unless i am missing something you are not naming your UL correctly? shouldn't it be:

<ul id="change">

instead of

<change><ul>

or is that something else entirely?

I'm trying to only use descendant selectors, isnt that a rule?

I don't know where your getting <bull> and <change> from…

Can't just make up names for tags.
Check this out, helped quite a bit when I was learning:
http://www.w3schools.com/

list-style-image has poor support. Use background-image and padding-left.

^^ actually you can make up names for tags, BUT only if you are using xml.

so if you've seen XML tutorials on this, they are very different than plain html /css tutorials and are not really interchangeable.

ok, just read the replies. Its 2am here so let me sleep on it and I'll get back on it and answer/try again....

thx

And this is relevant.... how?

Because it could explain why the original poster was making up names for his tags

It seems like an easy solution would be to apply a rule, which is why I'm getting the answer: <ul id="change">

But that isnt a descendant selector is it?


Let me explain what the tags are since some needed clarification.
First I just had a normal unordered list, which was:

<ul>
<li>New BMW Umbrella Design</li>
<li>Oompaville Rain</li>
<li>Umbrella Shortage of 1959</li>
</ul>

Then I made a style change to that list, so I inserted <change>

<change><ul>
<li>New BMW Umbrella Design</li>
<li>Oompaville Rain</li>
<li>Umbrella Shortage of 1959</li>
</ul></change>

And change the CSS appropriately using a descendant selector (NO RULE! Just a parent and their beloved child):

change ul {
color:black;
font-size:1.5em;
font-family: Georgia, Times, serif;
background-color: #cccccc;
}


Now the trick is getting the image to replace the default bullet using ONLY descendant selectors. And since inserting <change> worked, I thought I could do the same for adding the image.

I named the tag for changing the bullet to an image as <bull>. (if you suggest anything else please let me know!)


Now I wrap <bull> around the <li> tags because <li> are the ones I want to change into images. In my mind, now the descendant selectors work in this order:

<change>: Parent
<ul>: first descendant
<bull>: 2nd descendant
<li>: 3rd


Here's how I have it:

<change><ul><bull>
<li>New BMW Umbrella Design</li>
<li>Oompaville Rain</li>
<li>Umbrella Shortage of 1959</li></bull>
</ul></change>

So it would follow that the CSS would be (and this is using descendant selectors only):

change ul bull li {
list-style-image: url(bullet.gif);
}



Now I know this might seem like the long way around (to use descendant selectors) instead of using a rule but this is the way I want to do it unless it's impossible.

If I'm missing something let me know. I might not understand rules and descendant selectors perfectly and there's a TON of info explaining it but I looked it all over and it's not really situational specific enough.

Hope this is clear enough

Thanks!

Ps

It's just me trying to get an idea of the extent you can push descendant selectors to, and not just trying to get this list to work.

Thanks again

Huh?
If it doesn't work then what is the point?

I think the solution you were given original of ul id="change" is the way to do this. See the above post.
I don't know anything about doing it a different way and can't figure out why you would... but if there is a reason maybe I will learn something.

True enough. And I mean if by looking at it at first glance and it just doesn't make sense for you then your probably right. A simple "no" answer is a good answer in my books!

I am hesitant to say just No because i'm not a fantastic programmer... more of a print designer. but i do know classes and lists... and this looks just wrong to me.

Your code's not going to validate, it's going to have limited browser support, and it's going to look like gibberish to anyone else that encounters it or has to work with it. And the markup is inefficient if you have to do that to every list you want to look a certain way. And "change" and "bull" are bad names for made-up tags, or IDs or classes.

And yes, #change li{} is a descendant selector. li is a descendant of #change.

And they are all rules. Every time you see something written like this:
It is a rule.

If you want to do it in XML use XML and XSLT.