How to Semantically Add Heading to a List

How to semantically add heading to a list

As Felipe Alsacreations has already said, the first option is fine.

If you want to ensure that nothing below the list is interpreted as belonging to the heading, that's exactly what the HTML5 sectioning content elements are for. So, for instance you could do

<h2>About Fruits</h2>
<section>
  <h3>Fruits I Like:</h3>
  <ul>
    <li>Apples</li>
    <li>Bananas</li>
    <li>Oranges</li>
  </ul>
</section>
<!-- anything here is part of the "About Fruits" section but does not 
     belong to the "Fruits I Like" section. -->

How to semantically provide a caption, title or label for a list in HTML

Option 1

HTML5 has the figure and figcaption elements, which I find work quite nicely.

Example:

<figure>
    <figcaption>Fruit</figcaption>
    <ul>
        <li>Apple</li>
        <li>Pear</li>
        <li>Orange</li>
    </ul>
</figure>

These are then easily styled with CSS.

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Option 2

Using CSS3's ::before pseudo-element can be a nice solution:

HTML:

<ul title="Fruit">
    <li>Apple</li>
    <li>Pear</li>
    <li>Orange</li>
</ul>

CSS:

ul[title]::before {
    content: attr(title);
    /* then add some nice styling as needed, eg: */
    display: block;
    font-weight: bold;
    padding: 4px;
}

You can, of course, use a different selector than ul[title]; for example, you could add a 'title-as-header' class and use ul.title-as-header::before instead, or whatever you need.

This does have the side effect of giving you a tooltip for the whole list. If you don't want such a tooltip, you could use a data attribute instead (e.g., <ul data-title="fruit"> and ul[data-title]::before { content: attr(data-title); }).

How do I semantically group a header with a UL in HTML?

It should not be set in the first li because this would assume a sibling relationship to the preceding li elements whereas the header is more important in the hierarchy. Imagine screen-readers etc

<h2>Databases:</h2>
<ul id="databases">        
    <li>Microsoft SQL Server - 10+ years</li>
    <li>Sybase SQL Server - 5 years</li>
    <li>Oracle - 5 years</li>
</ul>

Swap out the h2 for a h(n) depending on the hierarchy in relation to the other headers on the page. To target the header in css just give it a class if there are other headers that will share the same style e.g.

<h2 class="subHeader">Languages:</h2>
<ul id="languages">        
    <li>English</li>
    <li>Chinese</li>
    <li>French</li>
</ul>

Otherwise give it an id

HTML - How to put a header in the middle of an ordered list?

DEMO: http://jsfiddle.net/M4hHH/4/

HTML:

<h1>Header 1</h1>
<ol id="list1">
    <li>xxx</li>
    <li>xxx</li>
    <li>xxx</li>
    <li>xxx</li>
</ol>
<h2>Header 2</h2>
<ol id="list2">
    <li>xxx</li>
    <li>xxx</li>
    <li>xxx</li>
    <li>xxx</li>
    <li>xxx</li>
    <li>xxx</li>
    <li>xxx</li>
    <li>xxx</li>
</ol>

CSS:

#list1, #list2{
    list-style: none;
    padding: 0;
}
#list1 { counter-reset: item }
#list2 { counter-reset: item 4 }

#list1 > li:before, #list2 > li:before {
    content: counter(item) ". ";
    white-space: pre-wrap;
    counter-increment: item;
    display:inline-block;
    width: 2em;
    text-align:right;
}

Semantic HTML of an articles list

I’d use an article for each snippet (i.e. a news teaser).

Each article contains an h1 element for the heading, an img element for the image, and p element(s) for the text.

As you probably want to link to a full version, you could enclose all elements in one a element (which is allowed in HTML5), or the heading etc. only.

So it could look like:

<article>
  <h1><a href="" title=""><!-- news title --></a></h1>
  <img src="" alt="Sample Image" />
  <p><!-- news description --></p>
</article>

Only use figure if this image itself should have a separate caption. The news description (here contained in p) usually isn’t the caption for that image.

You may change the order of the article children. Thanks to the way sectioning elements work, the heading doesn’t have to be the first element.

You may use an ul, but it’s not necessary. ol, however, should only be used if the order is really meaningful for understanding the content (i.e. a different order would change the meaning of the document). Typical example: if the items are ranked by relevance (e.g. most relevant teaser at the top), you should use ol.

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Regarding your question if the teaser should be an article:

Don’t confuse article (HTML5 element) with the term "article" (English language). article has a separate definition that doesn’t necessarily have something to do with the understanding of the term "article".

The teaser should also be an article – the teaser article and the fulltext article are different articles, although they refer to the same entity.

What should be the proper HTML element for a list item title

i believe what you looking for is the proper usage of HTML 5 Semantic Elements. Your code with ul, ol and li is fine, its to create list, but if you want to really define it as title and description (i take it as description because you write in paragraph tag), you can use dl, dt and dd w3school explaination. Here are my example.

<h2>Here's my section with some items
<dl>
    <dt>Item title</dt>
    <dd>Item subtitle</dd>
    <dt>Item title 2</dt>
    <dd>Item subtitle 2</dd>
    <dt>Item title 3</dt>
    <dd>Item subtitle 3</dd>
</dl>

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