I'm trying to work out the best way to use glossaries in a MC project with TopNav output (and occasionally PDF outputs).
We use internal glossaries to unify terms and translations for our software (3 glossaries: actions, definitions, and UI elements). These glossaries are xl files and are a work in progress as our software version is currently under development and keeps integrating new features. In this context, it seems only logical to use flare's glossaries to make these terms and definitions available in our online documentation, in a simple and "single sourcing" way. So far here is what I've implemented as a POC in Flare:
1. I have imported my excel files into flare glossary files (manual fiddling to convert XL output into XML which I can paste into the flglo file xml code).
2. I created for each glossary entry a snippet containing the term definition
3. I created for each glossary entry a topic containing the term as an h1 title and the definition snippet and linked the glossary term to that topic. I also use CSH alias to access these single topics directly from the software with a different runtime skin (tooltip style help).
4. I included my glossary terms and definitions in my user guide as needed. I also created a glossary page in the online documentation using the glossary proxy.
I just finished my POC and it works fine apart from the following problems:
- I cannot get a glossary like I do with the text-only option (with the list of terms and their definitions on one page). Instead, I get hyperlinks for each term and tedious multi-click navigation.
- I cannot output the glossary to a PDF format, it just won't output anything
- I cannot set which glossary to use on a topic level with a proxy, but only on a target level in one single merged glossary. Practically, this means that I cannot have 3 glossary pages for my 3 different glossaries.
- I cannot single source the glossary terms... In the solution described above, if I need to change a glossary term, il need to change it in the glossary, in the term topic and in any topic which uses this term. One workaround could be to use variables for glossary terms but this is getting a bit crazy (for each glossary term, I would have a variable, a snippet, a topic and a line in the glossary).
I must say, I find all this is incredibly complex and, at the end of this POC, I am wondering if I'm heading the right way. I have hundreds of terms and this method is incredibly tedious to create and to maintain.
Do you think this is good practice? How do you use glossaries in html5 with CSH support? Can you see any solutions to solve these problems without too much manual fiddling?
Also, even though I can see that glossaries could greatly be improved in Flare, I'm not sure what feature request I should submit to MC... any ideas?
MAF
(sorry for the long post, I cannot seem to be able to ask simple questions on this forum
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