Building a dictionary and using tooltips
Asked by JACK HARRIS:

Hello,

We've got a list of acronyms on one of our confluence pages, but it's just a simple list. I've been using another wiki for worldbuilding at home (Kanka), and there's a feature they have that I'd like to try to use in Confluence but I'm not sure it's possible.

I essentially want to create a dictionary. I want to create entities for different words, phrases, or acronyms. I want to be able to reference those in line while writing a page. For example, if I type something like #CLO, it would know to insert the letters "CLO" on the page, but when a reader hovers over the text, an tooltip pops up stating "Collateralized Loan Obligation", and maybe a short definition underneath. Clicking on the text would take the reader to a page with more information about CLOs.

Here's what it looks like on Kanka. When I hover over the entity for "Townmaster" in the below screenshot, it opens up a small tooltip with information on what a townmaster is. I can reference these entities all over the place. Even the tags are their own entities. I can add tags to another entity, and each tag has space for definitions, attachments, reminders, additional posts about that tag, etc.

![Kanka tooltip.png](/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/264365i31FEA3BA2DBE58DA/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Kanka tooltip.png")

I know that I can manually insert tooltips and hyperlinks and such, but for common acronyms and such I'd like a way to just reference the existing entity. I'd also like to be able to make changes to that entity instead of to every single reference individually.

The closest I've been able to approximate this in Confluence is building a page, calling it a dictionary, and then adding multiple /Excerpts on that page (or alternately a dictionary root page and a subpage for each definition page). I can then use "/Excerpt Include" to reference that elsewhere. This inserts the whole thing, not just the rollover.

![excerpt insert.png](/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/264369iC8F69E0B8A144F46/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "excerpt insert.png")

Inserting a link using ctrl+k doesn't work either:

![can't insert excerpt as a link.png](/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/264367i72F27C90109D1732/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "can't insert excerpt as a link.png")

Edit/Addendum:

Just creating a dictionary works kind of okay using /excerpts. I can put a /Page Tree in the home page and tell it to show the excerpts.

![Current Dictionary Workaround.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/264370i8312CF2D3F1E12EE/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Current Dictionary Workaround.png")

This works okay for creating the dictionary itself (although I'd prefer if the page tree search bar would do a live filter on the dictionary page...).

What it doesn't do is allow me to reference these easily anywhere else with tooltip rollovers. I can go to the CLO page, click share, copy the link, paste it into another page, and get an inline link with a tooltip, however

* it's a lot of work every time I need to write an acronym in a page - it needs to be easy for people to use them every time
* the tooltip is not the excerpt; it's just the first part of the page. On mouseover, it displays the excerpt text followed by the first part of the page with no delineation whatsoever...

This is not a workable solution. Anyone who has gotten a better solution working, please help :)

So in summary, what I want to be able to do is create a definition for "CLO" somewhere. When a reader mouses over the CLO text, a tooltip comes up with the acronym spelled out, and a short definition. If they click on the CLO text, they are taken to a page with a more detailed definition.

Is this possible in Confluence?


Answers:
author: JACK HARRIS
body: (please ignore this comment - it is not an answer. I put the addendum down here first, realized I could edit my question, and now can't delete this...)


Tags: cloud

confluence-cloud