Title Guidelines

• Use lowercase
• Use the word you're defining

Examples: “branch”, “release”

Guidelines

• Define one term per glossary entry topic
• Define terms concisely

Considerations

Ask yourself the following questions when creating glossary entry topics:

• Is this a common term?
• Is there relevant terminology information an end user needs?

Structure

glossary entry topics can contain the following elements:

• glossary entry element
  1. glossary term element
  2. glossary definition element
  3. prolog element
  4. glossary body element
     1. glossary part of speech element
     2. glossary status element
     3. glossary property element
     4. glossary surface form element
     5. glossary usage element
     6. glossary scope note element
     7. glossary symbol element
     8. glossary alt element
        • glossary acronym element
     9. glossary alt element
        • glossary synonym element
     10. glossary alt element
         • glossary short form element
     11. glossary alt element
         1. glossary abbreviation element
         2. glossary status element
         3. glossary property element
         4. glossary usage element
         5. glossary alternate for element

Elements

glossary term element

Provides a term you want to define.

glossary definition element

Provides a definition for a term.

prolog element

Contains topic metadata. Can contain multiple resource ID elements that you can use to implement context-sensitive help into applications.

glossary body element

The main element of a glossary entry topic.

glossary part of speech element

Specifies the part of speech for the preferred and alternate glossary terms. By default, all glossary terms should be nouns.

glossary status element

Identifies the usage status of the preferred and alternate glossary terms. You control the status by assigning an appropriate value to the value attribute of the glossary status element.

glossary property element

Specifies additional characteristics of the preferred and alternate glossary terms such as the gender of a noun.

glossary surface form element

Combines multiple glossary term forms. It is useful if you want to introduce a term for the first time in a given topic. For example, you may want to introduce a full term with a corresponding acronym like “Virtual Machine (VM)” and then use the acronym “VM” only.

glossary usage element

Provides information about when to use the glossary term.

glossary scope note element

Specifies the contexts in which the glossary terms are applicable. For example, a glossary scope note element may specify that given glossary terms are applicable for MacOS devices.

glossary symbol element

Specifies an image associated with a glossary term.

glossary alt element

Contains alternatives for a glossary term.

glossary acronym element

Provides an acronym for a glossary term.

glossary synonym element

Provides a synonym for a glossary term.

glossary short form element

Provides a shortened version of a glossary term.

glossary abbreviation element

Provides an abbreviation of a glossary term.

glossary alternate for element

Indicates a variant term relationship to another variant term in addition to the preferred term.

Glossary Entry Topic Example