HACKER Q&A
📣 networked

Do you miss description lists (
) in Markdown (GFM)?


"Item - description or nothing" lists are everywhere in software documentation and discussion. Usage messages are one example. "Awesome lists" on GitHub are another, but they are written as unordered lists. I wonder if they would be if GitHub Flavored Markdown or CommonMark supported description lists (other than through raw HTML). Do you ever miss them?

Some implementations of Markdown support description lists, like Pandoc's. There is basically an established syntax, although it differs slightly between implementations and is not the simplest to parse: https://talk.commonmark.org/t/description-list/289/.

  👤 thiht Accepted Answer ✓
Yes and no. Description lists are just a semantic distinction and Markdown’s goal is to be readable in its raw form. This is a description list in Markdown:

- word: definition

Or

- *word*: definition

It’s perfectly readable and conveys the intent of a description list. I wish Markdown parsers would generate a

for styling purpose but it’s not a blocking point
👤 JaDogg
I never knew about
until I saw this post. So I never missed them.

What is the advantage of

over bullet-lists?
👤 nicbou
My website introduces a lot of terms in a different language.

Instead of using definition lists, I link to glossary pages.

In Markdown, I use wikilink syntax for those links, so [[Anmeldung]] translates to a link to that glossary page.

Then I use a bit of JavaScript to make the link open a tooltip instead of a separate page.

I find this approach easier for me and for the readers. You can see it in action here: https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/anmeldung-in-english-berli...

👤 gbraad
No

  * Coffee__  
    Superior hot beverage.
  * Tea__  
    The other one.
__ (two spaces to force new line)
👤 starkparker
I missed them renaming
from definition list in HTML5. Use them all the time in MediaWiki markdown.
👤 m-p-3
Not really, if I feel the need to add some description in a list I would likely make a table instead.
👤 tsuujin
I really like the orgmode syntax for this:

- term :: description

I use it all the time as a glossary for my notes.