Help:Lists

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This page deals with creating lists in MediaWiki.

List basics

MediaWiki offers three types of lists: unordered lists, ordered lists and definition lists.

Basically

Unordered lists: Each item is on a new line starting with an asterisk * e.g. * item.
Ordered lists: Each item is on a new line starting with a hash # e.g. # item.
Definition lists: Each item has two parts : the term and the description; The term is on a new line starting with a semicolon ; e.g. ; term.; The description follows on the same line after a colon : e.g.; term : description,; or the description starts its own line with a colon : e.g. : description (there can be several descriptions per term, each one starting with a colon on a new line).

A little bit further

In the following table you will find some examples for both methods:

Wikitext	Rendering
* Lists are easy to do: ** start every line * with a star more stars mean * deeper levels	Lists are easy to do: start every line with a star more stars mean deeper levels
* A newline * in a list marks the end of the list. Of course * you can * start again.	A newline in a list marks the end of the list. Of course you can start again.
# Numbered lists are good ## very organized ## easy to follow	Numbered lists are good very organized easy to follow
* You can also ** break lines<br>inside lists<br>like this	You can also break lines inside lists like this
; Description or definition lists ; term : definition ; semicolon plus term : colon plus definition	Definition lists item definition semicolon plus term colon plus definition
; Mixed definition lists ; item 1 : definition :; sub-item 1 plus term :: two colons plus definition :; sub-item 2 : colon plus definition ; item 2 : back to the main list	Mixed definition lists item 1 definition sub-item 1 plus term two colons plus definition sub-item 2 colon plus definition item 2 back to the main list
* Or create mixed lists # and nest them #* like this #; definitions #: work: #; apple #; banana #: fruits	Or create mixed lists and nest them like this definitions work: apple banana fruits

Multiple line in lists

For simplicity, list items in wiki markup cannot be longer than a paragraph. A following blank line will end the list and reset the counter on ordered lists. Separating unordered list items usually has no noticeable effects.

Paragraphs can be forced in lists by using HTML tags. If you want to put more than one line of text, add two line break symbols, <br /><br />, and you will get the desired effect. Wrapping text in ‎<p>...‎</p> will render that text in a new paragraph, which will start on its own line when rendered.

Continuing a list item after a sub-item

In HTML, a list item may contain several sublists, not necessarily adjacent; thus there may be parts of the list item not only before the first sublist, but also between sublists, and after the last one. However, in wiki-syntax, sublists follow the same rules as sections of a page: the only possible part of the list item not in sublists is before the first sublist.

In the case of an unnumbered first-level list in wikitext code this limitation can be overcome by splitting the list into multiple lists; indented text between the partial lists may visually serve as part of a list item after a sublist; however, this may give, depending on CSS, a blank line before and after each list, in which case, for uniformity, every first-level list item could be made a separate list.

Numbered lists illustrate that what should look like one list may, for the software, consist of multiple lists; unnumbered lists give a corresponding result, except that the problem of restarting with 1 is not applicable.

Wikitext

Rendering

<ol>
  <li>list item A1
    <ol>
      <li>list item B1</li>
      <li>list item B2</li>
    </ol>continuing list item A1
  </li>
  <li>list item A2</li>
</ol>

list item A1
1. list item B1
2. list item B2
continuing list item A1
list item A2

vs.

#list item A1
##list item B1
##list item B2
#:continuing list item A1
#list item A2

list item A1
1. list item B1
2. list item B2
continuing list item A1
list item A2

One level deeper, with a sublist item continuing after a sub-sublist, one gets even more blank lines; however, the continuation of the first-level list is not affected:

Wikitext	Rendering
#list item A1 ##list item B1 ###list item C1 ##:continuing list item B1 ##list item B2 #list item A2	list item A1 list item B1 list item C1 continuing list item B1 list item B2 list item A2

Changing the list type

Per list

The list type (which type of marker appears before the list item) can be changed in CSS by setting the list-style-type property:

Wikitext

Rendering

<ol style="list-style-type:lower-roman">
  <li>About the author</li>
  <li>Foreword to the first edition</li>
  <li>Foreword to the second edition</li>
</ol>

About the author
Foreword to the first edition
Foreword to the second edition

<ol style="list-style-type:lower-alpha">
  <li>About the author</li>
  <li>Foreword to the first edition</li>
  <li>Foreword to the second edition</li>
</ol>

About the author
Foreword to the first edition
Foreword to the second edition

Site-wide

The standard #, ##, ### wikitext can be used alongside CSS in MediaWiki:Common.css to produce the usual system of numbered lists (1, 2, 3; then a, b, c; then i, ii, iii):

ol { 
	list-style-type: decimal; 
}
ol li > ol { 
	list-style-type: lower-alpha; 
}
ol li > ol li > ol { 
	list-style-type: lower-roman; 
}

The first ol above is the default, so not necessary unless some other list-style-type is required.

Wikitext	Rendering
#list item A1 ##list item B1 ###list item C1 ###list item C2 ##list item B2 #list item A2	list item A1 list item B1 list item C1 list item C2 list item B2 list item A2

Extra indentation of lists

In a numbered list in a large font, some browsers do not show more than two digits, unless extra indentation is applied (if there are multiple colons: for each colon). This can be done with CSS:

ol { margin-left: 2cm}

or alternatively, like below.

