Another glossary question

[Jessa]

OK, my question is about how to make glossary entries show up in their entirety; not as a popup, expanding text, or as a hyperlink.

Inserting into a topic - Is there a setting that would just have the glossary entry show up as text?
Glossary proxy - Is there a way to have it list the definitions next to the terms?

I have a lot of glossary entries that I need to re-use in multiple topics and I want to remove the need to click the name to see the definition.

[DurtyMat]

i am assuming this is for a webhelp target?

[doc_guy]

Can you give me an example of exactly what you want to see? I'm having a hard time understanding how this would work in the output....

[Jessa]

Can you give me an example of exactly what you want to see? I'm having a hard time understanding how this would work in the output....

Yes, this is for a WebHelp target.

Right now, glossary terms appear in the output as follows

Sample Term 1 >
Sample Term 2 >

Where the user has to click the > to see the definition.

I want the glossary term to already be expanded so that the user doesn't have to click the >. This means the entry would show up as follows automatically:

_Sample Term 1 > This is sample term 1.
_Sample Term 2 > This is sample term 2.

Make sense?

I took a screenshot but can't figure out how to upload it into the message.

[doc_guy]

Do you mean in the glossary panel of WebHelp output? Or do you mean in a glossary topic in the main content panel?

[Jessa]

Do you mean in the glossary panel of WebHelp output? Or do you mean in a glossary topic in the main content panel?

You can have a glossary panel in the WebHelp output? This one does not show up in the output.

We don't have a glossary topic. I mean where the glossary terms are inserted into each topic. When you Insert Glossary Term, can you configure the output to display the definition instead of popup, expanding, or hyperlink.

[DurtyMat]

You enable the Glossary pane by editing your skin. Open the skin you use for your WH output, go to the basic tab, and select the checkbox next to Glossary.

[Jessa]

You enable the Glossary pane by editing your skin. Open the skin you use for your WH output, go to the basic tab, and select the checkbox next to Glossary.

Thank you!

[Jessa]

^^ OK, I've inserted a glossary topic that shows the whole glossary. I do not like the way it looks, but now I know you can do it.

However, this does not answer my original question, which is - Can you have a glossary definition show up as text inside a topic?

When you're in a topic and you insert a glossary term, you have three options: popup, hyperlink, and expanding. Is there another option that will just drop the definition in the topic? Can you create one?

It might be better if I describe my problem from a content perspective. I have 256 value definitions spread out over 20 topics. The user wants to see these value definitions in the topics. We know that that is can't be done (or done well) with copy and paste.
The glossary was a way to get around this.

In RH, we used the name that appears to the user as a hyperlink to a glossary entry. That glossary entry had a different name for technical reasons. We can't do that in Flare.

If we have to re-do all the links, I"m trying to get the maximum functionality out of all that work. Users don't like that click and they want to print the topic with the definitions showing.

[DurtyMat]

are the users always going to need the definitions? i would use expanding links solves a couple of issues from an outsiders perspective:

1) once the user knows what the terms mean, they dont have to see them every time they load a topic
2) the expanding text will print out if the topic is printed

[Jessa]

are the users always going to need the definitions? i would use expanding links solves a couple of issues from an outsiders perspective:

1) once the user knows what the terms mean, they dont have to see them every time they load a topic
2) the expanding text will print out if the topic is printed

As these are new, they want to see the definition in the topic. Also, printing is the other problem I'm trying to solve. The definitions print only if they've been clicked. Some of these topics have 15+ entries, some have over 25+. The user would have to click them all to make them print and they don't like that.

[skellington]

I'm not sure if this is the best solution, but I also have some definitions that I want constantly displayed. I ended up using Snippets for those terms. Sure, you'll have to copy the work from the glossary, but at least you won't be pasting the definition in every time.

[KevinDAmery]

I agree with Skellington, snippets would be the best approach to dealing with this. Make a snippet that contains the text from the glossary entries you have, then insert the appropriate snippet in place of the glossary hot spot. If you later need to update the content of a value definition, you open the snippet and make the required change - when you rebuild the output, the change will propagate to each location where you inserted that snippet.

[DurtyMat]

don't create a new file for glossary terms, i believe everything you need is here:

http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... f=6&t=7876


edit: if i were going to create a new file i would use a variableset not a snippet ... you would need 1 snippet file per glossary term (i think), if she has 200+ glossary terms ... thats a lot of snippet creation, at least the variableset is in one file ....

[Jessa]

Thank you everyone!!
Snippets! I swear I heard the angels sing. It would solve our problem ... but it would also be a lot of work. As one poster above said, "that's a lot of snippets." And it really is.

There are two benefits to snippets (besides the fact that it solves our problem):

1) You can save snippets to a central location, outside the project, which makes it easier to share snippets between projects; something we anticipate doing on this project. Creating the snippets is bound to be a nightmare, but once they're done, they're done.

2) We can maintain the master snippet document in a spreadsheet. I realize it's an extra step, but it would make global editing easier. One of the challenges with the glossary, was the lack of global find and replace. Rather, that you only have it in the Internal Text Editor view. I did not like that. Also, our BA's and internal staff want a big long list for review.

I followed the links above, but I don't understand them. What are togglers?
Also, I need to research variables more. As a former Frame user, I loathe variables. I'll try not to let my bias affect my judgment.

[DurtyMat]

togglers are the things that make, say, drop downs expand. you can set a javascript to automatically expand all of the toggles (i.e. glossary definitions) when the page loads and provide a button or link that will close all glossary terms or re-open them based on their current state (aka if they are closed the link will say expand defintions or whatever and display close definitions if the definitions are expanded)

the variableset will provide a "master snippet" list in a file that is easily shared between projects (we currently use variables that are shared between 10+ projects)