Install glossary module

Last updated January 5, 2008. Created by LeeHunter on June 18, 2006.
Edited by sepeck, Stephen Winters, Amazon. Log in to edit this page.

I just finished installing the Glossary module in three Drupal 4.7x websites, so I thought I'd write out some basic steps here:

Where is the Glossary?

One of the first things to try to understand is that, although we will install a "Glossary Module", all the glossary content is actually entered and created in "Administer>Categories*" as entries in a Vocabulary. Although Taxonomy Vocabularies are quite powerful, and contain many other uses (many of which I don't yet understand or I'm not yet aware of), this article only explains Vocabularies as they relate to the Glossary Module. The Glossary Module takes the Vocabulary entries and turns them into one or more Glossaries. Each time you create a new "Vocabulary", you are creating (the potential for) a new Glossary. (The Vocabulary terms are only turned into Glossaries when chosen in the "Administer>Input Formats" section.) (More about this later below.)
*Note: Although the Glossary content is entered through "Administer>Categories>Vocabularies" , don't get this confused with the optional, but different, Category Module, which adds it's own "Administer>Categories" menu listing.

What is the purpose of the Glossary Module, and what does it do?

Creates Glossary Page(s), the Glossary Module creates a glossary page of all your terms, with the definitions. You may create one or multiple glossaries.

Terms Identified:, on any page on your website, whenever you use any of the words in the glossary, those words will be identified on each page. You can choose whether the words will be identified by being underlined (with a broken line), or using a superscript letter (or word), such as the superscript letter "i", like thisⁱ(You can actually type in any letter or word that you want), or by using a small icon by the word. (You can also chose whatever icon you like)(see instructions below)

Definitions Available on "Hover", whenever the visitor "hovers" the mouse pointer over any one of the identified terms, the definition will "pop up" in a small box for about 6 seconds. This way the definitions of all the words in your glossary will be readily available every time you use any of those words.

Instantly Go to Glossary. If you click on the underlined word, or one of the identifiers (the superscript "i" or the small icon), you will immediately be taken to the full glossary page.

Full Page Definitions, you can attach full page (or multiple pages) of descriptions to any, or all, of the glossary terms. (see instructions for this at the bottom). If you have attached any full pages to any glossary term, the pop up definition will still work, but when you click on the word, you will be taken to the full page descriptions instead of to the glossary page. If you have multiple pages attached to the glossary term, then you will be shown the teasers of all the definition pages. You can then choose to look at any of those pages.

Installing the Glossary Module

More detailed instructions (for some of the following steps) can be found in the Glossary Readme file.

1. First download the Glossary Module from http://drupal.org/project/glossary onto your computer.(Some website control panels allow you to upload an archived file; zip, tar, etc. and then unarchive it after the file is on your website in a folder. If this is the case, then just upload the Glossary Module tar or zip file to your website. Otherwise, unzip the file on your computer, then ftp the whole folder to you website folder.)
2. Using either a ftp program, such as FileZilla, or from your website control panel: file manager, upload the folder/files to (mywebsite.com/drupal/modules)

Configuring the Glossary

1. On your Drupal website, go to "Administer>Modules" and enable the glossary module and save the new configuration.
2. Go to Administer>Categories: Add one or more Vocabularies. You might give the vocabularies names that will encompass all your terms. For example, since I do upholstery, I might name one of my Vocabularies "Upholstery Terms" , then add some terms.
3. Go to Administer>Input Formats: Choose one of the input formats, for example chose “Filtered HTML”, At the right side, under "Operations", click on “configure”. This will take you to the "'Full HTML' input format" page.
4. Under the “View” tab (which is the default), under “Filters,” enable the "Glossary filter", At the bottom of the page, click “Save Configuration”. After it is saved, you will be on the same page.
5. Now, at the top of the page, click on the “configure” tab.
6. Click on “Glossary Filter” which will open up some choices. In the “Select Vocabulary” box, click on the vocabulary term(s) that you created in Administer>Categories.
   • Next, do you want all the terms of your glossary to show on one page? (This would be suitable for small glossaries) If not, click in the box by "Show glossary across many smaller pages"
   • The next choice is "Match Type". I haven't figured that one out yet, so I leave it alone on "Word".
   • Chose whether you want your glossary terms to be case sensitive or insensitive. I usually chose case insensitive, since I want all the tems to show up, whether capitalized or not.
   • Next, do you want all the terms on any given webpage to be identified as being in the glossary, or do you only want the first term on any page identified? Chose Replace Matches: "Only The First Match" or "All Matches".
   • Under "Indicator Settings", you now make choise about how you want your terms identified on the website pages.
     Under "Term Indicator" Choose "superscript", "icon", or "replace with acronym link":
   • Superscript:If you want a superscript letter (or word) by each word, like thisⁱ or this^term
   • Icon: A default icon is installed with Drupal. the icon will follow the term in place of the superscript. If you want to choose a different icon, upload it somewhere on your website, such as your picture gallery, or a file, copy the URL to your chosen icon, and enter that URL into the Glossary Icon URL: text box.
   • Underline: If you'd rather have all you terms underlined (only with a broken line), then choose "replace with acronym link" in the Term Indicator box.
   • When you are finished with all of your choices, click on “save configuration”

Glossary Administration: Finally, Choose which type of user(s) that you want to be able to administer the glossary, such as all "authenticated users" or only members in a "specific user role", or just the "administrator(s)". To make this choice, go to "Administer>Access Control>Permissions. Scroll down to "glossary module" and enable your chosen user role(s).

Your Glossary Module should be working now. Go back to "Administer>Categories>Vocabularies" to enter your glossary/vocabulary terms. I would suggest that you keep your terms down to one brief paragraph. This paragraph will display all through the website whenever a user's mouse pointer "hovers" over the indicated word; it will only display for about 6 seconds. Keep your paragraph down to about 6 seconds of comfortable reading. (Yes, a user can go back to the indicated word and get the definition to pop up again, but why should they have to? You can put more detailed definitions or explanations on other page(s), which can be connected to any glossary/vocabulary term(s).)

Adding Full Page Definitions

Do you want to allow any registered user to add full page definitions to the glossary, or do you want only specific persons to have this ability? This is controlled through the "Administration>Input Formats". If you want every authenticated user to be able to add full pages to the glossary, then you would enable the glossary with each of the input formats available to those users. However, if you only want specific users to have that abililty, Use or create an input format that only those users, or type of users, will be using.
.............>>> More to be added here later <<< .................

Adding Glossary To Menus

This part (below) needs to be written better, more later.

1. To create additional glossary entries, go to Administer>Categories (as you did above) and enter more.
2. (when your create Vocabulary (in Administer>Categories above), menu items and blocks are created for them, but not enabled.)
3. If you want your Vocabulary to be on the website menu, go to Administer>Menus and enable them.
4. If you want your Vocabulary to have its own menu block, go to Administer>Blocks and enable them.

Stephen Winters
Winters Sewing
Winters Sewing: Upholstery Information Website
Kingwood Bible: Community Website