How to write callouts using restructured text?

Question

Asciidoc supports callouts. How can one write similar callouts using reStructuredText?

Answer 1

There does not seem to be a built-in equivalent, but it is easy to make something that looks similar to the example given in the asciidoc documentation:

.. topic:: MS-DOS directory listing

   ::

     10/17/97   9:04         <DIR>    bin
     10/16/97  14:11         <DIR>    DOS            <1>
     10/16/97  14:40         <DIR>    Program Files
     10/16/97  14:46         <DIR>    TEMP
     10/17/97   9:04         <DIR>    tmp
     10/16/97  14:37         <DIR>    WINNT
     10/16/97  14:25             119  AUTOEXEC.BAT   <2>
      2/13/94   6:21          54,619  COMMAND.COM    <2>
     10/16/97  14:25             115  CONFIG.SYS     <2>
     11/16/97  17:17      61,865,984  pagefile.sys
     2/13/94   6:21           9,349  WINA20.386      <3>

   1. This directory holds MS-DOS.
   2. System startup code for DOS.
   3. Some sort of Windows 3.1 hack.

The only thing this lacks is the highlights on the markers. If those are very important to you, you can use a parsed-literal block:

.. topic:: MS-DOS directory listing

   .. parsed-literal::

      10/17/97   9:04         <DIR>    bin
      10/16/97  14:11         <DIR>    DOS            **<1>**
      10/16/97  14:40         <DIR>    Program Files
      10/16/97  14:46         <DIR>    TEMP
      10/17/97   9:04         <DIR>    tmp
      10/16/97  14:37         <DIR>    WINNT
      10/16/97  14:25             119  AUTOEXEC.BAT   **<2>**
       2/13/94   6:21          54,619  COMMAND.COM    **<2>**
      10/16/97  14:25             115  CONFIG.SYS     **<2>**
      11/16/97  17:17      61,865,984  pagefile.sys
      2/13/94   6:21           9,349  WINA20.386      **<3>**

   1. This directory holds MS-DOS.
   2. System startup code for DOS.
   3. Some sort of Windows 3.1 hack.

Should you have very many of these callouts, then I suggest making a custom directive for them.