Definition lists

[Bowerbird at aol.com]

michel said:

>    But what happens if you mix the two? Let's see...

>   

>        Apple

>        :    Pomaceous fruit of plants of the genus Malus in

>        the family Rosaceae.

>        :    An american computer company.

>        Orange

>        :    The fruit of an evergreen tree of the genus Citrus.

>   

>   This isn't right at all. PHP Markdown Extra 1.0b2 sees three terms, and

...

>   Now, I see two ways to solve that: 

>   either we make indentation mandatory, 

>    or we say definition terms must be preceded by an empty line. 

>    I think the first goes against current Markdown behaviours, but 

>    I also happen to like the compact form 

>    which is nice for lists with many short definitions.


i think you should require indentation _and_ blank lines!           :+)
that way the stuff looks very clean even in its ascii form.

however, i do see a way to tangle apart the ambiguity, although
i don't know if you're willing to use it -- closing punctuation...

if you _disallow_ closing punctuation on the dictionary-term
and _require_ it on every dictionary-definition, you'd be fine.
you'll see this rule was followed unconsciously in two of the
three examples.   (and that third one was about some bozo.)          ;+)

and "closing punctuation" wouldn't have to be a period per se.
a blank line could be considered as such.   and, in a similar fashion,
indentation could be defined as always starting a dictionary-definition.

this combination of rules would seem to me to let everyone
do it how they wanted to, and still have it come out right,
which is a good part of the objective, as i understand it...

-bowerbird
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