Fragmented list with no bullet/numbering

[sbibauw]

The automatic fragmented list obtained with * is simply, in my opinion, the killer feature of Marp.

* Appears first
* Appears second, after a click
* Appears after another click

Pure goodness! Extremely fast to write, pedagogically super powerful.

Now, I sometimes would like to obtain the same fragmented list effect without the bullet point (or the numbering of 1) 2) 3)).
For instance, because I want to make 3 small images appear one after the other (the bullet messes with the layout). Also because it's not really a list.

I know it's possible to add it manually with a lot of HTML (something like: <ul style="list-style-type:none"><li data-marpit-fragment="1">One</li></ul>) but the reason I'd like to use * is not so much because it's a list, but rather because it makes it SO easy to have fragmented display.

So, I think it would be fantastic to have a third type of Fragmented list, obtained for instance with + (CommonMark compliant):

+ One
+ Two
+ Three

which would render as

<ul style="list-style-type:none">
    <li data-marpit-fragment="1">One</li>
    <li data-marpit-fragment="2">Two</li>
    <li data-marpit-fragment="3">Three</li>
  </ul>

(P.S. Only partially related, but I would also so much like to have automatic fragmented display of tables, either row by row, or column by column. Maybe with a header instruction such as: <!-- table: row -->. Otherwise, tables are often too complex/cluttered to present all at once, and using HTML here is simply impossible if I want to keep my sanity.)

[yhatt]

Unfortunately, Marp team has recognized the fragmented list as evil feature rather than the killer feature. We are in favor of the following presentation practice:

No Builds. No presentation needs builds (exposing one bullet point of a list at a time), animations or transitions; no exceptions.

— Presentation Rules – Jilles.net

In addition, new syntax with implicit assigning list-style-type: none to style attribute would bring confusions users who know that + will render as the list in HTML.

We always recommend to make a Marp plugin, to transform + into the fragmented list with specific HTML. (You can be based on Marpit fragment plugin)

[yhatt]

I can understand your opinion. But essentially it's important to know that Marp's goal is in different premise.

Original Marp (yhatt/marp) was made for conference and business purpose, not for educational. So Marp team is still aim to following the best practice for business presentation like the mentioned article. We are not so interested in what are in out of the goal, such as the fragmented list, HTML output. Current features implemented in Marp are just a bonus. Even if implemented features that we are not interested, we cannot promise whether it will keep maintained in Marp for a long time.

Fortunately Marp has flexibillity like custom CSS styling and plugin architecure. If you had some lacked features, just making your own style or plugin would be fullfill your purpose. Actually many users have turned over Marp to educational presentation by making own customize.

[sbibauw]

OK, good to know actually. Note just one thing though: you might, in the future, be interested to know who your users are (quick survey?). Marp's main "selling point" in my case is its speed: I can create content-intensive presentations very fast. As a university lecturer, I need to do ±10h of presentations per week and Marp is so powerful there. If I had to do only 1-5 presentations per year, I would probably use another tool (for developers, Reveal & Impress work pretty well; for business or corporate events, Powerpoint is well integrated with Excel and more customizable). But Marp is a game-changer (thanks to the fast builds, among other things) for academics and teachers who have to present a lot. So maybe there are more of us than you think? 😉

[yhatt]

If Marp had been created for commercial, taking action to resolve user needs is the best. But in reality, Marp is a personal project to resolve my pains, and just making public as an open source backed by volunteer work in weekend. Thus, I would not so work to not-interested features for me even if there are a lot of user needs. e.g. Presenter view: I'm not much work to it, but a contributor in community is working to extend

In addition, maintaining many built-in features would lead to lose project simplicity and sustainability. As you have described, Marp is now making worth in various fields over our assumption. So we have to avoid burning out this project again by a lot of requests that are not suited to our goal. 🔥

I'm just saying it is not suitable as a built-in feature, and note that I was never saying your suggestion is impossible. The open source ecosystem and plugin architecture should help to realize your think. :)

[Juanvvc]

I agree with yhatt: as much as I would like to see some features in Marp useful for the academia, this is an open source project and not a commercial solution. Marp is not driven by market statistics and the distribution of users or their needs is irrelevant. The force that is going to move the project one way or the other is the enthusiasm, time and interests of Marp developers, not Marp users.

I'm very grateful that the interests of the Marp team are aligned just by chance with my needs, and I can be a user of Marp with its current features.

Thanks, yhatt.

[sbibauw]

Thank you. You're totally right! Thanks a lot for all your hard work, Yuki. Indeed, we are really lucky our needs aligned with the product you created. Thanks again for Marp! 🙏

[Juanvvc]

You can change the CSS to suit your needs. In this case, add this to you slide and use the normal fragmented list:

# Hidden bullets

<style scoped>li { list-style-type: none}</style>

* These bullets
* are hidden
* to the viewer

More complex example, personalizing the CSS for each item individually: https://juanvvc.github.io/markdown-slides/marp/marp-tutorial.html#20 Code: https://github.com/Juanvvc/markdown-slides/blob/master/marp/marp-tutorial.md?plain=1#L372

You can also create CSS classes:

<style>.hidden-bullets li { list-style-type: none}</style>

# Normal slide

- Normal
* Fragmented
* List

# Hidden bullets
<!-- _class: hidden-bullets -->

- These bullets
* are hidden
* to the viewer

Also, notice: you can use - for the first item in the list, and the first item will appear from the beginning. I think this is a nice feature if you are planning to use animated lists.

[yhatt]

Yes. Twekable CSS is one of reason why we does not have + syntax :)

[sbibauw]

Thanks a lot, Juan! Great solution!