This element is used to create a block of text. The text can be set either with the value attribute or by placing text inside the open and close description tags. The value attribute is used to set text that appears in a single line. If text appears as a child of the description, it will wrap to multiple lines. It may contain arbitrary markup, which can be styled as needed.
More information is available in the XUL tutorial.
- Attributes
- crop, disabled, tabindex value
- Properties
- accessibleType, crop, disabled, tabIndex, value
- Style classes
- header, indent, monospace, plain, small-margin
Examples
This is a long section of text that will word wrap when displayed
<description> This is a long section of text that will word wrap when displayed. </description>
This is a long section of text that will not word wrap
<description value="This is a long section of text that will not word wrap"> </description>
This is a long section of dynamically controlled text that will word wrap
<description id="desc" style="width: 300px"></description>
document.getElementById('desc').textContent = "This is a long section of dynamic message text that will word wrap";
Attributes
-
crop
-
Type: one of the values below
-
If the label of the element is too big to fit in its given space, the text will be cropped on the side specified by the
crop attribute. An ellipsis will be used in place of the cropped text. If the box direction is reversed, the cropping is reversed.
-
-
start
-
The text will be cropped on its left side in left-to-right text locales, and the right side in right-to-left locales.
-
end
-
The text will be cropped on its right side in left-to-right text locales, and the right side in right-to-left locales.
-
left
-
The text will be cropped on its left side.
-
right
-
The text will be cropped on its right side.
-
center
-
The text will be cropped in the middle, showing both the start and end of the text normally.
-
none
-
The text will be not be cropped using an ellipsis. However, the text will simply be cut off if it is too large. The side depends on the CSS text alignment.
-
Depending on the platform and theme being used, some elements will have set a maximum width so they will always appear cropped. If you wish to use the value
none and the displayed text is larger than this maximum width, you may be able to use the max-width CSS property (or the maxwidth attribute) to override this size. For example, for a menuitem in a menu you can add the following CSS rule when you want to use the value none:
-
menupopup > menuitem, menupopup > menu { max-width: none; }
disabled- Type: boolean
- Indicates whether the element is disabled or not. If this attribute is set, the element is disabled. Disabled elements are usually drawn with grayed-out text. If the element is disabled, it does not respond to user actions, it cannot be focused, and the
command event will not fire. In the case of form elements, it will not be submitted. Do not set the attribute to true, as this will suggest you can set it to false to enable the element again, which is not the case.
The disabled attribute is allowed only for form controls. Using it with an anchor tag (an <a> link) will have no effect.
The element will, however, still respond to mouse events. To enable the element, leave this attribute out entirely.
- Visible controls have a
disabled property which, except for menus and menuitems, is normally preferred to use of the attribute, as it may need to update additional state.
tabindex- Type: integer
- The tab order of the element. The tab order is the order in which the focus is moved when the user presses the "
tab" key. Elements with a higher tabindex are later in the tab sequence.
value- Type: string
- The string attribute allows you to associate a data value with an element. It is not used for any specific purpose, but you can access it with a script for your own use. Be aware, however, that some elements, such as textbox will display the value visually, so in order to merely associate data with an element, you could 1) Use another attribute like "value2" or "data-myAtt" (as in the HTML5 draft), as XUL does not require validation (less future-proof); 2) Use setAttributeNS() to put custom attributes in a non-XUL namespace (serializable and future-proof); 3) Use setUserData() (future-proof and clean, but not easily serializable). For user editable
menulist elements, the contents, as visible to the user, are read and set using the Menulist.value syntax. For those elements, setAttribute("value", myValue) and getAttribute("value") do not access or affect the contents displayed to the user.
Properties
-
accessibleType
-
Type: integer
-
A value indicating the type of accessibility object for the element.
-
crop
-
Type: string
-
Gets and sets the value of the
crop attribute.
-
value
-
Type: string
-
Gets and sets the value of the
value attribute. For textbox and user editable menulist elements, the contents, as visible to the user, are read and set using the Textbox.value and Menulist.value syntax.
Methods
| Inherited Methods
addEventListener(), appendChild(), blur, click, cloneNode(), compareDocumentPosition, dispatchEvent(), doCommand, focus, getAttribute(), getAttributeNode(), getAttributeNodeNS(), getAttributeNS(), getBoundingClientRect(), getClientRects(), getElementsByAttribute, getElementsByAttributeNS, getElementsByClassName(), getElementsByTagName(), getElementsByTagNameNS(), getFeature, getUserData, hasAttribute(), hasAttributeNS(), hasAttributes(), hasChildNodes(), insertBefore(), isDefaultNamespace(), isEqualNode, isSameNode, isSupported(), lookupNamespaceURI, lookupPrefix, normalize(), querySelector(), querySelectorAll(), removeAttribute(), removeAttributeNode(), removeAttributeNS(), removeChild(), removeEventListener(), replaceChild(), setAttribute(), setAttributeNode(), setAttributeNodeNS(), setAttributeNS(), setUserData |
Style classes
header- A class used for headings. Typically, this will cause the text to appear bold.
indent- This class causes the text to be indented on its left side.
monospace- This class causes the text to be displayed in a monospace font.
plain- This class causes the element to be displayed with no border or margin.
small-margin- This class causes the text to be displayed with a smaller margin.
label