Re: indexing

[Mike Sangrey <mike sojurn lns pa us>]

Mike Sangrey <mike@sojurn.lns.pa.us> wrote:
> jfleck@inkstain.net said:
> >  Also, it seems to link to the beginning of the section rather than
> > the spot where your indexterm occurs.  
> 
> This has more to do with the semantics of an index; that is, 
> why one provides 
> an indexed term in the first place.
> 
> What the index user is looking for is some content about `foo'.  The 
> assumption is that the section will provide that content.  
> One doesn't want to 
> index every occurrence of `foo', just the ones that provide content.

GLeblanc@cu-portland.edu replied:
> By this same token, it would make more sense to link to the paragraph
> where the term occurs, not to the section.  A section could be dozens
> of paragraphs, and perhaps only 1 of those is relavent.  Given that,
> it should link to where the indexer has put the indexterm markup, and
> assume that the indexer is smarter than the script is (which SHOULD be
> the case).  
> 	Greg

Greg is right, and I'm not wrong ;-)  The world is a happy place.

The question is one of context and how big it is.  For example, I might
want `Colophon' to be an index entry and it needs to point into the
DocBook reference to the section on front- and back-matter, even though
`colophon' does not appear in that section.  So, <indexterm> needs to
_span_ that section.  However, the index in another case may very well
need to precisely point to a given word.

Nicely, <indexterm> can do exactly that.  How?  Two ways.  Look at the
DocBook reference under "Indexterm" and under "description".  You can
use either class=StartOfRange or something like zone="ID1, ID2".

Un-nicely, it be more work. :-(






-- 
Mike Sangrey
mike@sojurn.lns.pa.us
Landisburg, Pa.
       Every Christian library should have a plaque which states:
              "There is one book which explains all these."