Indexing...

Feature requests, and in-depth discussions of features and the way Mellel works

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redlers
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Indexing...

Post by redlers »

Hi to all,

We are starting to look into the implementation of Indexing in Mellel. We have tailored the options needed with this feature, but would love to hear from you about your "dream list" of features - either those you've seen elsewhere and would like to have in Mellel, those you did not see elsewhere, features you can find in dedicated tools - the works.
Timotheus
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Re: Indexing...

Post by Timotheus »

Ori, perhaps you don't remember anymore, but there was an ample discussion on this topic in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Six, in which you participated yourself. I would say: let's start from there …
redlers
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Re: Indexing...

Post by redlers »

Timotheus wrote:Ori, perhaps you don't remember anymore, but there was an ample discussion on this topic in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Six, in which you participated yourself. I would say: let's start from there …
I'm aware of the discussion, but things and perspective changes. More specifically, I had some notions regarding how this should be implemented, based on that discussion and others I had at the time, and I think they were not necessarily the right ones. It would be good to re-visit the concepts.
Vaissiere
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Re: Indexing...

Post by Vaissiere »

First of all I think it is unnecessary to imagine that Mellel will compete with the professionnal indexing tools. What we need is a robust and simple indexing tool adapted to the main strength of Mellel, its multilingual abilities. So that as regard features I would regard as necessary are
-sub-entries
-the possibility of creating multiple indexes
- the ability to customize the order of sorting the entries in each index. More precisely I think the basic a priori order to be the Unicode one, but with the ability to modify it. I might want to have the words in the greek alphabet before the latin ones, the arabic ones after the chinese… And in each of the Unicode ranges, I might want to modify the order too (for diacritics for instance).

yours

E de la Vaissière
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shades
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Re: Indexing...

Post by shades »

For my needs:

1. Multiple streams of indexes

2. The ability to create multi-language indexes

3. Ability to set up a special sort order, specifically the Biblical books, but that would require several options: Protestant ordering, Roman Catholic ordering, Orthodox ordering, Hebrew ordering, Septuagint ordering, as a minimum.
Rich
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redlers
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Re: Indexing...

Post by redlers »

So, if to sum what was said up to this point, these are the main attributes (I've added a few that seem sensible here):

General:
• Create one or more indices.
• Allow setting the language order and the indices order. (not sure if separating the language AND types of indices is right: can't we have Names-English; Names-Greek; etc. to do that?)
• Grouping by language (if to separate the index into languages or not).
• Inter-Group (e.g., sorting by groups of letters, by chapter, etc.).

Entries
• Set an entry as a main or sub entry of something (nesting sub-entries should be allowed - not sure if needed).
• Set a "see also attribute" referring to an entry (and also set the see-also text).
• Associate an entry with a specific index.
• Styling for entries.
• Refer to a heading (e.g., to its page range or just the page it appears in).
• When searching to index, set multiple terms, mark, mark all, mark and find next (or unmark).
• Unify entries (e.g. if referenced in page 1, 2 and 3, the entry will be 1-3).
Vaissiere
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Re: Indexing...

Post by Vaissiere »

Not only sorting the language order, but also the ultimate possibility to choose the letter order. I might want to index the words beginning with an arabic dal with the english words beginning with d, or I might want to have the words beginning with the diacritic ḫ listed with the words beginning in h, while ḫ and h are very far away according to unicode.

Etienne
redlers
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Re: Indexing...

Post by redlers »

Vaissiere wrote:Not only sorting the language order, but also the ultimate possibility to choose the letter order. I might want to index the words beginning with an arabic dal with the english words beginning with d, or I might want to have the words beginning with the diacritic ḫ listed with the words beginning in h, while ḫ and h are very far away according to unicode.

Etienne
OK. So, what is needed is a way to chart the order in any desired manner. E.g., A, Alif, B, Bet... D, Dal, Dalet, and so on. Right?
cvc
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Re: Indexing...

Post by cvc »

It would be very useful (not to say indispensable) for indexing to be able to make use of any impending line numbering capabilities in Mellel, so that index entries could be tied to a specific point rather than a section or a page - in an edition of texts, for example, that such and such a word occurs in line 14 of text 5, and so on. It used to be relatively easy to do this in Framemaker. But perhaps you have this mind already?

Thank you,

Charles
shades
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Re: Indexing...

Post by shades »

Yes, I like that feature request!
Rich
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Vaissiere
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Re: Indexing...

Post by Vaissiere »

redlers wrote:
Vaissiere wrote:Not only sorting the language order, but also the ultimate possibility to choose the letter order. I might want to index the words beginning with an arabic dal with the english words beginning with d, or I might want to have the words beginning with the diacritic ḫ listed with the words beginning in h, while ḫ and h are very far away according to unicode.

Etienne
OK. So, what is needed is a way to chart the order in any desired manner. E.g., A, Alif, B, Bet... D, Dal, Dalet, and so on. Right?
Yes, that's it!
Flo
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Re: Indexing...

Post by Flo »

Will there be a way to automatically list all words, of course with the possibility of excluded words? I am well aware of the fact that simply compiling a list of words is not an index. But it could be a starting point for those concepts explicitly mentioned in the text. If one could keep and manage several 'exclusion lists' – for that matter: also inclusion lists, e.g. with names of authors – such a list could indeed be a useful starting point. But I haven't indexed before, so I am not sure if such an automated list is helpful at all.
tika-tika
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Re: Indexing...

Post by tika-tika »

Bump: Indexing is an important feature.
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