Re: [docbook-apps] Auto-generating an index

[Dave Pawson <davep@dpawson.co.uk>]

On Fri, 4 Feb 2011 11:11:57 +0100 (CET)
"Thomas Schraitle" <tom_schr@web.de> wrote:

> Dave, although I agree that an index is best suited to a human, I
> think it is not that black and white. :)
> 
> With some care on the markup it is possible to generate an automated
> index but "fine-tune" it afterwards as Tom requested. I did this with 
> my own book and it had worked great.
> 
> However, you need to be very consistent with your markup. For example,
> I had a lot of tags that I would like to see in the index. Not all,
> but some of them. Same for some functions.
> 
> What I did was the following: 
> 
> 1. First I've decided which tag(s) was applicable. For a XML element
> name it is usually tag (DocBook 5) or sgmltag (DocBook 4). For a
> function name the function element is needed.


> Of course, this is just a start and needs to be refined. With this
> method, _all_  tag and function content show up in the index. This is
> probably not what you want. For this reason, you need to manually
> switch off the indexterm addition. I did this with condition="noidx".
> 
> If needed you can also turn the logic and add nothing in the index
> except for those elements with a condition="idx". That depends on your
> document and what is more convenient.
> 
> This was just a quick overview of the process. If needed, I can show
> you also my stylesheet modifications.


Point taken for a classic docbook book.
Take a simpler novel or even a tech book with lesser markup and 
the problems are back.

I guess you invested in higher markup levels, trading off the indexing
task. 
<grin/> Still sounds like a job for a person... at one end or the other?


regards 



-- 

regards 

-- 
Dave Pawson
XSLT XSL-FO FAQ.
http://www.dpawson.co.uk