Re: glossary

[Dan Mueth <d-mueth uchicago edu>]

On Fri, 9 Jun 2000, Alexander Kirillov wrote:

> thanks to help from skud, the glossary has really progressed - take a
> look at http://www.math.sunysb.edu/~kirillov/glossary

This looks like a very strong start.  I am impressed with the rate it is
progressing.  Generally, the definitions look very good.

> However, I became confused about what we really want. Do we want it to
> be like a dictionary, with detailed descriptions? Or a very short
> definition, say one line?  

I would vote for a detailed description, as in a dictionary.  Typically,
the first sentence or two provides a pretty good definition, and the
reader can stop there if they want.  Having further information(say a
couple more sentences) for users who would like more details or examples
will not detract from the definition. Excessively long definitions should
clearly be avoided.

What about figures/screenshots?  It looks like the DTD allows them.  Do
we want to use them?  I don't see any reason not to use them in cases
where they are helpful.  If we do use them, it will place constraints on
how we can present the definition.  For example, a pop-up tooltip-type box
or a couple lines at the bottom of the screen would not provide enough
room for most screenshots.

> Will it be supplemented by an index or some
> kind of search engine? How they should interact? Or it should be both
> glossary and index in one? 

I see three likely uses of the glossary: (1) A word is used in a document
and linked to the glossary. In this case, nothing fancy needs to be done,
although it would be nice if we could render only the term in question,
instead of pointing to the middle of a page of glossary definitions. (2)
Somebody wants to look up a word which they heard/saw somewhere that
wasn't linked to the glossary term(eg. on the web or in a discussion).  
In this case, an alphabetical browse index would probably be the best way
to find the term. Perhaps we could have a "Glossary" tab in the left pane
of the browser which had this alphabetical browse index for the glossary.
(3) Somebody wants to enrich or entertain themselves by reading a bunch of
definitions. This would be a relatively rare use for the glossary, but
might be nice to have.  We could present a header page with the letters of
the alphabet linking to pages showing all the terms starting with that
letter.  Perhaps we could place some sort of a small button("Browse"?) on
the "Glossary" tab I suggested above which opens this glossary browse
page.

Dan