List Bullet Disappear in IE7

Question

About

So this question has been asked time and time again, but I noticed something a little different; see below.

Standard Info:

• Bullet displays in FF
• Bullet does not appear in IE

Finding

• The bullet disappears when setting a hasLayout on the <ul> element, not the <li>; this is often accomplished when doing *{zoom:1}

Firebug in Internet Explorer

UL:

backgroundAttachment       "scroll" 
backgroundColor            "transparent" 
backgroundImage            "none" 
backgroundRepeat           "repeat" 
borderBottomColor          "#000000" 
borderBottomStyle          "none" 
borderBottomWidth          "medium" 
borderCollapse             "separate" 
borderColor                "#000000" 
borderLeftColor            "#000000" 
borderLeftStyle            "none" 
borderLeftWidth            "medium" 
borderRightColor           "#000000" 
borderRightStyle           "none" 
borderRightWidth           "medium" 
borderStyle                "none" 
borderTopColor             "#000000" 
borderTopStyle             "none" 
borderTopWidth             "medium" 
borderWidth                "medium" 
bottom                     "auto" 
clear                      "none" 
color                      "#000000" 
cursor                     "move" 
direction                  "ltr" 
display                    "block" 
fontFamily                 "tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif" 
fontSize                   "0.9em" 
fontStyle                  "normal" 
fontVariant                "normal" 
fontWeight                 400 
height                     "auto" 
left                       "auto" 
letterSpacing              "normal" 
lineHeight                 "normal" 
listStyleImage             "none" 
listStylePosition          "outside" 
listStyleType              "disc" 
margin                     "auto auto auto 30pt" 
marginBottom               "auto" 
marginLeft                 "30pt" 
marginRight                "auto" 
marginTop                  "auto" 
maxHeight                  "none" 
maxWidth                   "none" 
minHeight                  "auto" 
minWidth                   "auto" 
overflow                   "visible" 
padding                    "0px" 
paddingBottom              "0px" 
paddingLeft                "0px" 
paddingRight               "0px" 
paddingTop                 "0px" 
pageBreakAfter             "auto" 
pageBreakBefore            "auto" 
position                   "static" 
right                      "auto" 
tableLayout                "auto" 
textAlign                  "left" 
textDecoration             "none" 
textIndent                 "0pt" 
textTransform              "none" 
top                        "auto" 
unicodeBidi                "normal" 
verticalAlign              "auto" 
visibility                 "inherit" 
whiteSpace                 "normal" 
width                      "auto" 
wordSpacing                "normal"     

LI:

backgroundAttachment       "scroll" 
backgroundColor            "transparent" 
backgroundImage            "none" 
backgroundRepeat           "repeat" 
borderBottomColor          "#000000" 
borderBottomStyle          "none" 
borderBottomWidth          "medium" 
borderCollapse             "separate" 
borderColor                "#000000" 
borderLeftColor            "#000000" 
borderLeftStyle            "none" 
borderLeftWidth            "medium" 
borderRightColor           "#000000" 
borderRightStyle           "none" 
borderRightWidth           "medium" 
borderStyle                "none" 
borderTopColor             "#000000" 
borderTopStyle             "none" 
borderTopWidth             "medium" 
borderWidth                "medium" 
bottom                     "auto" 
clear                      "none" 
color                      "#000000" 
cursor                     "move" 
direction                  "ltr" 
display                    "block" 
fontFamily                 "tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif" 
fontSize                   "0.9em" 
fontStyle                  "normal" 
fontVariant                "normal" 
fontWeight                 400 
height                     "auto" 
left                       "auto" 
letterSpacing              "normal" 
lineHeight                 "normal" 
listStyleImage             "none" 
listStylePosition          "outside" 
listStyleType              "disc" 
margin                     "auto" 
marginBottom               "auto" 
marginLeft                 "auto" 
marginRight                "auto" 
marginTop                  "auto" 
maxHeight                  "none" 
maxWidth                   "none" 
minHeight                  "auto" 
minWidth                   "auto" 
overflow                   "visible" 
padding                    "0px" 
paddingBottom              "0px" 
paddingLeft                "0px" 
paddingRight               "0px" 
paddingTop                 "0px" 
pageBreakAfter             "auto" 
pageBreakBefore            "auto" 
position                   "static" 
right                      "auto" 
tableLayout                "auto" 
textAlign                  "left" 
textDecoration             "none" 
textIndent                 "0pt" 
textTransform              "none" 
top                        "auto" 
unicodeBidi                "normal" 
verticalAlign              "auto" 
visibility                 "inherit" 
whiteSpace                 "normal" 
width                      "auto" 
wordSpacing                "normal"

Any idea why setting a layout to <ul> modifies the bullet?
I thought it might be the margin/padding, but Firebug in IE is showing the same w/|w/o hasLayout.

Bare Page Example:

   <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN">
   <html>
   <head>
      <title>Default</title>
      <style type="text/css" media="all">ul {zoom:1;}</style>
   </head>
   <body>
      <ul>
         <li>foo</li>
         <li>bar</li>
         <li>foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar
             foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar
             foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar
             foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar
             foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar
             foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar
             foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar
             foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar
             foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar
             foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar
             foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar
             foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar
             foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar
             foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar foo bar
         </li>
      </ul>
   </body>
   </html>

Try the above in IE7 w/ and w/o the zoom:1.
Note: because this deals with hasLayout other versions of IE are probably affected.

Answer 1

I found:

• setting li {margin-left: 1em} does the trick
• at {margin-left:9px} you'll start seeing the edge of the right edge of the bullet

Another interesting thing is that triggering the hasLayout on the list item (<li>), will force the bullet to the bottom of the text block. Thus, if you're using something like *{zoom:1}, you'll need to vertically align your li at the top: li{vertical-align:top}

Answer 2

Because of different bullet positions and sizes across browsers and browser versions I stopped using the default bullets and now replace them with an image. This fixes all problems I had with bullets, and you can now easily change size, color and shape of the bullets.

ul{ 
    list-style-type: none;
    list-style-position: outside;
}
ul li{
    margin:0; 
    padding: 0 0 0 16px;
    background: url(bullet.gif) no-repeat left center;
}

For printing you can add a css file that uses the default bullets because images aren't always printed.

This does not work for numbered lists (<ol>) so don't forget the ul css selector