Redefining glossaries style: grouping and capitalization issue

Question

I'm trying to redefine the style of my glossaries list, and base it on the altlist. When executing the new style however, I notice that there is an empty line when two glossary items are grouped, even though I have specified \nopostdesc. In the normal altlist this empty line does not exist.

Another issue I have is that I'd like to capitalize the first letter of the description in the glossaries list. According to the manual I should be able to use \Glossentrydesc, but as soon as I'm using it, I'm getting 9 errors, the first being 'undefined control sequence' related to \nopostdesc. What am I doing wrong?

This is the result I get:

with the following MWE:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{glossaries}

%make a new glossaries style
\newglossarystyle{altlistnumbers}{%
    \setglossarystyle{altlist}%
  \renewcommand*{\glossentry}[2]{%
    \item[\glsentryitem{##1}%
          \glstarget{##1}{\Glossentryname{##1}}]
                    \mbox{}\par\nobreak
       \glossentrydesc{##1}\glspostdescription\hfill ##2}%
}

\setglossarystyle{altlistnumbers}
\makeglossaries

\newglossaryentry{abb} {
    name = {abb},
    description = {\nopostdesc},
}

\newglossaryentry{abbone} {
    description = {this is the first description of an ABB},
    sort = {1},
    parent = abb,
    text = {abb},
    long = {abbreviation-one},
    first = {\glsentrylong{abbone} (\glsentrytext{abbone})}
}

\newglossaryentry{abbtwo} {
    description = {there is a second different description of ABB, too},
    sort = {2},
    parent = abb,
    text = {abb},
    long = {abbreviation-two},
    first = {\glsentrylong{abbtwo} (\glsentrytext{abbtwo})}
}
\begin{document}

\printglossaries

\noindent
There is \gls{abbone}, but also \gls{abbtwo}.\\

\end{document}

Answer 1

Your style only adjusts the behaviour of the top-level (level 0) entries. You also need to adjust the formatting of the sub-entries. The top-level entries are governed by \glossentry, which in your MWE is defined as:

  \renewcommand*{\glossentry}[2]{%
    \item[\glsentryitem{##1}%
          \glstarget{##1}{\Glossentryname{##1}}]
                    \mbox{}\par\nobreak
       \glossentrydesc{##1}\glspostdescription\hfill ##2}%

This is inserting a paragraph break before the description, but you don't have a description for your top-level entry abb, so you get a paragraph break followed by an empty description followed by another paragraph break, which is causing the extra vertical space.

Sub-entries are formatted according to \subglossentry. Since you haven't redefined this, it's using the definition set by the altlist style, which is:

  \renewcommand{\subglossentry}[3]{%
    \par
    \glssubentryitem{##2}%
    \glstarget{##2}{\strut}\glossentrydesc{##2}\glspostdescription\space ##3}%

Since this is using \glossentrydesc, no case-change is applied to the description.

The following adjustment to your MWE fixes these problems:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{glossaries}

%make a new glossaries style
\newglossarystyle{altlistnumbers}{%
    \setglossarystyle{altlist}%
  \renewcommand*{\glossentry}[2]{%
    \item[\glsentryitem{##1}%
          \glstarget{##1}{\Glossentryname{##1}}]
                    \mbox{}\par\nobreak}%
  \renewcommand{\subglossentry}[3]{%
    \par
    \glssubentryitem{##2}%
    \glstarget{##2}{\strut}\Glossentrydesc{##2}\glspostdescription\space
##3}%
}

\setglossarystyle{altlistnumbers}
\makeglossaries

\newglossaryentry{abb} {
    name = {abb},
    description = {\nopostdesc},
}

\newglossaryentry{abbone} {
    description = {this is the first description of an ABB},
    sort = {1},
    parent = abb,
    text = {abb},
    long = {abbreviation-one},
    first = {\glsentrylong{abbone} (\glsentrytext{abbone})}
}

\newglossaryentry{abbtwo} {
    description = {there is a second different description of ABB, too},
    sort = {2},
    parent = abb,
    text = {abb},
    long = {abbreviation-two},
    first = {\glsentrylong{abbtwo} (\glsentrytext{abbtwo})}
}
\begin{document}

\printglossaries

\noindent
There is \gls{abbone}, but also \gls{abbtwo}.

\end{document}

This produces:

Note that this has removed the description and location lists for all top-level entries. If you want the location list to appear, just add ##2 back into the definition of \glossentry.