Glossaries: Text or topic for definition, and why?

[chuck_agari]

I have a glossary in Confluence that part of our (nascent) style guide. I thought I'd migrate it to Flare, now that I have everything in a single content repository. But when I added my first glossary term, I faced a choice that had my stymied: text or topic.

Text I assume becomes part of the XML file that is the glossary. The UI has the capability of adding variables, but nothing else, not even formatting. Not even links! I would assume also, that from a technical standpoint, that the raw glossary file could be edited using valid XHTML and it would probably "work," although how it would appear in the dialog box would be an interesting test.

I'm thinking for topics, I'd create a folder in my content pane and put all my glossary definitions there, each as one file. That means full Flare functionality for the authoring of each definition. But it also means tons of tiny topic files and a more convoluted process for each: instead of just creating a glossary entry and having full authoring capabilities right there, you have to create a separate topic file and make sure it has all the correct associations, and then in the definition, find and link the topic.

I'm wondering which option people use, and why. If I had to guess, I'd guess that most who use glossaries use the latter method. I guess I'm wondering if there's actually any good reason to use the term method.

[Nita Beck]

I typically use the topic method for the reasons you specify. I want to be able to include more than just flat, unformatted text. I sometimes include images, tables. I like to be able to xref between glossary terms.

Yes, I end up with a lot of small topics. Oh well. That's a small price to pay for greater creative control.

FWIW, you could mix and match. You could have some of your glossary terms defined right in the glossary file and you could have others of your glossary terms pull in topics.