Overriding the default field name limit in sphinx/docutils

Question

I am using sphinx for generating html documentation for a project. I make extensive use of field lists.

When generating html, each label/value pair is rendered as a sing

Answer 1

Sphinx-1.2 will support docutils.conf for html writer if no objection. https://bitbucket.org/birkenfeld/sphinx/commits/67682aca

Answer 2

I think your approach doesn't work because sphinx uses its own html writer.

However I think it should work, if you adapt the style for field_name. I (once) used a custom css file with

.field-name {
    white-space: nowrap;
}

or set it to a fixed width.

Answer 3

One way to do this is to override the setting in custom sphinx builder class extending original html builder, and set self.settings.field_name_limit = 0 in prepare_writing(self, docnames) function. That said, this is a little overkill, unless you already have a custom builder class ...