Question

I want to format my unordered list into two sections of text. I’ve been trying to find out how to do this with Google. but everyone seems interested in making their lists flow left to right, which is not what I want to do. What I’m looking for is a way to make the following:

 Food                Calories

 Fruit
    -Apple            90
    -Grape            5
    -Berries          
       -Strawberry    16
       -Blueberry     9
 Vegetable
    -Cucumber         12
    -Onions            
       -Red           29
       -White         34
       -Vidalia       47

Is this possible with an unordered list and CSS? I’d prefer not to use a table for this, since I’d like to make the <li> expand and contract.

EDIT: Hopefully it looks more like an expand/contract hierarchy now than strictly tabular data. I understand that it’s possible to do this with a table, it just seems less natural to present a hierarchy that way.

Answer 1

With the following HTML you can do this (and, frankly, with other HTML you could do this…) but you should use tables.

Anyway, that said, the HTML I’m working with:

<ul>
    <li class="head">
        <span class="col1">Food</span>
        <span class="col2">Calories</span>
    </li>
    <li>Fruits
        <ul>
            <li>
                <span class="col1">Apple</span>
                <span class="col2">90</span>
            </li>
            <li>
                <span class="col1">Grape</span>
                <span class="col2">5</span>
            </li>
            <li>
                <span class="col1">strawberry</span>
                <span class="col2">16</span>
            </li>
        </ul></li>
    <li>Vegetable
        <ul>
            <li>
                <span class="col1">Cucumber</span>
                <span class="col2">12</span>
            </li>
            <li>
                <span class="col1">Onion</span>
                <span class="col2">29</span>
            </li>
        </ul></li>
</ul>​

And the CSS:

li.head {
    font-weight: bold;
}
span.col1,
span.col2 {
    display: inline-block;
    width: 48%;
}

ul > li > ul > li {
    padding-left: 10%;
    height: 0;
    line-height: 0;
    overflow: hidden;
    -webkit-transition: all 1s linear;
}

ul > li:hover > ul > li {
    height: 2em;
    line-height: 2em;
    -webkit-transition: all 1s linear;
}

ul > li > ul > li span:first-child::before {
    content: '-';
    width: 40%;
}

li li:nth-child(odd) span {
    background-color: #aaf;
}
​

JS Fiddle demo.

To allow for keyboard navigation, and showing the nested foods/calorie values in response to tab-events, I’ve amended the HTML a little to wrap the fruits and vegetable text with an a element:

<ul>
    <li class="head">
        <span class="col1">Food</span>
        <span class="col2">Calories</span>
    </li>
    <li><a href="#">Fruits</a>
        <ul>
            <li>
                <span class="col1">Apple</span>
                <span class="col2">90</span>
            </li>
            <li>
                <span class="col1">Grape</span>
                <span class="col2">5</span>
            </li>
            <li>
                <span class="col1">strawberry</span>
                <span class="col2">16</span>
            </li>
        </ul></li>
    <li><a href="#">Vegetable</a>
        <ul>
            <li>
                <span class="col1">Cucumber</span>
                <span class="col2">12</span>
            </li>
            <li>
                <span class="col1">Onion</span>
                <span class="col2">29</span>
            </li>
        </ul></li>
</ul>​

With the following CSS:

li.head {
    font-weight: bold;
}

li a {
    color: inherit;
    text-decoration: none;
}

span.col1,
span.col2 {
    display: inline-block;
    width: 48%;
}

ul > li > ul > li {
    padding-left: 10%;
    height: 0;
    line-height: 0;
    overflow: hidden;
    -moz-transition: all 1s linear;
    -ms-transition: all 1s linear;
    -o-transition: all 1s linear;
    -webkit-transition: all 1s linear;
    transition: all 1s linear;
}

ul > li a:focus + ul > li,
ul > li:hover > ul > li {
    height: 2em;
    line-height: 2em;
    -moz-transition: all 1s linear;
    -ms-transition: all 1s linear;
    -o-transition: all 1s linear;
    -webkit-transition: all 1s linear;
    transition: all 1s linear;
}

ul > li > ul > li span:first-child::before {
    content: '-';
    width: 40%;
}

li li:nth-child(odd) span {
    background-color: #aaf;
}
​

JS Fiddle demo.

Both of these, however, assume that you want to hide automatically, and show based on user-interaction. If that assumption’s incorrect then the transitions aren’t necessary.

Incidentally, an accordion-like table solution:

<table>
    <colgroup>
        <col class="foods" />
        <col class="calories" />
    </colgroup>
    <thead>
        <tr>
            <th>Food</th>
            <th>Calories</th>
        </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
        <tr class="header">
            <td colspan="2">Fruits</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>Apple</td>
            <td>90</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>Grape</td>
            <td>5</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>Strawberry</td>
            <td>16</td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
        <tr class="header">
            <td colspan="2">Vegetable</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>Cucumber</td>
            <td>12</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>Onion</td>
            <td>29</td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

CSS:

.foods,
.calories {
    width: 8em;
}

tbody tr.header {
    height: 2em;
    line-height: 2em;
}

tbody tr,
tbody tr td {
    max-height: 0;
    line-height: 0;
    overflow: hidden;
    -moz-transition: all 1s linear;
    -ms-transition: all 1s linear;
    -o-transition: all 1s linear;
    -webkit-transition: all 1s linear;
    transition: all 1s linear;
}

tbody tr td:first-child {
    padding-left: 2em;
}

tbody tr.header td {
    padding: 0;
}

tbody:hover tr {
    height: 2em;
    max-height: 2em;
    line-height: 2em;
    -moz-transition: all 1s linear;
    -ms-transition: all 1s linear;
    -o-transition: all 1s linear;
    -webkit-transition: all 1s linear;
    transition: all 1s linear;
}
​

JS Fiddle demo.

This makes the same assumptions as previously, that you want to control the visibility by hovering over the header to show the hidden content.

And, just for kicks, adding keyboard-navigation (with tab), using the tabindex attribute on the tr.header elements:

<table>
    <colgroup>
        <col class="foods" />
        <col class="calories" />
    </colgroup>
    <thead>
        <tr>
            <th>Food</th>
            <th>Calories</th>
        </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
        <tr class="header" tabindex="1">
            <td colspan="2">Fruits</td>
        </tr>
        <!-- unchanged from the previously-posted table mark-up -->
    </tbody>
    <tbody>
        <tr class="header" tabindex="2">
            <td colspan="2">Vegetable</td>
        </tr>
        <!-- unchanged from the previously-posted table mark-up -->
    </tbody>
</table>

​And CSS:

/* Other CSS remains the same */
tr.header:focus ~ tr,
tbody:hover tr {
    height: 2em;
    max-height: 2em;
    line-height: 2em;
    -moz-transition: all 1s linear;
    -ms-transition: all 1s linear;
    -o-transition: all 1s linear;
    -webkit-transition: all 1s linear;
    transition: all 1s linear;
}

tr.header:focus {
    outline: none;
    font-style: italic;
    background-color: #ffa;
}
​

JS Fiddle demo.