Data-sly-list is adding white space, causing bugginess - css

Question

I'm having an issue where an unordered list created by data-sly-list is adding whitespace that isn't represented in the DOM or by any class. If I manually code the list rather than letting data-sly-list handle it, the whitespace isn't added.
 <div class="bullets">
    <ul class="columns unordered-list" id="stateList">
      <div data-sly-unwrap data-sly-list.slidesNode="${resource.listChildren}">
        <div data-sly-unwrap data-sly-list.states="${slidesNode.listChildren}">
          <li data-sly-test="${states.valueMap.flag}">
<sly data-sly-use.htmlpaths="${'htmlpaths.js' # thePath=states.valueMap.path}" data-sly-unwrap>
${states.valueMap.name}
</sly>                    
</li>
        </div>
    </div>
    </ul>
</div>
If I hardcode the list like the following, there's no whitespace
  <div class="bullets">
    <ul class="columns unordered-list" id="stateList">
<li>Accessibility   
</li>
<li>Accessibility    
</li>
<li>Accessibility     
</li>
<li>Accessibility     
</li>
    </ul>
</div>
There's also a htmlpaths.js involved:
"use strict";
use(function() {
var path = this.thePath;
var httpRegex = /http/;
    var hashRegex = /#/;
    if (path !== undefined && (httpRegex.test(path) === false && hashRegex.test(path) === false)){
       path = path + '.html';
    }
return {
href: path
}
});
The only difference I see is that its run through Sightly iterating. Is there any fix to this? In addition to listing I'm trying to break them into columns with the following CSS
li {
width:25%;
float:left;
display:inline;
}
This works perfectly fine on the hardcoded list, but on the Sightly iterated one it creates all kind of weird spacing issues that change based on screen width
This whitespace isn't accounted for at all in the DOM. I'm not sure what to do.
More weirdness:
If the margin top is set to -9 or higher, it looks like the above screenshot. But if its set to -10 or lower, it looks like this
It's like its a breakpoint, it goes from one extreme to the other on that one pixel change. No change otherwise. It's bizarre.

Answer 1

It's a little weird behavior in sightly, when you have some extra spaces in your HTML code, it will display with extra spaces in the HTML.
Try to remove all the spaces in the HTML as shown below and try it.
 <div class="bullets"><ul class="columns unordered-list" id="stateList"><sly data-sly-list.slidesNode="${resource.listChildren}"><sly data-sly-list.states="${slidesNode.listChildren}"><li>${states.valueMap.name}</li></sly></sly></ul></div>
You can use HTML formatter in your IDE or online tools like below to format the HTML for a readable format
https://www.freeformatter.com/html-formatter.html.
<div class="bullets">
<ul class="columns unordered-list" id="stateList">
<sly data-sly-list.slidesNode="${resource.listChildren}">
<sly data-sly-list.states="${slidesNode.listChildren}">
<li>${states.valueMap.name}</li>
</sly>
</sly>
</ul>
</div>
This should get rid of the extra spaces in your HTML.
Also, it is best to use sightly tags wherever we need some conditions to check or embed them directly in the actual div tag or html tags instead of using data-sly-unwrap.
You can also use sling models to get the required data and check all the conditions(including appending html) in the backend and send the data just to display and avoid all the conditions in sightly.

Answer 2

Using data-sly-unwrap or a sly tag still adds an empty line in the generated HTML. Even though most browsers ignore those spaces, they might cause issues in some cases. If you want the HTL output to look similar to your hardcoded HTML, try placing the use statement and anchor tag in a single line as shown below.
<div class="bullets">
    <ul class="columns unordered-list" id="stateList" data-sly-list.slidesNode="${resource.listChildren}">
       <li data-sly-repeat.states="${slidesNode.listChildren}" data-sly-test="${states.valueMap.flag}"><sly data-sly-use.htmlpaths="${'htmlpaths.js' # thePath=states.valueMap.path}">${states.valueMap.name} </sly></li>
    </ul>
</div>
Also, a few tips
The sly tag doesn't need a data-sly-unwrap. It is automatically
removed in the generated HTML.
data-sly-list can be added to the parent ul tag itself instead of introducing an extra div tag and then unwrapping it.
Use data-sly-repeat instead of data-sly-list wherever possible. I was able to bring down the generated HTML of one of our complex pages from 20k lines to 12k lines, as data-sly-repeat doesn't introduce additional white spaces.

Answer 3

Solution
The issue is on line 7 of your HTL template:
${states.valueMap.name}
You have a space at the end of the inner HTML of your tag ;)
Unrelated
Regarding your htmlpaths.js script, are you aware of Transformers in AEM? You can use them to implement a global Link Rewriter which will fix links when a page is rendered, much like your script does. You can see an example here: https://helpx.adobe.com/experience-manager/using/aem63_link_rewriter.html
If you decide to keep htmlpaths.js, you may want to review it because I'm afraid there might be some problems with it. Of course, I don't know your requirement so it's just a suggestion :)