: #90bade;
color: #333;
}
#NewhouseList ul {
list-style: none;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: none;
}
#NewhouseList li {
border-bottom: 1px solid #90bade;
margin: 0;
}
#NewhouseList li a {
display: block;
padding: 5px 5px 5px 0.5em;
border-left: 10px solid #1958b7;
border-right: 10px solid #508fc4;
background-color: #2175bc;
color: #fff;
text-decoration: none;
width: 100%;
}
html>body #NewhouseList li a {
width: auto;
}
#NewhouseList li a:hover {
border-left: 10px solid #1c64d1;
border-right: 10px solid #5ba3e0;
background-color: #2586d7;
color: #fff;
}
</STYLE>
<script>
<!--
function fExpandCollapseRelatedTopics()
{
//Get the element with the id "NewhouseList" (note: this is a div below the "Related topics" link:
var oRTsection = document.getElementById("NewhouseList");
//OnClick, toggle the div between displayed and not displayed:
oRTsection.style.display = (oRTsection.style.display=='block') ? 'none': 'block';
return false;
}
-->
</script>
<p>
<br>
<a class="expandRelatedToggle" id="expandRelated" title="Click to show/hide" href="javascript:void(0)"
name="relatedTopics" onclick="fExpandCollapseRelatedTopics(); return false">Related topics</a>
</p>
<div id="NewhouseList">
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.alistapart.com/articles/taminglists/" title="Click to move to this topic">CSS Design: Taming Lists</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.alistapart.com/" title="Click to move to this topic">A List Apart - home page</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/present/styles.html" title="Click to move to this topic">W3C Style Sheets reference</a></li>
<li><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/itauthor" title="Click to move to this topic">ITauthor podcasts</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
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