HTML + CSS: Numbered list with numbers inside of circles

If anyone is still reading this, I encountered the same issue and found a tutorial that was extremely helpful.

Styling ordered list numbers

ol {
    counter-reset:li; /* Initiate a counter */
    margin-left:0; /* Remove the default left margin */
    padding-left:0; /* Remove the default left padding */
}
ol > li {
    position:relative; /* Create a positioning context */
    margin:0 0 6px 2em; /* Give each list item a left margin to make room for the numbers */
    padding:4px 8px; /* Add some spacing around the content */
    list-style:none; /* Disable the normal item numbering */
    border-top:2px solid #666;
    background:#f6f6f6;
}
ol > li:before {
    content:counter(li); /* Use the counter as content */
    counter-increment:li; /* Increment the counter by 1 */
    /* Position and style the number */
    position:absolute;
    top:-2px;
    left:-2em;
    -moz-box-sizing:border-box;
    -webkit-box-sizing:border-box;
    box-sizing:border-box;
    width:2em;
    /* Some space between the number and the content in browsers that support
       generated content but not positioning it (Camino 2 is one example) */
    margin-right:8px;
    padding:4px;
    border-top:2px solid #666;
    color:#fff;
    background:#666;
    font-weight:bold;
    font-family:"Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif;
    text-align:center;
}
li ol,
li ul {margin-top:6px;}
ol ol li:last-child {margin-bottom:0;}

The horizontal layout aspect of the question can be achieved using CSS float and/or display:inline-block;. These are well documented for this, as list elements are often used for creating drop-down menus using this technique, so I won't discuss it further here.

The circled number aspect is a bit more tricky.

It can't be achieved using standard list styles, unless you're prepared to use graphics, and hard-code the image name each one. This is quite an old-school approach, and I suspect it's not what you're looking for.

One idea that popped into my head would be to use a font that has its numbers in circles, such as this one, and then simply style the <ol> element to use that font, and the <li> element to use your regular font. The down-side of this is that you'd have to keep your list below 10 items, and the user's browser would need to download a whole font just for that. Also, you would need to pick one that matched the other fonts on your site. Probably not an ideal solution, but it would work.

A more practical solution would be to abandon the list style entirely (still use the same HTML markup, but set list-style:none;). The numbers would then be inserted using CSS's little-used :before and count() features.

In your case, it would be along the following lines:

ol ul:before {
    content: counter(mylist);
}

This will give you the same numbered sequence. You would then need to add further styles to the selector above to give it a circle background, some colours, and a bit of margin. You would also need to style the <li> element somehow so that its entire text was indented from the number rather than wrapping below the number. I expect this could be done with display:inline-block; or similar.

It might need a bit of experimentation, and I haven't given the complete answer, but the technique would definitely work.

See quirksmode.org for a writeup and examples, along with a browser compatibility chart.

And the browser compatibility chart gives a clue as to the one major down-side of this technique: It won't work in IE7 or earlier. It does work in IE8 though, and in all other browsers, so if you can live with IE7 users not seeing it (and there aren't that many of them these days), then it should be fine.

I'm using ideas that @Spudley has in his answer, and I'm using ideas from a previous answer I wrote:

• How to use CSS to surround a number with a circle?

See: http://jsfiddle.net/j2gK8/

IE8 does not support border-radius, and workarounds like CSS3 PIE do not work with :before. And, older browsers like IE7 do not support counter.

If you want to make it work in older browsers, you'll have to resort to writing the numbers yourself. I also exchanged the fancy rounded corners for a normal image (which could have rounded corners, but doesn't in my example):

See: http://jsfiddle.net/XuHNF/

So, there's the fancy approach that won't work in IE7+IE8, which probably rules it out. And then there's the ugly, but compatible method.

Of course, there's always another problem. If you have differing amounts of text, then this happens.

You're then looking at this problem:

• CSS Floating Divs At Variable Heights
• https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=user%3A405015+masonry