Bulleted list <> …

A bulleted list compiles a set of items, for example items to purchase in a shopping list, animals in a zoo’s inventory or arguments for drinking tea. Each item in a bulleted list begins on a new line marked by a bullet.

Bulleted lists can also depict hierarchies through indentation of items.

How to

A bulleted list is a block, so it usually needs to be preceded and followed by a blank line except when it is at the start or end of a file respectively.

Start the list and each subsequent item with a rhombus <>, that is a less-than and a greater-than sign, representing the bullet. The item can then be either text which may contain phrase markup, or a file such as an image, or a math block.

In order to indent the item, place a dot before the rhombus. Another dot before the rhombus will indent the item further. The dots can optionally be separated by spaces.

Examples

The first example is a simple list of the five Platonic solids:

<> tetrahedron
<> hexahedron
<> octahedron
<> dodecahedron
<> icosahedron

The second example illustrates by indentation that the biological order Carnivora consists of two sub-orders, the doglike Caniformia and the catlike Feliformia:

<> Carnivora
. <> Caniformia
. <> Feliformia

But Aneamal does not limit indentation in bulleted lists to a top-down hierarchical structure. The third example chooses a different approach. It shows a pedigree chart for an individual named Wotan whose parents are Odin and Fina. Odin’s parents are Sabre and Romance whereas Fina’s parents are Benno and Elvira. So in this list a father is indented once above and the mother is indented once below their child:

. . <> Sabre
. <> Odin
. . <> Romance
<> Wotan
. . <> Benno
. <> Fina
. . <> Elvira

..<> Sabre
.<> Odin
..<> Romance
<> Wotan
..<> Benno
.<> Fina
..<> Elvira

For developers

When Aneamal is translated to HTML, a bulleted list is turned into an HTML ul element and its items are turned into HTML li elements. So the first example becomes:

<ul>
<li>tetrahedron</li>
<li>hexahedron</li>
<li>octahedron</li>
<li>dodecahedron</li>
<li>icosahedron</li>
</ul>

Indented list items in Aneamal are translated to nested HTML ul and li elements. The second example is turned into:

<ul>
<li>Carnivora
<ul>
<li>Caniformia</li>
<li>Feliformia</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>

HTML lists are limited to a strict top-down hierarchy because they encode their structure and the indentation by nesting. In order to map a bulleted list which defies that structure from Aneamal to HTML, additional HTML li elements that have no corresponding item in Aneamal are created to complete the HTML hierarchy. These extra HTML li elements get a class _skip and the third example becomes:

<ul>
<li class='_skip'>
<ul>
<li class='_skip'>
<ul>
<li>Sabre</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Odin
<ul>
<li>Romance</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Wotan
<ul>
<li class='_skip'>
<ul>
<li>Benno</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Fina
<ul>
<li>Elvira</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>

Browsers would also display bullets for the aforementioned extra HTML li elements, but you can prevent this with CSS:

._skip {
	list-style-type: none;
}