Glossaries in the TechNet Wiki help define terms and acronyms commonly used in various Microsoft technologies. New terms and acronyms come into usage frequently. Adding new entries to an existing glossary can be a challenge. This article details recommended procedures to maximize the usefulness of the glossaries.
When an entry is added to a glossary, one goal is for the text to be accurate. But the new entry should also be one that can be cross-linked in other Wiki articles. This requires that all entries in the glossary have named anchor tags in the HTML. This article describes two methods to accomplish this.
In the near future the Wiki platform is expected to change. Some of the steps in this article may require modification. The images may also need to be updated. But the basic principals should remain unchanged.
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To make the glossaries most useful, the following are recommended practices to be aware of when adding entries.
The image below shows a few typical entries in a glossary. The image shows the last two entries starting with the letter "K", then the heading line for the entries that begin with the letter "L", and finally the first two entries that start with "L".
It can be easier to add entries using the HTML tab of the Wiki editor. A template for a glossary entry in HTML follows. Note that there are two paragraphs.
<p><a name=""></a><strong></strong></p> <p>Acronym for <strong></strong>ocal <strong></strong> <strong></strong>. </p>
For example, here is an entry for the term "LAN". It includes a hyperlink to an article in Wikipedia.
<p><a name="LAN"></a><strong>LAN</strong></p> <p>Acronym for <strong>L</strong>ocal <strong>A</strong>rea <strong>N</strong>etwork. See <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_area_network">Local area network</a>.</p>
The steps to add an entry on the HTML tab are:
A good idea would be to work on the text of your entry, complete with the necessary HTLM, in a text file. Save it with *.htm extension. You can make as many entries as you need in the same file. Then open the *.htm file in a browser to see how it looks. The fonts will be different, but otherwise you can see if it renders as you expected. Then you can paste the contents of the file into the HTML tab of the glossary Wiki.
A few characters in the text of an entry will not render correctly in all browsers. The following table shows what should be entered in place of each problem character. This is only necessary when you are entering text on the HTML tab of the Wiki editor.
Many people prefer to work on the "Design" tab of the Wiki editor. There are more steps this way, but the following yields the same results.
You should not need to modify the letter headings, one for each letter of the alphabet, in the glossary. However, a typical heading uses HTML similar to below.
<p> </p> <h1><a name="L"></a>L</h1>
Each letter heading consists of one line with a named anchor tag, for use by the Table of Contents. There is a blank paragraph, consisting of the space character, before each letter heading. This provides the desired spacing without adding any line break tags.