Description
Spindle Dynamic Glossary helps you build glossaries, dictionaries, and terminology tooltips on your WordPress site.
Define glossary terms once and automatically highlight them across selected post types. Visitors can view definitions in tooltips or modals, and a searchable A-Z glossary can be displayed with a shortcode.
Key Features:
- Automatic Highlighting: Define a term once, and it automatically highlights across your selected posts and pages.
- Content-safe parsing: The parser avoids replacing text inside existing links, headings, HTML tags, and shortcodes.
- Interactive Tooltips & Modals: Choose between floating tooltips, fixed info boxes, or pop-up modals for user interactions.
- Live glossary filtering: The frontend glossary grid provides live text search and A-Z filtering.
- Individual Post Exclusions: Easily disable tooltips on a per-post basis via a simple checkbox in the post editor.
- Configurable display: Adjust tooltip colors, positioning, behavior, and text limits from the settings dashboard.
Development
Source code and development history are available at:
https://github.com/adedayospindles/spindle-dynamic-glossary
Screenshots






Installation
- Upload the
spindle-dynamic-glossaryfolder to the/wp-content/plugins/directory. - Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
- Navigate to ‘Spindle Glossary > Settings’ to configure your tooltip colors, behaviors, and target post types.
- Add new terms under ‘Spindle Glossary > Add New’.
- Place the
[spindle_glossary]shortcode on any page to display the interactive A-Z glossary grid.
FAQ
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How do I create a glossary term?
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Go to Spindle Glossary > Add New, enter the term as the title, and add its definition in the editor. Publish the glossary entry. The term can then be used for automatic highlighting and in the glossary shortcode.
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How do I display the glossary on a page?
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Add the shortcode
[spindle_glossary]to the page or post where you want the glossary listing to appear. The listing includes live text search and A-Z filtering, and its click behavior can be configured in Spindle Glossary > Settings. -
How does automatic term highlighting work?
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After you create glossary entries, the plugin can automatically identify those terms in the content of the post types selected in Spindle Glossary > Settings. Highlighting can be limited to single posts/pages and can be configured to control how occurrences are handled.
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What happens when a visitor clicks a highlighted term?
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You can choose the click behavior in Spindle Glossary > Settings. With Pop-up Modal, the definition is displayed in a modal on the current page. With Unique Page, the visitor is taken to the glossary entry’s individual page.
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Can I exclude a specific post or page from automatic glossary highlighting?
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Yes. When editing a supported post or page, use the Spindle Glossary meta box and enable the option to disable glossary tooltips for that specific content item.
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Can I choose which post types receive automatic highlighting?
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Yes. The settings allow you to select the post types where automatic glossary highlighting should be applied. This lets you limit the feature to the content types you want.
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Can I change the appearance of the tooltips?
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Yes. The settings provide controls for tooltip background, text and title colors, position, desktop and mobile tooltip methods, and definition text length.
Reviews
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Contributors & Developers
“Spindle Dynamic Glossary” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
ContributorsTranslate “Spindle Dynamic Glossary” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
2.2.1
- Updated plugin assets and settings handling for WordPress.org directory requirements.
- Removed arbitrary code/CSS insertion paths and moved admin interface assets to dedicated files.
2.2.0
- Initial release of the plugin.
- Added individual post/page exclusion via a custom meta box in the post editor.
2.1.0
- Introduced live text search and an A-Z dropdown filter to the frontend shortcode grid.
- Fixed CSS Grid layout to ensure responsive, 100% width search bar formatting.
2.0.0
- Major Update: Introduced a comprehensive Admin Settings dashboard.
- Added customizable tooltip styling, positioning, and post-type targeting.
- Upgraded parser with advanced regex to protect existing HTML links and shortcodes.
1.0.0
- Initial release: Core terms display and Spindle Glossary custom post type integration.
