Comments on: The dl element

By: Matth Jenks

Matth Jenks — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 18:47:52 +0000

Actually I found it:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html5-author/the-dl-element.html
but I mistakenly read into it what I wanted to hear:
…dt element for each NAME, not for each LIST.

By: Matth Jenks

Matth Jenks — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 18:42:57 +0000

I too share the frustration of the absent group styling hook. I’m impressed that someone thought to use jQuery to add the necessary containers. But it seems too hacky and frustrating; why do acrobatics just to style items? The W3C needn’t add extra tags just so we can hang styles on them. That’s akin to div within div within div.

I propose The Owl’s suggestion above as the least objectionable solution and we should all adopt it far and wide.

I already hear the hypothetical anguish: “how can a description LIST only contain one item???” Is it semantically possible for a list to be a list of one? Possibly. See the example of a grocery list with only one needed item: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/2370/a-list-with-only-one-item

I further propose that DL is the new LI. When typing “DL” think “DLI” – “Definition List Item.” Marvelously, now we’re using less markup. One may wonder, where is our equivalent UL wrapper for the list?? Think different(ly.) Who requires a list to have a wrapper? Not the browser. As coders, we know a list is created by the simple act of grouping items. List item 1 denotes the start of the list, and the last list item denotes the end. HTML5 gives new flexibility to wrap lists in logical ways. For example:

Pete Schaffer: Master of CSS

Dustin Stover: Master of PHP

The blockquote in the article above seems to reinforce this idea with the phrase, “Within a single dl element, there should not be more than one dt element for each name.” However, I cannot find this phrase anywhere in the HTML5 specification.

By: The Owl

The Owl — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:18:22 +0000

In line with the grouping mechanism, say you have a mulitple column layout with name->descriptions (dt->dd) per column.

Is it reasonable to just use multiple dl elements like:

Name:: Sam Jones





    Location:


    Denver, CO

By: Gareth Redfern

Gareth Redfern — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:46:03 +0000

Is there a way to wrap a dt and dd so that you can style them together? The spec doesn’t appear to let you?

By: Tre

Tre — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 10:29:55 +0000

I really don’t see a huge interest on dl comparatively to ul. not having a grouping mechanism within dl is really disappointing. I rather use ul in my web site design.

By: Yrgl

Yrgl — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:21:34 +0000

Is it correct to use

for movies schedule?

Today

Moview title

Moview title

Moview title

Tomorrow

Moview title

Moview title

Moview title

By: Daniel Iser

Daniel Iser — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 06:30:01 +0000

Could this be used for a price list. ie services. could be done like the following?

Service: Description; Price

By: Jason Kuhrt

Jason Kuhrt — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 20:37:00 +0000

I am with those calling for a grouping mechanism within dl. For me most use-cases for dt/dd are not possible without a way to group them so that I can apply various formatting. This is really disappointing because dl/dt/dd is a rather unique and semantic way of formatting content without good alternatives.

By: David Alpert

David Alpert — Fri, 06 May 2011 14:42:35 +0000

I’m still frustrated by the lack a semantic container that links together related

’s and

’s.

I’d prefer something like:

SMS - Mobile

Message sent: 18
Last sent: 20110325 09:29:05
Errors: 1
Last error occured at: 20010324 09:2905

Where the represents an ‘item’. or perhaps it is the simple and lovable

tag.

Something that structurally groups related terms and definitions for both styling and interaction.

By: Jens

Jens — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:47:47 +0000

I think tables often are used when a DL would suffice or even be more semantic. But then again, I’ve always been unsure on when to use the DL. But I recon my example of a status report below this is a fair usage of the DL where often Tables are perhaps misused because it’s not really table data just simple relations between two items:

`SMS - Mobile`





  Message sent


  18


  Last sent


  20110325 09:29:05


  Errors


  1


  Last error occured at


  20010324 09:2905

Am I on the right track on this one?