screen

The <screen> element contains or refers to a textual representation of a computer screen or user interface panel (window).

Use <screen> to contain representations of text-based online panels, text consoles ("term" or "curses" windows, for example), or other text-based user interface components. The default print representation is to enclose the screen within a box, suggesting a computer display screen. In contrast to graphical screen captures normally used to represent GUI parts (see the image element description), this element specifically supports constructions for which text is the primary content.

This element is part of the DITA programming domain, a special set of DITA elements designed to document programming tasks, concepts and reference information.

Contains

( text data or ph or codeph or synph or filepath or msgph or userinput or systemoutput or b or u or i or tt or sup or sub or uicontrol or menucascade or term or xref or cite or q or boolean or state or keyword or option or parmname or apiname or cmdname or msgnum or varname or wintitle or draft-comment or required-cleanup or fn or indextermref or indexterm) (any number)

Contained by

body, section, example, desc, p, note, lq, li, itemgroup, dd, fig, stentry, draft-comment, fn, linkinfo, entry, conbody, prereq, context, info, tutorialinfo, stepxmp, choice, choptionhd, chdeschd, choption, chdesc, stepresult, result, postreq, refsyn, proptypehd, propvaluehd, propdeschd, propdesc, pd

Inheritance

topic/pre, ui-d/screen

Attributes

Name	Description	Data Type	Default Value	Required?
%display-atts; (scale, frame, expanse)	A set of related attributes, described at %display-atts;	parameter entity	PE not applicable	Not applicable
%univ-atts; (%select-atts;, %id-atts;, translate, xml:lang)	A set of related attributes, described at %univ-atts;	parameter entity	PE not applicable	Not applicable
spectitle	The specialized title attribute allows architects of specialized types to define a fixed or default title for a specialized element. Not intended for direct use by authors.	CDATA	#IMPLIED	No
%global-atts; (xtrf, xtrc)	A set of related attributes, described at %global-atts;	parameter entity	PE not applicable	Not applicable
class, outputclass, xml:space	Common attributes described in Other common DITA attributes

Example

This example demonstrates using the <screen> element to represent a DOS edit session, where this code:

<p>Type "edit" after the command line prompt and press Enter.  The following
editing interface will be displayed.</p>
<screen>
   File  Edit  Search  View  Options  Help
+--------------------------------- UNTITLED1 ----------------------------------+
¦                                                                              ¦
¦                                                                              ¦
¦                                                                              ¦
¦                                                                              ¦
¦  Line:1    Col:1  F1=Help                                                    ¦
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
</screen>

produces this output:

Type "edit" after the command line prompt and press Enter. The following editing interface will be displayed.

   File  Edit  Search  View  Options  Help
+--------------------------------- UNTITLED1 ----------------------------------+
¦                                                                              ¦
¦                                                                              ¦
¦                                                                              ¦
¦                                                                              ¦
¦  Line:1    Col:1  F1=Help                                                    ¦
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+