How about a classic CSS trick! Getting custom styling on lists isn’t even so tricky anymore, since CSS counters have introduced counter-increment and counter-reset, and that is perfect for this. I just wanted to make sure you knew how it works and had some easy-to-copy examples at the ready.
Let’s say all you wanna do is style the dang numbers:
Oh and hey, if you’re worried about lining up the numbers, you could apply the CSS counter with ::marker and let the magic of list-style do automatic alignment, or here’s an idea with subgrid.
Here’s a CSS counter example from the CodePen Challenges pages:
The keyframers made a Pen the other day that used pretty cool styles. Here’s a redux:
Recipe sites are great places to look for custom list styles, as lists of steps are such a prevelant feature. On Mat Marquis’ site, he’s got some fun ones. I ripped off his CSS and moved it here:
Examples of CSS counters
Make sure to check out the fun little media query change. Lea Verou’s food site, of course, has CSS counter-based numbering as well.
Here’s an interesting CSS counter demo from Jonathan Snook that has a “timeline” look and uses custom counters to label each section:
Trend 2018 warning. Everyone on earth will start to style their list numbers.
There is something satisfying about revisiting concepts you’ve learned a long time ago and finding a new use for them. Thanks for this post. (a bit of nostalgia)
Any way to get the numbers/bullets to “hang” like normal ones would?
Probably negative margin or negative text-indent… depends on your custom styling!
The timeline concept is really cool. I can see that being a fun way to style conversation between two people as well.