<dir>

The HTML <dir> element, which is now obsolete, was intended for creating a directory list of items with specific styling. CSS is recommended for this purpose now.

dir Tag

The <dir> tag was historically used to create a list of directory-style items, with each entry represented by the <li> tag. It functioned similarly to the <ol> and <ul> elements. By default, items were displayed with bullet points.

Example

HTML
XHTML
CSS

index.html

<ul>
  <li>HTML</li>
  <li>XHTML</li>
  <li>CSS</li>
</ul>

Adjusting line height in a list using CSS:

HTML
XHTML
CSS

index.html

<ul style="line-height:80%">
  <li>HTML</li>
  <li>XHTML</li>
  <li>CSS</li>
</ul>

DOM Interface

The <dir> element was associated with the HTMLDirectoryElement interface before being deprecated.

Attributes

This element supports global attributes, which are available to all HTML elements.

Conclusion

The <dir> tag was once used for listing directory-style items, but it is now obsolete in favor of more modern list elements like <ul>. For styling and structuring unordered content, <ul> with appropriate CSS is the recommended approach.

<li>

The HTML <li> element marks an entry in a list, utilized within <ul> (unordered lists) or <ol> (ordered lists) to denote individual items.

<dl>

The HTML <dl> element creates a description list, consisting of <dt> (definition terms) and <dd> (definition descriptions) to display terms alongside their explanations.