On Wed, Apr 20, 2016 at 12:58 PM, Tom Harrop <thomas.harrop@ird.fr> wrote:

> Hello again,
>
> The document I'm typsetting uses description lists. To keep the list
> entries close together I'm using before=\nowhitespace and
> after=\nowhitespace in \definedescription. This is fine so long as the term
> is short, but when the term wraps to two lines it can overlap with the term
> below.
>
> Here's an example:
>
> \setuppapersize[A5]
>> \setupalign[flushleft, nothyphenated]
>>
>> \definedescription[description]
>>     [before=\nowhitespace, after=\nowhitespace]
>>
>> \starttext
>>
>> \startdescription{Short term:}
>>   Items with short terms are fine.
>> \stopdescription
>>
>> \startdescription{This is a really long term:}
>>   Long term + short definition
>> \stopdescription
>>
>> \startdescription{This is a really long term:}
>>   ... the long term of the item above the mashes into the term below.
>> \stopdescription
>>
>> \stoptext
>>
>
> And here is an attempt at a plain text representation of what I'm trying
> to achieve:
>
> Short term:         Items with short terms are fine.
>> This is a really
>> long term:          Long term + short definition
>> This is a really
>> long term:          ... the long term of the item above the mashes into
>> the
>>                     term below.
>>
>
> Is this possible using \definedescription? I tried some combinations of
> \vfill and \framed but I couldn't get it to work.
>
> Sorry to repeatedly post newbie questions. Any tips would be appreciated!
>

the title is in  a \vtop and not a \vbox, and its height is fixed to
\strutht (and the depth to \strutdp)
so basically the title is one line.

You can try with hand-tuning, ie

\definedescription[description][before=\nowhitespace,
after=\vskip0.25em,width=7\emwidth]
\starttext
\startdescription[title=This is a really long term:]
\crlf
  Long term + short definition
\stopdescription

\startdescription[title=This is a really long term:]
\crlf
  ... the long term of the item above the mashes into the term below.
\stopdescription
\stoptext