Ordered and unordered lists have about as many ways of setting them up as there are users of LO. Every person seems to have their own way of doing this, which is possibly related to the definitions of the default styles in LO being less than useful. To compound matters it is not uncommon for people to use toolbar functions in deference to styles. No doubt the toolbar vs styles debate (and the parallel styles vs styles debate) will go on for a long time.
Semantics of the “Cont.” styles
This is my understanding of how lists can be defined. Naturally this can differ for others. If you want to use the default styles supplied with LO then you are going to have to make a choice about what the “Cont.” styles mean. For some (such as yourself) this is a style with no leading identifier that is used as a way of continuing a single point e.g.,
* List 1 Start
List 1 Cont.
* List 1
* List 1 End
For others (and as indicated in the Writer Guide) the semantics of “Cont.” is in reference to the list as a whole, thus:
* List 1 Start
* List 1 Cont.
* List 1 Cont.
* List 1 End
In this case, either a non-identified style (based on the List 1 paragraph style) needs to be separately defined to cater for the continuation of a single point, or you can use the related toolbar function as indicated in this thread.
Paragraph (list) style hierarchy
There is another entire side-discussion about whether or not the List 1 paragraph style should in fact serve as an underlying style for the List 1 Start, List 1 Cont., and List 1 End paragraph styles. I personally feel that this would be a good thing as it would make the list styles more hierarchical, but presently this is not how they are defined so we will leave this aside for now and deal with the duplicated effort required to change all the necessary list styles into something useful. To answer this part of your question though, you can probably link the paragraph styles in this hierarchical manner if desired, although as you indicate not all settings appear to link correctly.
One possible method
You can achieve what you require using styles (paragraph and list) but it is more difficult than necessary due to the dissociation (by default) of corresponding paragraph and list styles e.g., the List 1 paragraph style not being associated with the corresponding List 1 list style, etc. Here is a screenshot of text, using only styles, that may have the layout you are indicating:
One way to do this is:
- Set the paragraph style List 1 to use the list style List 1 (modify style > Outline and Numbering tab > Numbering style: “List 1”). I cannot fathom why this is not the default. It should be.
- Now repeat the prior step for the List 1 Start and List 1 End paragraph styles. Do not do this for the List 1 Cont. style if you are intending this to act as a single point continuation.
- Apply the List 1 Start, List 1 Cont., List 1, and List 1 End paragraph styles to the related list entries.
- Adjust the indent and spacing of the paragraph styles to suit (modify style > Indents & Spacing tab. In the screenshot shown I use Before text “18pt”; First line: “-18pt”; Line spacing: “Fixed” | “18pt” for the List 1 Start, List 1, and List 1 End paragraph styles. The List 1 Cont. paragraph style is set to use Before text “36pt” and the same values as for the other styles. The Spacing values are set to “18pt” | “0pt” (above|below) for List 1 Start, “0pt” | “0pt” (above|below) for List 1 and List 1 Cont., and “0pt” | “18pt” (above|below) for List 1 End.
- Adjust the indent and spacing of the list style to suit (modify style > Position tab). In the screenshot I use Numbering followed by “Tab stop” | “18pt”; Aligned at “0pt”; Indent at “18pt”.
Further discussion
Your remaining queries about the relationships of the paragraph styles are dependent upon the approach to the issues I have posed above. To what degree the underlying XML is affected / related is probably less important than the current semantic and organisational issues I have outlined.
EDIT: Bug fdo#68263 (paragraph/list style inheritance problem) and fdo#68264 (enhancement request to print the style catalog) have been reported.