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Glossary for Tree of Life Contributors
- Accessory Page
- Accessory pages, formerly called lichen pages, are pages that
are attached to either branch or leaf pages of the Tree, but they
are not themselves part of the Tree structure. They do not provide
the primary information about the groups of organisms (this is
provided on the branch or leaf pages), but instead contain additional
information, perhaps including more detailed descriptions of structure,
discussion of phylogenetic relationships, more pictures, identification
keys, etc. While links to many additional pages can be made from
a Tree branch or leaf, only those linked pages that are specially
designated and included in the Tree of Life's index are considered
accessory pages. See Introduction to Tree
of Life Pages for an explanation of the different page types
on the Tree of Life, and Design of
an Accessory Page for a detailed description of the elements
of an accessory page.
-
- Author
- Authors are the people who write Tree of Life pages. Please
see the page on Expectations of Tree of
Life Authors for more information.
- Branch Page
- Branch pages are all of the Tree of Life pages that have (or
will eventually have) Tree pages descended from them. Most pages
on the Tree of Life are branch pages, but there are also Leaf
pages and Accessory Pages. See Introduction
to Tree of Life Pages for an explanation of the different
page types on the Tree of Life, and Design
of a Branch Page for a detailed description of the elements
of a branch page.
- Browser
- Software on the client computer that requests
information from servers and displays it
to the user. Popular browsers include Netscape, Mozilla, Safari,
and Internet Explorer.
- Client
- A computer that is requesting information from a server.
- Containing Group
- The containing group is a larger group that includes the taxon
represented on a given Tree of Life page. The Tree of Life page
for the (immediately) containing group shows the current group
as one of the terminal taxa in its tree or taxon list. See Introduction
to Tree of Life Pages and Design
of a Branch Page for more detailed explanations.
- Coordinator
- Coordinators are Tree of Life authors who oversee the development
of the pages descending from their clade. Coordinators choose
appropriate authors for subgroups and serve as associate editors
for this particular section of the Tree. See Coordinators
for a more detailed explanation.
- Correspondent
- The correpondent is the Tree of Life author who agrees to answer
inquiries by readers of a Tree of Life page.
- Descendant Taxon
- Descendant taxa are the terminal taxa displayed on the tree
at the top of a Tree of Life branch page.
The names of these taxa constitute links to
the Tree of Life pages of the groups descending from the current
group.
- GIF
- GIF is a widely used compression format for image files developed
by CompuServe. The acronym stands for "Graphic Interchange
Format". Since there is considerable loss of color depth
in GIF compression, we recommend that Tree of Life authors use
this format only for line drawings and diagrams requiring only
a few different colors (i.e. no graded shadings); photographs
should always be saved in JPEG format.
- HTML file
- HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the universal language used
to produce pages on the World Wide Web. HTML documents are plain-text
files containing the text which is to be shown on a World Wide
Web page along with a set of instructions (HTML codes) on how
the text is to be displayed by a World Wide Web browser.
Furthermore, there may be instructions about the display of pictures,
about links to other World Wide Web pages, etc.
- Index Page
- For some large groups that are distributed across many different
Tree of Life pages, it may be useful to have an index page with
links to the most important taxa. For example,
it takes meandering through several pages to get to some of the
insect orders. So in order to facilitate navigation to certain
lineages, there is a link to an index
page on each of the main insect pages that takes you to an
alphabetical list of orders. This would allow people to quickly
find a group without having to search through the Tree.
- JPEG
- JPEG is a popular file compression format which allows the storage
of high quality images in relatively small files. The acronym
stands for "Joint Photographic Expert Group". We recommend
that Tree of Life authors use JPEG files for all their photographs
and any art work that requires high color depth. JPEG compression
does not work especially well with hard edges and lines in graphics
images. Simple line drawings and pictures with transparent areas
should be compressed into GIF rather than JPEG
files.
- Leaf Page
- Leaf pages are the Tree of Life pages presenting information
about individual species. They are the terminal pages on the Tree,
and are attached to apical branches. See Introduction
to Tree of Life Pages for an explanation of the different
page types on the Tree of Life, and Design
of a Leaf Page for a detailed description of the elements
of a leaf page.
- Lichen Page
- see Accessory Page.
- Link
- A link is a reference from some point in one HTML
document to some point in another document or to another place
in the same document. A browser usually
displays a link in some distinguishing way, e.g. in a different
color. When the reader clicks on the highlighted text or graphic
element, the browser will display the target of the link.
- Server
- A computer that shares files with other computers connected
to it via a network. Tree of Life pages are HTML
files that are created from information in the ToL Database.
The ToL server then makes these files available to people who
can access them with a computer through the World Wide Web.
- Title Illustration
- At the top of each Tree of Life Title Illustrations page contains
a detailed treatment of the requirements and recommendations for
Tree of Life title illustrations.
-
-
TreeGrow
- TreeGrow is a computer program that
allows Tree of Life authors to edit data in the Tree of Life database.
Refer to the pages on Using TreeGrow
for a detailed description of what TreeGrow
does and for information on how you can acquire the program.
- Treehouse
- Treehouses are a special kind of accessory
page that is designed for children or the young at heart.
Our goal is to have treehouses sprinkled throughout the Tree,
as authors' time and resources permit. Currently, there is one
treehouse available on the tree, the Beetle
Treehouse.
- Trunk Page
- Trunk pages are those branch pages that
comprise the path from the root of the Tree up into prominent
groups (e.g. into mammals, flowering plants, insects).
- URL
- This is the abbreviation for "Uniform Resource Locator",
the addressing system used on the World Wide Web. The URL contains
information about the method of access (e.g. whether it is an
HTTP file, or FTP file, etc.). Refer to HTML for ToL Pages for further information.
- WWW
- World Wide Web.
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