# acronyms - Marks acronyms and abbreviations in...

## Summary

This plugin marks abbreviations and acronyms based on an acronyms/abbreviations files.

## Install

This plugin comes with Pyblosxom. To install, do the following:

1. In your `config.py` file, add `Pyblosxom.plugins.acronyms` to the `load_plugins` variable.

2. Create an acronyms file with acronyms and abbreviations in it.

   See below for the syntax.

3. (optional) In your `config.py` file, add a line like this:

       py["acronyms_file"] = "/path/to/file"

   Make sure to use the complete path to your acronyms file in place of `"/path/to/file"`.

   This defaults to `acronyms.txt` in the parent directory of your datadir.

## Building the acronyms file

The file should be a text file with one acronym or abbreviation followed by an = followed by the explanation. The acronym/abbreviation is a regular expression and can contain regular expression bits.

An acronym is upper or lower case letters that is NOT followed by a period. If it’s followed by a period, then you need to explicitly state it’s an acronym.

> <acronym> = explanation <acronym> = acronym|explanation

Examples:

    ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange
    CGI = Common Gateway Interface; Computer Generated Imagery
    CSS = Cascading Stylesheets
    HTML = Hypertext Markup Language
    HTTP = Hypertext Transport Protocol
    RDF = Resource Description Framework
    RSS = Really Simple Sindication
    URL = Uniform Resource Locator
    URI = Uniform Resource Indicator
    WSGI = Web Server Gateway Interface
    XHTML = Extensible Hypertext Markup Language
    XML = Extensible Markup Language

This one is explicitly labeled an acronym:

    X.M.L. = acronym|Extensible Markup Language

This one uses regular expression to match both `UTF-8` and `UTF8`:

    UTF\-?8 = 8-bit UCS/Unicode Transformation Format

An abbreviation is a series of characters followed by a period. If it’s not followed by a period, then you need to explicitly state that it’s an abbreviation.

> <abbreviation> = explanation <abbreviation> = abbr|explanation

Examples:

    dr. = doctor

This one is explicitly labeled an abbreviation:

    dr = abbr|doctor

Note

If the first part is an improperly formed regular expression, then it will be skipped.

You can verify that your file is properly formed by running `pyblosxom-cmd test`.

## Using acronyms in your blog entries

When writing a blog entry, write the acronyms and abbreviations and they’ll be marked up by the plugin in the story callback.

If you’re writing an entry that you don’t want to have marked up, add this to the metadata for the entry:

    #noacronyms 1

## Styling

You might want to add something like this to your CSS:

    acronym {
        bordor-bottom: 1px dashed #aaa;
        cursor: help;
    }

    abbr {
        bordor-bottom: 1px dashed #aaa;
        cursor: help;
    }

## Origins

Based on the Blosxom acronyms plugin by Axel Beckert at http://noone.org/blosxom/acronyms .

## License

Plugin is distributed under license: MIT