@Amasica , a trivial method is #block(inset: (left:
#block(
inset: (left: 1em),
[
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
]
)
opened 10:11PM - 19 Jan 23 UTC
I propose that HTML natively supports **indents**. While this could be used for … elements like headings or paragraphs, a key aspect of this proposal is that it could also apply to `li` elements without requiring wrapping `ul` or `ol` tags.
This would simplify the implementation of rich-text editors and make HTML behave more like Markdown or plain text, where indentation expresses hierarchy naturally without forcing nested structures.
## Motivation
Nested lists make rich-text editors unnecessarily complex. Managing the structure, merging, and indentation levels introduces fragile logic and often produces invalid or inconsistent HTML.
As Acy noted in the discussion, *there’s currently no canonical way to represent a list item indented multiple levels deep*, which leads to interoperability issues between editors and browsers.
In many editors, it’s already common to allow indentation of paragraphs or headings — for example, to visually group sections, create collapsible outlines, or emphasize hierarchy. However, lists behave differently because their structure is tied to the DOM nesting model rather than indentation levels. This creates a discordance between how indentation works in text-based editing and how HTML enforces it, forcing editors to choose between semantic correctness and intuitive behavior.
CSS alone isn’t a real alternative. Achieving consistent indentation that works properly across RTL languages is difficult, and visually indented structures made with CSS are not accessible, screen readers can’t interpret them as hierarchical or list-like.
By allowing indentation as a first-class concept, HTML could support a flat indentation model that reflects how writers and editors actually use hierarchy, simple, flexible, and semantically clear, without abusing list containers or relying solely on CSS for visual alignment.
## Related discussions:
[1] https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/5567
[2] https://github.com/facebook/lexical/issues/2951