Terminology Actions

What are Actions?

Terminology has configurable actions to open other resources related to the term you are browsing.  Actions are based on dynamically constructed URLs with embedded tags and can open web resources directly in Terminology, in Safari, or even open other apps which support directly linking to content and queries.

Actions appear in two locations.  In a horizontally scrolling list at the top of the display, and in a list at the bottom of the current term's definition. When tapping on an action in either list the action's URL will be opened. By default, actions which open web resources use Terminology's in-app browser, but can optionally be configured to use Safari on an action-by-action basis.  Actions with non-http(s) web URLs, will be passed to the system to open, leaving Terminology and going to other apps.

Using Actions

 

Managing Actions

Actions can be added, removed, re-ordered in the action editing view, available via the edit (pen icon) button at the end of the scrolling list of actions at the top of the interface.

 

Action Library

Terminology offers an Action Library of ready-to-use actions for popular reference sites.  This library is periodically updated with new sites, and these actions can be added to your action list to provide quick access.

 

Custom Actions

Pro users can create and edit actions for additional sites and apps. Actions have the following configurable values:

• Name: Full name for the action.  Used to identify the action when it is placed in the "bottom" action list.
• Short name: An abbreviated name for the action.  Used to identify the action when placed in the "top" action list.
• Template: The template to generate a valid URL to be triggered when the action is used.  This can include Termiology tags, such as "[[term]]" which will be replaced with URL-encoded text related to the current term when the action is used. See tag documentation for details on available tags.
• Use Safari:  If the action generates a web URL (beginning with http or https), and this option in enabled, the resulting URL will be opened in Safari View Controller when triggered, instead of Terminology's in-app browser.  This may be desireable if Safari is preferred for a particular site to take advantage of login, cookies or other information only available in Safari.

In most cases, to create a URL action for a web resource, visit that site and do a search/lookup like you would with there tools.  Copy the URL and replace the search term you used as a sample with the [[term]] tag in an Terminology action.  For example, when you look at the page for "myWord" on Wikipedia, the URL is:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/myWord

If you create an action with the the following template:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/[[term]]

At the time you run the aciton, the "[[term]]" tag will be replaced with the value of the current term you are browsing and open the matching page on Wikipedia.