Little Green Footballs Dictionary

Here is the template for creating new word-entries:

NEW ENTRY TEMPLATE:

<a name=”WORD”>&nbsp;</a><br>
<a href=”#WORD” title=”Direct link to this word”>WORD</a> - DEFINITION.

[Update: When this template is cut-and-pasted into the editing window, stupid WordPress automatically converts the quotation marks into "curly quotes," which don't work in html code. Does anybody know how to "turn off curly quotes" in WordPress? Until then, manually replace each quotation mark in the template with straight quotes. Sorry!]

Please use this version, which was posted earlier. Sometime in the interim, something happened to all the entries that changed the way they are linked to. The whole rationale for this template is to ensure that, when a word is linked to directly, it does not appear at the very uppermost edge of the user’s window, but rather a line or two down, so that the word is more easily seen. (I hate it when internal tags link to text that jumps to the toppermost top of the screen.) There is some odd idiosyncrasy in html such that, if there is nothing at all in the link tag, then line breaks are ignored and one can’t adjust the amount of space below the top of the window the linked-to text appears. That is why we need to put something in the <a name=”WORD”></a> code. What I have put in there is the only thing I can think of that is “something” but which is not visible to the viewer: a “non-breaking space” (&nbsp;). Then with that in place, we can put a line break after the tag, and it appears properly one line below the top of the window.

I have a feeling I didn’t explain that very clearly. Computer terminology is not my strong suit!

Anyway, either the WordPress auto-editor or a well-meaning admin altered all the entries to not have that “non-breaking space” and to not have the extra line-break, cancelling the effect.

So, everyone, please use and copy the template here. DON’T just copy the code of an existing word, as the characters for the non-breaking space and the line break do not appear in the editing window, and thus will probaly evaporate if you try to re-use the code.

Please comment on this thread if you know a cleaner, better way to do this, or if there’s something about the template which needs fixing, and I can update this post to accommodate the new info if needed.

ALSO PLEASE NOTE: HOW TO DEAL WITH SPACES IN MULTI-WORD ENTRIES

When creating a new word-entry that is actually a phrase of two or more words, please follow the directions given in the earlier Let the Editing Begin! thread. To quote:

“Often, terms in the LGF dictionary involve more than one word. If that is the case, in the first two instances of “WORD” in the template, you need to replace the spaces with underscores, because URLs can’t have blank spaces in them. So, for example, in the dictionary is the term “car swarm,” the code for which looks like this:

<a name=”car_swarm”>&nbsp;</a><br>
<a href=”#car_swarm” title=”Direct link to this word”>car swarm</a> - [...definition...].

See the underscores between “car” and “swarm” in the first two instances? (In the third instance, there shouldn’t be an underscore, because that is simply the text that readers will see, not part of the code.)

Also note that the “#” symbol preceding the second “WORD” is not a typo, and is in fact an essential part of the code: please leave the “#” there, as in the examples above.”

Do NOT use space-bar spaces (which won’t work) or the html-code for a space in a URL (%20) (which looks crappy) to create the spaces in a word-entry URL. Always USE UNDERSCORES.

Please comment here if you are confused by any of this or have suggestions.

Thanks!

[Posted by: zombie]