Dart package that extends package:markdown with support for description lists, sometimes known as definition lists.

Installation

To use package:markdown_description_list and its provided syntax extension, first add it and package:markdown as dependencies in your pubspec.yaml file:

dart pub add markdown markdown_description_list

Usage

The package contains one library:

• package:markdown_description_list/markdown_description_list.dart

  Provides the DescriptionListSyntax class which can be included in the list of block syntaxes provided to package:markdown to add support for parsing description lists in Markdown.

Parse description lists from Markdown

To add support for parsing description lists in Markdown, add a DescriptionListSyntax in list of block syntaxes provided to package:markdown.

When creating a Document:

import 'package:markdown/markdown.dart' as md;
import 'package:markdown_description_list/markdown_description_list.dart';

void main() {
  final document = md.Document(
    blockSyntaxes: [const DescriptionListSyntax()],
  );

  final exampleMarkdown = '''
Markdown
: A plain-text markup language for writing structured documents.
''';

  // Parse the Markdown string into a list of nodes.
  final nodes = document.parse(exampleMarkdown);

  // Render the resulting nodes into an HTML string.
  final html = md.renderToHtml(nodes);
}

When parsing and rendering a single string:

import 'package:markdown/markdown.dart' as md;
import 'package:markdown_description_list/markdown_description_list.dart';

void main() {
  final document = md.Document(
    blockSyntaxes: [const DescriptionListSyntax()],
  );

  final exampleMarkdown = '''
Markdown
: A plain-text markup language for writing structured documents.
''';

  // Directly parse the Markdown string and render into an HTML string.
  final html = md.markdownToHtml(
    exampleMarkdown,
    blockSyntaxes: [const DescriptionListSyntax()],
  );
}

Write description lists in Markdown

The supported syntax for description lists allows grouping one or more descriptions to one or more terms. To write description lists in this syntax, follow this procedure:

1. Write one or more terms on consecutive lines.
2. On a new line after the terms, add a colon and a space (: ).
3. After the colon and space, write a description.
4. To continue the description on to the next line, indent the line's contents by two spaces.
5. To add an additional description for the preceding terms, repeat steps 2 to 4.
6. To add additional term and description groupings, repeat steps 1 to 5.

As an example, the following glossary written in Markdown is structured with a description list:

# Glossary

Markdown
: A plain-text markup language for writing structured documents.

HTML
: Hypertext Markup Language
: The standard markup language for defining the
  meaning and structure of documents for the web.

Description list
: A collection of terms and their corresponding descriptions.

  Description lists are useful for structuring a variety of content, such as:

  - Glossaries
  - Property descriptions
  - Frequently asked questions

: Also known as definition lists.

Dart
: An approachable, portable, and productive programming language for
  building high-quality apps on any platform.
: Free and open source, supported by Google.