Re: Automatic Glossaries

[Sean Wheller <sean enbaya co za>]

On Friday 09 January 2004 22:05, Shaun McCance wrote:
> On Fri, 2004-01-09 at 13:47, Sean Wheller wrote:
> > On Friday 09 January 2004 19:45, Shaun McCance wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2004-01-09 at 10:23, Sean Wheller wrote:
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > Can we use Automatically Generated Glossary in GNOME2 Documents?
> > > >
> > > > Will Yelp stylesheets handle it?
> > >
> > > I'm not sure how you expect glossaries to be generated automatically.
> > > The definitions have to come from somewhere.  While DocBook allows you
> > > to put glossterms inline, this is only for the purpose of linking to
> > > the appropriate glossentry in the glossary.
> > >
> > > There's no provision in DocBook for putting the glossdef inline in your
> > > content.  Even if there were, I wouldn't recommend using it, as it
> > > would be a content management nightmare.
> >
> > Please see
> > http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/Glossaries.html
> >
> > http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/GlossDatabase.html
>
> Ugh, that's hardly creating a glossary automatically.  It's just a very
> bad way of including an external glossary file.  If you want to keep the
> glossary in an additional file (which I consider to be a good idea) then
> what's the problem with just including it with XInclude?  I don't see
> any need to abuse the format here.
>
> --
> Shaun

Actually Shaun some would disagree with you. The automation provided by this 
method is a timesave to say the least. Managing a glossary using XInclude can 
be hardwork as you have to XInclude each glossentry that you want to insert 
to the book. If you just include the root element, glossary, then your 
document ends up containing glossterms that do not appear in the book.

This auto method ensures that the glossary contain glossterms that are only 
relevant to the book. IMHO, its a far more eloquent solution. All I have to 
do is maintain and keep growing my database. The more I add the easier life 
becomes:-)

However, I do understand that it can cause some overhead under yelp. Perhaps a 
target for the future:-)

Sean Wheller