Joomla Documenter Manual

The glossary is an important reference, especially for users new to Joomla!. Therefore special attention should be paid to the creation of glossary entries. This tutorial will provide background information and guide you through the process of creating an entry.

What Comprises the Entries on a Glossary Page?¶

Glossary pages are based on Glossary Templates. When you follow the link you will see the list of glossary templates available for several languages. These templates use DPL (Dynamic Page List, a report generating tool used by wiki pages) to pull the titles and contents of their glossary entries. Those entries are made of chunks (reusable pieces of text to be be included into other pages). However, the title of a glossary entry does not link to the chunk, but to the article with the same name - which may or may not use the same chunk and may contain additional information.

Creating a Glossary Entry¶

In order to work properly, glossary entries need a chunk and an "ordinary" article with the same name.

The Article¶

The easiest way is to create the article page first. Enter:

https://docs.joomla.org/My_Article_Name

in your browser. An editor window will open. Enter:

{{Chunk:My_Article_Name}}
[[Category:Landing Pages]][[Category:Glossary]]

This code will insert the contents of the chunk into the page and assign categories to the article. The Glossary category is mandatory, otherwise the article will not be linked. You are free to add more categories. Note that, after inserting the chunk code, you may add additional contents. These contents will not be visible on the glossary page, but only when a user clicks on the linked title.

The Chunk¶

After saving your article, you will see a red link taking you to the (not yet existent) page for the chunk. Enter your definition for the new glossary term here.

Then add these lines:

<noinclude>[[Category:Glossary definitions|{{PAGENAME}}]]</noinclude>

This code adds the category to the chunk. If the chunk is not included in the category Glossary Definitions, it will not show up in the glossary.

Note If you don't see a red link after saving the article, but text is already inserted, a chunk with this name already exists. You can look up all existing chunks here.

Things To Keep In Mind¶

• Glossary entries should not be too long, but concise and easy to understand. In order to keep the glossary tidy, detailed explanations (with examples etc.) should not be placed into the chunk. Instead, you can use links inside the chunk pointing to other pages or put any additional information into the corresponding article.
• Please make sure your glossary entry is up to date with the latest Joomla! version. If your entry is specific to a version, let the readers know.
• Be careful when using sub-headings in your chunk. The glossary templates are coded in a way that will cut your chunk text at the first occurrence of a sub-heading. Consequently, all subsequent text will not appear on the glossary page. The chunk will not be truncated inside the linked article. So adding a sub-header might come in handy to show only the first part of the chunk content on the glossary page and the complete chunk on the article page.