Important Notice
The pages on this site contain documentation for very old MS-DOS software,
purely for historical purposes.
If you're looking for up-to-date documentation, particularly for programming,
you should not rely on the information found here, as it will be woefully
out of date.
dl.
◄Up► ◄Next► ◄Previous►
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
<dl [tsize=width] [compact] [break={all | fit | none}]>
The dl tag creates a definition list. A definition list is a two-column
list. For each row in the list, the left column contains a word or phrase
and the right column contains one or more lines of descriptive text. In the
help source file, the definition list must start with the dl tag, end with
the /dl tag, and contain one or more combinations of the dt, dd, dthd, and
ddhd tags. All ddtd and ddhd tags must precede the dt and dd tags.
Parameter Description
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
tsize Specifies the width (in characters) of the left column. The
width value must be an integer. If this parameter is not
specified, the default width is 10 characters.
compact Removes blank lines from between rows in the list. If not given,
the list has one blank line between each row.
break Specifies whether the text in the right column of a row starts on
a new line (that is, a line different from the start of the
left-column text). It can be one of the following values:
Value Meaning
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
all Right-column text in all rows starts on a new line.
fit Right-column text starts on a new line only if the
left-column text exceeds the width of the left column.
none Right-column text always starts on the same line as the
left-column text. If the left-column text does not fit in
the left column, the right-column text starts immediately
after the left-column text, separated by a space.
The default value is none.
Comments
Although the width of the left column is specified in characters, the actual
width of the column depends on the average character width of the font used
to display the text. For example, specifying a width of 10 characters does
not guarantee that the letter M repeated 10 times will fit in the column.
The break and compact parameters do not affect the headings specified by the
dthd and ddhd tags.
You can insert additional paragraphs in a definition description by using
the p tag following the description paragraph. Other tags that you want to
nest within the definition list should follow the dd tag within the list.
Example
This example uses the dl tag to start a definition list.
<dl compact tsize=20>
<dthd>Item
<ddhd>Description
<dt>Tree
<dd>Plant life in forest
<dt>Orange
<dd>Fruit on tree
<dt>Cow
<dd>Animal on farm
</dl>
When displayed, the definition list looks like this:
Item Description
Tree Plant life in forest
Orange Fruit on tree
Cow Animal on farm
See Also
dd, ddhd, /dl, dt, dthd
♦