Wikitext	Rendering	Comments
:#abc :#def :#ghi	abc def ghi	A list of one or more lines starting with a colon creates a description list without definition terms, and with the items as definition descriptions, hence indented. However, if the colons are in front of the codes "*" or "#" of an unordered or ordered list, the list is treated as one definition description, so the whole list is indented.
<ul> <ol> <li>abc</li> <li>def</li> <li>ghi</li> </ol> </ul>	abc def ghi	MediaWiki translates an unordered list (ul) without any list items (li) into a div with a `style="margin-left: 2em"`, causing indentation of the contents. This is the most versatile method, as it allows starting with a number other than 1, see below.
<ul> #abc #def #ghi </ul>	abc def ghi	Like above, with the content of the "unordered list without any list items", which itself is an ordered list, expressed with # codes. The HTML produced, and hence the rendering, is the same. This is the recommended method when starting the list at 1.

Specifying a starting value

Specifying a starting value is possible with HTML syntax.

<ol start="9">
<li>Amsterdam</li>
<li>Rotterdam</li>
<li>The Hague</li>
</ol>

Amsterdam
Rotterdam
The Hague

Or:

<ol>
<li value="9">Amsterdam</li>
<li value="8">Rotterdam</li>
<li value="7">The Hague</li>
</ol>

Amsterdam
Rotterdam
The Hague

Comparison with a table

Apart from providing automatic numbering, the numbered list also aligns the contents of the items, comparable with using table syntax:

{|
|-
| align=right |  9.|| Amsterdam
|-
| align=right | 10.|| Rotterdam
|-
| align=right | 11.|| The Hague
|}

gives:

9.	Amsterdam
10.	Rotterdam
11.	The Hague

This non-automatic numbering has the advantage that if a text refers to the numbers, insertion or deletion of an item does not disturb the correspondence.

Multi-column lists

Multi-column bulleted list

<div style="column-count:2">
* apple
* carpet
* geography
* mountain
* nowhere
* postage
* ragged
* toast
</div>

gives:

apple
carpet
geography
mountain
nowhere
postage
ragged
toast

<div style="column-count:3">
* apple
* carpet
* geography
* mountain
* nowhere
* postage
* ragged
* toast
</div>

gives:

apple
carpet
geography
mountain
nowhere
postage
ragged
toast

Multi-column numbered list

<div style="column-count:3">
#apple
#carpet
#geography
#mountain
#nowhere
#postage
#ragged
#toast
</div>

gives:

apple
carpet
geography
mountain
nowhere
postage
ragged
toast

Below a starting value is specified, with HTML-syntax (for the first column either wiki-syntax or HTML-syntax can be used).

In combination with the extra indentation explained in the previous section:

{| valign="top"
|-
|<ul><ol start="125"><li>a</li><li>bb</li><li>ccc</li></ol></ul>
|<ul><ol start="128"><li>ddd</li><li>ee</li><li>f</li></ol></ul>
|}

gives

a
bb
ccc

ddd
ee
f

Using m:Template:multi-column numbered list the computation of the starting values can be automated, and only the first starting value and the number of items in each column except the last has to be specified. Adding an item to, or removing an item from a column requires adjusting only one number, the number of items in that column, instead of changing the starting numbers for all subsequent columns.

{{Multi-column numbered list|125|a<li>bb<li>ccc|3|<li>ddd<li>ee<li>f}}

gives:

a
bb
ccc

ddd
ee
f

{{Multi-column numbered list|lst=lower-alpha|125|a<li>bb<li>ccc|3|<li>ddd<li>ee|2|<li>f}}

gives:

a
bb
ccc

ddd
ee

f

{{Multi-column numbered list|lst=lower-roman|125|a<li>bb<li>ccc|3|<li>ddd<li>ee|2|<li>f}}

gives:

a
bb
ccc

ddd
ee

f

{{Multi-column numbered list|lst=disc||a<li>bb<li>ccc||<li>ddd<li>ee||<li>f}}

gives:

a
bb
ccc

ddd
ee

f

Streamlined style or horizontal style

It is also possible to present short lists using very basic formatting, such as:

''Title of list:'' example 1, example 2, example 3

Title of list: example 1, example 2, example 3

This style requires less space on the page, and is preferred if there are only a few entries in the list, it can be read easily, and a direct edit point is not required. The list items should start with a lowercase letter unless they are proper nouns.

Tables

A one-column table is very similar to a list, but it allows sorting. If the wikitext itself is already sorted with the same sortkey, this advantage does not apply. A multiple-column table allows sorting on any column.

Changing unordered lists to ordered ones

With the CSS

ul { list-style: decimal }

unordered lists are changed to ordered ones. This applies (as far as the CSS selector does not restrict this) to all ul-lists in the HTML source code:

those produced with *
those with ‎<ul> in the wikitext
those produced by the system

Since each special page, like other pages, has a class based on the pagename, one can separately specify for each type whether the lists should be ordered. See also User contributions and What links here.

However, it does not seem possible to make all page history lists ordered (unless one makes all lists ordered), because the class name is based on the page for which the history is viewed.