Re: [Scrollkeeper-devel] question re: marking index terms

[Dan Mueth <dan eazel com>]

On Thu, 29 Mar 2001, Pat Costello wrote:

> All, 
> 
> I'm a real beginner with Scrollkeeper. I have very little idea how Scrollkeeper 
> is going to pull index detail out of a document. If Scrollkeeper uses ids, then 
> does that mean the ids appear in the index? Many ids are just not meaningful to 
> anyone but the original author. 
> 
> I have a series of questions about Scrollkeeper, so it probably wouldn't be a 
> good idea to discuss them all in mail. What I need is a succint document that 
> explains: 
> 
> - What Scrollkeeper is. 
> - What Scrollkeeper does. 
> - How Scrollkeeper works. 
> - What writers need to do to their documents to make sure Scrollkeeper works. 
> - What the role of the OMF file is for a) a whole book b) chapters in the book. 
> - How writers create the OMF file. 
> 
> Would such a document exist? 

I just realized that even though Laszlo was planning on answering Pat's
questions in person since they work together, I should try to answer this
on the list for anybody else's benefit.

There is some documentation for SK:
 1) the ScrollKeeper web page has a short blurb
 2) the SK web page also has a design document describing in a slightly
    technical way how it works
 3) in SK CVS, there is a module called "scrollkeeper_examples" which
    contains a directory called "scrollkeeper_example1" which illustrates
    how to set up a package to use scrollkeeper, has template files people
    can copy and use, and has a document explaining how it works
 4) in GNOME CVS at gnome-docu/gdp/gdp-example1, there is a similar
    example package which does things in a more GNOME-centric fashion
 5) in ScrollKeeper itself, there is a manual.  This manual however is
    virtually empty and rather useless at this time.

These answer most of the questions asked above.  The video of the talk
Laszlo and I gave at GUADEC would be a nice supplement to the example
packages.

Dan