HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
7.5.1.1. More compact definition lists
The
<dl>
tag supports the
compact
attribute, advising the browser to
make the list presentation as small as possible. Few browsers, if any,
honor this attribute, and it has been deprecated in HTML 4 and XHTML.
7.5.1.2. The class, dir, id, lang, style, title, and event attributes
The many other attributes for the
<dl>
tag should be quite familiar by
now. The
style
and
class
attributes let you control the display style, the
id
and
title
tag attributes let you uniquely label its contents, the
lang
and
dir
attributes let you specify its native language and the direction
in which the text will be rendered, and the many on-event attributes
let you react to user-initiated mouse and keyboard actions on the con-
tents. Not all are implemented by the currently popular browsers for this
tag or for many others. [
The dir attribute, 3.6.1.1
] [
The lang attribute,
7.5.2. The <dt> Tag
The
<dt>
tag defines the term component of a definition list. It is valid
only when used within a definition (
<dl>
) list preceding the term or item,
before the
<dd>
tag and the term's definition or explanation.
Traditionally, the definition term that follows the
<dt>
tag is short and
sweetone or a few words. Technically, it can be any length. If the defin-
ition term is long, the browser may exercise the option of extending the
item beyond the display window or wrapping it onto the next line, where
the definition begins.
Because the end of the
<dt>
tag immediately precedes the start of the
matching
<dd>
tag, it is unambiguous, so the
</dt>
end tag is not re-
quired in HTML documents.
