OASIS Mailing List ArchivesView the OASIS mailing list archive below
or browse/search using MarkMail.

 


Help: OASIS Mailing Lists Help | MarkMail Help

dita message

[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]


Subject: RE: FW: FW: [dita] indexing question


So the issue here is the expression of index ranges across topics, with
the level of granularity being whole topics. On this particular
application of index ranges, I'd point out that the index range proposal
prescribes the use of the <index-range-start/end> elements at the map
level on the topicrefs. You'd have in your map:

<topicref href="topic1">
   <topicmeta><keywords>
      <indexterm>term1<index-range-start/></indexterm>
   </keywords></topicmeta>
</topicref>
...
<topicref href="topic4">
   <topicmeta><keywords>
      <indexterm>term1<index-range-end/></indexterm>
   </keywords></topicmeta>
</topicref>

The advantage here is that you operate at the topic aggregation level
(the map), where you know which topics will be included. The problem
with pushing topic-spanning index ranges into the topic is that with
topic-oriented authoring you don't know the context of the topic. That
is, when authoring a topic you should not have to be aware that there
are surrounding topics in a final deliverable with the same index term
as your topic that should constitute a range.

Chris


-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Self [mailto:tself@hyperwrite.com] 
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2006 8:26 AM
To: dita@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: FW: FW: [dita] indexing question

G'day all

I'm relatively new to this TC, and have been lurking for a little while
to get the lay of the land.

I may have missed some of the indexing debate, so please forgive me if
this suggestion has already been floated.

With respect to the index range "sub-debate", if an <indexterm> had a
"grouping" attribute, could that be used as a means of identifying a
range? For example, the prolog of five topics might include <indexterm
range="alpha">term1</indexterm>. If an output included those topics in a
contiguous block, and ended running across four pages of a PDF document,
the processor should be able to note the common "range" attribute, and
thus know to present the index keyword as "term1 pp13-16", rather than
"term1 13,14,15,16". If the topics were not contiguous in another
output, the index could still be correctly presented as "term1 29, 34,
90, 93", for example. 

I think this would still work for inline use? The processor could work
on the logic that if term1(alpha range) appeared on pages 4 and 5, the
term would appear in the index as 4-5. If the term without the "alpha"
range attribute also appeared elsewhere on page 5, the index would
appear as "term1 4-5, 5".

The downside is obviously the extra overhead in inventing range
attributes, but it may be an easier pass in having indexterms spanning
blocks across topics.

Hope this makes some sort of sense!

Tony Self







[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]