RE: [dita] indexing question

["Grosso, Paul" <pgrosso@ptc.com>]

Here are my notes on answers we developed during today's
telcon, as far as we got.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Grosso, Paul [mailto:pgrosso@ptc.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, 2006 July 18 08:27
> To: dita@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: RE: [dita] indexing question
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Grosso, Paul [mailto:pgrosso@ptc.com] 
> > Sent: Monday, 2006 July 10 14:25
> > To: dita@lists.oasis-open.org
> > Subject: RE: [dita] indexing question
> > 
> > > From: Erik Hennum [ehennum@us.ibm.com]
> > > 
> > > To follow up on the index range question, we had a fair bit 
> > > of discussion about ranges last Fall.
> > 
> > Yes, we had a fair bit of discussion and still missed several
> > important issues related to indexes.  Scary, huh?
> 
> Here are some indexing issues I think we still need to answer;
> apologies if some of Bruce's or Chris' or Erik's email have
> proposed answers to these questions that I either missed, did
> not understand, or did not feel we had consensus on.
> 
> 1.  What do index page ranges mean within the prolog element?
> 
> It's best for both implementors and users when elements work 
> the same way wherever they are allowed.   So I think either 
> index page ranges should mean what we say they mean, or they 
> shouldn't be allowed there, e.g., in prologs.  

Chris' proposal is that index ranges within prologs are ignored.

TC CONSENSUS.

> 2.  What does an indexterm within the prolog mean?

Don says this creates an index entry to the first page of the topic.

TC CONSENSUS.

> 
> 3.  Users want to be able to index words in titles and shortdesc.
> Are we going to allow this?

We currently don't.  There is no way to have an index entry point
to a shortdesc.  An indexterm in a prolog (per our decision to
question 2) will point to the first page of the topic.

TC CONSENSUS with the status quo (for now, at least).

Erik points out one can insert a phrase within a shortdesc and
then put an indexterm within the phrase.  Given this, maybe we
should just allow it at the top level of shortdesc.

> 
> 4.  Are we going to allow indexterm within related-links?
> 
> 5.  Whereas a pointwise index term seems unambiguous--wherever 
> it is, you index that--with ranges, you get into all sorts of 
> questions about what is within the range.  If you put a para 
> within an index range and within that para is a figure callout
> and that figure ends up on another page, is that figure's page 
> within the range or not?
> 
> 6.  What constitutes a start/end pair?  Can you start an index
> range between two paragraphs and then end it in the middle of
> a paragraph?  
> 
> Our proposal says "Index ranges that start within a topic 
> must end in the same topic, excluding nested topics."  I assume
> that means an index range can start outside a (nested) topic 
> and end either within that topic or a further nested topic,
> is that correct?  
> 
> 7.  Regarding index page ranges specified within a map, can
> one start an index range before topicref A and then end an
> index range after topicref C where C is a child of A?
> 
> JoAnn raised some other questions that I'm not sure I fully
> understood, but I'm not sure we have consensus answers to
> all of them either.
> 
> paul
>