An AJAX glossary macro

Problem

You want a macro that will mark up certain words somehow so that an informative popup will appear when the mouse hovers over a term. As an added bonus, avoid adding too much server load by needlessly parsing large glossary tables every time the macro is used

Context

Solution

• EasyMacroPlugin
• TODO: Make an alternate version/example which uses ParameterizedVariables (new feature in Foswiki 1.1.4) instead of EasyMacroPlugin
• TODO: Make an alternate version which uses SemanticLinksPlugin
• TODO: Turn this into a GlossaryContrib

Known Uses

http://trin.org.au/Mangroves/Glossary

Known Limitations

Update 2011-10-13: This has been re-written to use standard JQueryPlugin features

Ingredients

• Glossary - this topic is used to get definitions in the same web as wherever the %gloss{}% macro occurs
• GlossaryMacro - the GlossaryMacro itself; place this into your WebPreferences to enable for just one web or put it in your Main.Sitepreferences to enable for the whole wiki:

     * Set EASYMACROS = Main.GlossaryMacro

Please feel free to modify

• glossary_screenshot.png:
  

-- PaulHarvey - 30 Mar 2010

Fixed some bugs in the GlossaryMacro js

-- PaulHarvey - 13 Oct 2011