Is there a way to create a lettered list?

Question

Looking at the following guidelines 

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Editing_Tips

I know how to create a bulleted list and a numbered list. Is there a way to create a lettered list?

a. 
b. 
c. 
etc...

Comments

I don't believe there is (or it would be on that page), but you could try using two colons per item and adding the letters :

::a

::b

::c

and so on.  (I just tested it on my space page and it works .. kinda.)

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I think the main answer here would be "be content with what you've got".  Not meaning to be unpleasant, but there are all these ways of creating a list:

* nothing at all (use br/> on the end)
* bullets
* numbers
* an extra space (use a colon at the beginning)

Why do you need something else?

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Because, Ros, he does. Sheesh.

Answer 1

From https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Lists :

<ol style="list-style-type:lower-alpha">

  <li>item 1</li>

  <li>item 2</li>

  <li>item 3</li>

</ol>

Comments

Thanks for asking the question as I've discovered what supposedly many other users have long known. But it's the first time I've looked at any formatting capabilities in detail. Turns out there are quite a lot of useful but undocumented markup syntax available, which are apparently provided by the underlying engine. Whether or not these or any other Wikitree-undocumented extensions will be supported in future versions of Wikitree is unknown, however.

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Not sure this is supported, as it depends on CSS.  

"Unless specifically recommended on a WikiTree help page or style page, all HTML and inline CSS should be considered non-standard. Although we do not have rules about all possible combinations of HTML and CSS, when there is no rule that means it's not supported. It is not officially recommended. It is not part of the recommended style."
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:HTML_and_Inline_CSS#HTML_Tags_and_Inline_CSS_are_Non-Standard

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Ros, further reading shows there is no problem as it depends on built-in CSS which is part of Wiki markup. All Wiki markup is explicitly supported unless there is specific advice against its use.

Wiki Markup is Standard

Unless specifically recommended against on a WikiTree help page or style page, all wiki markup tags can be considered standard. WikiTree will attempt to support them if it doesn't already. We will publish a specific rule recommending against them if necessary.

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I'm confused about this sentence, then:

Although we do not have rules about all possible combinations of HTML and CSS, when there is no rule that means it's not supported.

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The idea seems to be that "raw" HTML and CSS are easy to misuse as well as potentially making a page more difficult to edit. However, Wiki markup, such as the example for alphabetized lists, is actually a layer of abstraction which in turn renders (somewhat more complex) HTML and CSS automatically. I think Wikitree doesn't want to needlessly constrain against using an available Wiki markup feature just because they did not provide an example if its use. However, if some feature becomes problematic in the future they reserve the right to advise against it.

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The page https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:HTML_and_Inline_CSS that Ros referred to gives some excellent reasons why creative uses of HTML and CSS are strongly discouraged. For example:

One member's creative use of CSS and HTML can be intimidating to another member. A new contributor might be afraid to edit the text because they don't know what the tags mean. This fear is well-founded. Inexperienced coders can easily break a page.

We want WikiTree to be "user-friendly" and inviting. New contributors already need to develop some familiarity with wiki mark-up tags. Requiring knowledge of CSS and HTML adds an extra layer of complexity. It limits the number of people who are able to contribute to their ancestors' profiles.

Read that whole page for additional perspective.

Answer 2

I don't know that its supported in the Markup language we use, but you can do it with standard html (which is actually not encouraged) https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_lists.asp