7.7 Directory Lists
The directory list is a specialized form
of unordered list. It has been
deprecated
in the HTML 4 and XHTML standards. We don't
recommend that you use it at all. [<ul>]
7.7.1 The <dir> Tag (Deprecated)
The designers of HTML
originally dedicated the <dir> tag for
displaying lists of
files. As such, the browser, if it
treats <dir> and
<ul> differently at all (most
don't), expects the various list elements to be
quite short, possibly no longer than 20 or so characters. Some
browsers display the elements in a multicolumn format and may not use
a leading bullet.
<dir>Function Defines a directory list Attributes class, dir, id, lang, onClick, onDblClick, onKeyDown, onKeyPress, onKeyUp, onMouseDown, onMouseMove, onMouseOut, onMouseOver, onMouseUp, style, title End tag </dir>; never omitted Contains list_content Used in block |
<li> tag. When used within a directory list,
however, the <li> tag may not contain any
block element, including paragraphs, other lists, preformatted text,
or forms.
The following example puts the directory tag to its traditional task
of presenting a list of filenames:
The distribution tape has the following files on it:
<dir>
<li><code>README</code></li>
<li><code>Makefile</code></li>
<li><code>main.c</code></li>
<li><code>config.h</code></li>
<li><code>util.c</code></li>
</dir>
Notice that we use the
<code> tag to ensure that the filenames would
be rendered in an appropriate manner (see Figure 7-9, as rendered by the now ancient Mosaic
browser).
Figure 7-9. An example <dir> list

7.7.1.1 The <dir> attributes
The attributes for the <dir> tag are
identical to those for <ul>, with the same
effects.