Any better way to create MediaWiki numbered lists?

Question

When using MediaWiki's markup language, the only thing that I hate is creating numbered lists. The only way I know to create a list is to do something like this:

#Item1
#Item2

However, if I want to add spaces or some other text between those lines, the numbering gets lost. For example, the following will create text that has two number one items:

#Item1
Somestuff
#Item2

Is there any way around this, or should I just use bullet points instead? I noticed just now that the stackoverflow system does not allow numbering like this, you have to do it all manually.

finnw · Answer 1 · 2012-07-03T06:58:16.617

30

Like this:

#Item1
#:Somestuff
#Item2

edited Jul 03 '12 at 06:58

answered Sep 16 '08 at 13:26

finnw

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I am having the same problem when "Somestuff" uses PRE tags. – Xonatron Dec 06 '11 at 13:32
@sw. put the pre at the end of the previous list element and use for line breaks. source: http://dansesacrale.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/mediawiki-multi-line-pre-within-list/ – Gerry Dec 31 '13 at 02:54
Don't use newlines in `Somestuff`. Continue writing after Item1 (you *can* use `
because that's not a newline in the page source) (In my case, I didn't even need `#`:` ) – Mark Jeronimus May 24 '16 at 13:17

score 18 · Answer 2 · edited Sep 11 '15 at 21:11

18

I use <ol></ol> and <li></li> to embed the <pre></pre> code formatting portions. Works great for me! :-)

edited Sep 11 '15 at 21:11

alomeli

49
9

answered Nov 02 '11 at 13:37

Yap Chin Hoong

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1
I think using
1. as suggested should be the best way to go so far.
– Chau Chee Yang Jun 09 '12 at 01:59
1
This should probably be voted up more - actually addresses the
```
 part of the question and works in MediaWiki.
```
– Sixthfore Jun 10 '13 at 18:03

score 12 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 18 '14 at 00:08

There are a couple of options, but you can start an ordered list from an arbitrary number like this:

#Item1

Something

<ol start="2">
#Item2
</ol>

You can also use "#:" if you don't mind "Something" being indented a lot:

#Item1
#:
#: Something
#:
#Item2

There are quite a lot of options with lists, you can find more info on Wiki's Help Pages:List.

update

Newer version work more like regular html markup the old syntax will now give you a double indent and will not adjust the start offset, but the following works well, even with the source/syntaxhighlight tag.

<ol>
<li>Item1</li>
Something
</ol>

<ol start="2">
<li>Item2</li&gt
<source lang=javascript>
var a = 1;
</source>
</ol>

In short everything within the ol tag will have the same indentation and will not be numbered if it is outside a li tag. The following will now work and it mean you don't have to offset groups manually.

<ol>
<li>Item1</li>
Something
<li>Item2</li&gt
<source lang=javascript>
var a = 1;
</source>
</ol>

score 6 · Answer 4 · edited Sep 29 '11 at 11:55

6

The #: works, but you cannot create a section with spaces, so I would prefer the non-working option. Anyone knows a similar syntaxis that does the trick (start numbering at given value)?

This response is probably a bit late, but I figure I'll add it in case anyone stumbles across this, as I have. You can create a section with spaces by doing something like:

# Item 1
#: 
#: 
# Item 2

This will appear as:

Item 1
Item 2

Now, before you say this doesn't work, the trick is to add an ASCII no-break space after the #: rather than just simply hitting spacebar. You can add this by holding ALT on your keyboard and typing 0160. Doing this should add the usual Wiki paragraph formatting while preserving your numbering between #s.

Hope that helps!

edited Sep 29 '11 at 11:55

OrangeDog

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answered Mar 11 '10 at 03:41

Sam

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The 'ALT + Unicode-character-number' trick only (?) works on Windows; at least it doesn't work on some versions of Mac OS X. – Kenny Evitt Jun 12 '13 at 16:16
3

Use " " without the quotes. Visible (in the editor) too, so a little less magic for the next person. – Peter Sep 25 '13 at 06:01

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 30 '13 at 23:54

2

And for cases where you want to have some block text within your numbered wiki list try this

# one
#:<pre>
#:some stuff
#:some more stuff</pre>
# two

Which produces:

1. one

   some stuff
   some more stuff

2. two

answered Apr 30 '13 at 23:54

Kory Lovre

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5

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 19 '11 at 07:58

2

"#：" will not work with other tags like

<source lang=javascript>
//...
</source>

answered Apr 19 '11 at 07:58

Leon

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score 2 · Answer 7 · edited Aug 23 '11 at 13:26

2

I'm using Mediawiki 1.13.3 and this works:

#Item1
Somestuff
<ol start="2">
<li>Item2 </li>
</ol>

edited Aug 23 '11 at 13:26

Community

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answered Mar 10 '09 at 14:54

Adrian Archer

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score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Aug 01 '12 at 16:16

1

From the Wiki Help Page I was able to get the numbering in a list to stay consitant using <p> and <pre>:

# Item 1
# Item 2 <p><pre>Item 2 Pre Stuff</pre></p>
# Item 3

Would generate

1. Item 1
2. Item 2
   [ Item 2 Pre Stuff ]
3. Item 3

answered Aug 01 '12 at 16:16

Dirk

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josefwells · Answer 9 · 2022-07-22T15:32:48.977

You can do:

# one
# two<br />spanning more lines<br />doesn't break numbering
# three
## three point one
## three point two

Regular old <br> works as well but probably pisses off someone.

You can put additional HTML formatting in as well to do <pre> formatting and the like without breaking the numbering as well. This also works other list formats.

From: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting

edit: Also found that inside a <pre></pre> many of my old tricks don't work, but using 
 works as a newline, and allows multi-line blocks. The cost is that you jam all your lines on one line.

# one
#: <pre>foo&#10;bar</pre>

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Sep 26 '13 at 05:24

Following the link to Wiki Help, I found an example that meets what I think are the implied requirements

The list needs to keep numbering
Sometimes the "Somestuff" should be on it's own line in the source

To get (1) there are a few solutions proposed. Bug one way is to use paragraph delimiters around the extra "somestuff".

Example 1:

# Paragraph 1.<p>Paragraph 2.</p><p>Paragraph 3.</p>
# Second item.

To meet (2), you use paragraph marking in combination with commenting out the new lines (with ).

Example 2:

# Paragraph 1.&lt!--
  --><p>Paragraph 2.</p><!--
  --><p>Paragraph 3.</p>
# Second item.

Both examples display as

Result:


    1. Paragraph 1.
       Paragraph 2.
       Paragraph 3.
    2. Second item

Note that the comment eats all of the white space between the end of one element and the start of the next, which seems to be standard practice, and makes sense if you're trying to have whitespace without the "wiki effects" of the white space.

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Mar 25 '18 at 16:44

Extension:ComplexList

https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?oldid=2126533

was put together but not maintained (for lack of time). It works with 1.26.2 of MediaWiki.

For example.

<cl>
1. list item A1

* list item A2

continuing list item A2

further continuing list item A2

* list item A3
</cl>

becomes

list item A1
list item A2
continuing list item A2
further continuing list item A2
list item A3

Any better way to create MediaWiki numbered lists?

11 Answers11

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