unordered lists in manifest

  • spongebelly · Member ·

    Dear WP,

    I noticed that unordered lists in the Manifest theme don’t have any bullets. Same goes for Vintage Camera. Please fix this! Please don’t make me do:

    <ul style="list-style-type:disc;">

    whenever I want to use an unordered list. There’s no way of expressing the above in markdown so I’d be forced to use HTML all the time.

    Thanks!

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • designsimply · Member ·

    I checked the Manifest theme demo site, and bulleted lists are working as expected there:
    http://manifestdemo.wordpress.com/2007/09/05/raw-html-code/

    If you’re still having trouble, please provide a link to a post or page where the problem is currently happening and I will take a closer look.

  • spongebelly · Member ·

    Hi DS,

    Thanks for replying. I had a look at the page on the demo site. No bullets next to the unordered list items. And no numbers next to the ordered list items either.

    I should explain that I’m using the JAWS screen reader with IE 11. Same disappointing results with NVDA and FF. I suspect a CSS issue.

  • designsimply · Member ·

    I tested http://manifestdemo.wordpress.com/2007/09/05/raw-html-code/ with Firefox 27.0.1 on a Mac and IE11 on Windows 7, and I could see the list elements working correctly. I looked at the CSS and I don’t see anything blocking the bullets from showing, in fact, they are set to “list-style: square;” I’m not sure why you’re not seeing them with a screen reader. The list items are really far down on that page (sorry about that!), maybe you didn’t scroll down far enough? Look for the text that says “item 1” and “item 2”

  • spongebelly · Member ·

    Hi DS,

    Checked the demo page again. The sample ordered and unordered lists are after the definition list and before the table tags. No bullets and no numbers. At least, that’s how JAWS is calling it. Smells like CSS to me. Are the list items being pushed back in towards the left margin and overlaying the bullets and numbers? Just a thought.

    I don’t have a Mac, but I would be interested to know what VoiceOver had to say.

    Thanks for investigating.

    – SB

  • designsimply · Member ·

    I checked, and the list items are not being pushed back in towards the left. However, I also tested with VoiceOver on my Mac, and I found that it it says “bullet” before each list item if list-style is set to “disc” but not if it’s set to “square,” and the Manifest theme uses square bullets. I think square bulleted lists should be acceptable, but now I see that you’re having trouble because what you are describing is that your screen reader does not recognize square bullets.

  • spongebelly · Member ·

    Hi DS,

    This problem goes back years as demonstrated by this 456 Berea Street post from September, 2011. The key passage imho is:

    In my opinion this is a case where screen readers take “screen reading” a bit too literally. Or, as may well be the case, browsers applying CSS too liberally before exposing item states and properties to screen readers through their accessibility APIs. I think in most cases screen reader users would benefit if list-style:none was ignored, or at the very least configurable to be ignored. Whatever the reason, as a developer it surely doesn’t hurt to be aware that list items often are not announced as such by screen readers.

    Couldn’t have said it better myself!

    So… any chance you could patch Manifest to make the ordered and unordered lists more vanilla and less likely to trip up screen readers?

    Thanks!

    – SB

  • designsimply · Member ·

    I will ask for a review from the theme team on this issue to see if that’s a possibility or not. Please note that they often decide against making changes to themes that modify the visual design which has been established over time—especially if the issue can be addressed using custom CSS.

    Aside: square bulleted lists have been around for a long time. I wonder why screen readers don’t recognize them, seems like they should.

  • blankthemes · Member ·

    Hello,

    Thank you for reporting this issue. We have adjusted the bulleted lists.

    Let us know if you have any other questions.

  • spongebelly · Member ·

    Hello Again,

    Thanks for your efforts. Unfortunately, the problem persists. I’ve written a test post which I hope will help you diagnose what’s causing this behaviour.

    Remember, everything might look okay, but read the page again with a screen reader and it’s a different story.

    – SB

  • spongebelly · Member ·

    Dear WP,

    I tried the test post again with the latest release of NVDA (2014.1) and it reads everything correctly… except for the last list. It thinks it’s an ordered list with numbers when in fact it’s an ordered list with lowercase Latin letters. Obviously a bug. My JAWS 13 is still stubbornly refusing to read the bullets or numbers in the first two lists. And it still says “bullet” for unordered lists even though they’ve been explicitly set to disc or square (NVDA behaves the same). But JAWS is reading the ordered lists with inline CSS correctly.

    That’s how things stand for now. I might try again when I get an upgrade to JAWS 15. Funny how this issue only comes up with Manifest (Vintage Camera too, I suspect). My feeling is that some unusual interaction between the screen readers’ parsing of the DOM tree and Manifest’s CSS is at the root of the problem.

    – SB

  • jackiedana · Member ·

    @spongebelly, in cleaning up old threads, I just discovered your most recent comments had not received a response from us. If you are still having issues with the Manifest theme and unordered lists, please post a new thread so our staff can take a further look for you. Thanks!

  • spongebelly · Member ·

    Hi JD!

    Thanks for the follow-up!

    But as I explained in my last post, I don’t think there’s a simple solution to this problem.

    I’ve moved away from Manifest and opted for Twenty Twelve instead. The “smart sidebar” that automatically disappears on pages and posts with no widgets is an excellent feature and should be included in more themes, imho.

    – SB

  • jackiedana · Member ·

    Hi spongebelly,

    I’m sorry you weren’t able to solve the issue with Manifest but I’m happy you were able to make another theme work. If you want to give Manifest another try, or have more questions about using WordPress.com in general, please feel free to post a new thread and we’ll be happy to take a look.

  • The topic ‘unordered lists in manifest’ is closed to new replies.