Message-Id: <9210121612.AA24445@sc.zib-berlin.dbp.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
Date:         Mon, 12 Oct 92 17:10:33 CET
From: "J%org Knappen" <KNAPPEN@VKPMZD.KPH.UNI-MAINZ.DE>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
To: Multiple Recipients of <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
Subject:      Some thoughts on makeindex
Status: R


Thoughts on MakeIndex

I want to develop some ideas how multiple indices could be handled with
makeindex. these ideas include pproposals to change the MakeIndex user's
interface.

Many books contain several indices, formatted with different styles and
having different headers. For example, a book on linguistics may have three
indices (a rather moderate number): Person, subject, and language index.

So we want to say something like:
\makeindex[per] %person index
\makeindex[sub] %subject index
\makeindex[lan] %language index

We do not want to say makeindex -s person -o book.pes book.per, do we? The
index style should be specified in the document by the author and not at
run-time by another person who has to type it explicitly in. Something like

\indexstyle[per]{person} % use person.ist as style for the person index
\indexstyle[lan]{german,language} % Two styles...

should do for the styles.

The indexing proceeds the usual way using an optional argument:
\index[lan]{burushaski}

After all, the index entries are written down somewhere (I'm going to be
more explicit further down), compiled by MakeIndex and we want to include
them in the production run. Lasy as we are, we do not want to type things
like |\include{book.pes}% The sorted person index| which makes us think
about the ending of the output file, but rather

\includeindex{per}% include the person index. Should be handled somehow
                  % with \includeonly (e.g. if includeonly is set, no
                  % indices are included)

or

\inputindex{per}% This works rather like inputting an index

For the last step it is necessary, that the compiled index file must have
an suffix which is algorithmically deducable. Here is a proposal which
proceeds rather conservatively:

If an index is created, the first three letters of the optional argument
form the suffix of the file. The third letter must not be an `s' or a `g'.
The sorted index will get the suffix .%%s, the loG-file the suffix .%%g
(here %% stands for the first two letters).

Here is another, more progressive proposal:
All index entries are written on one file (either the .aux or the .idx file)
and marked with tags, saying to which index they belong. Running MakeIndex
once will produce all index files (here it is good to have them in seperate
files, because some text might occur in between the indices). The suffix
could be the first three letters of the optional argument.

At last some miscellaneus things:

I'd like a command to introduce some notes into the index like
\indexnote[lan]{kisuaheli \see suaheli}
\indexnote[lan]{deutsch \seealso bayrisch, fr"ankisch, schw"abisch}
which should do the obvious task. I don't want to have to post-edit the
ready-made index files.

A more difficult task: introduce some short references. Say, in the person
index the life dates should be given behind the names. But lasy as I am I
do not want to type them each time I index the person. One time I supply
the full information and label it
\index[per]{B. R"uhmt (1850-1949)\label{BRuehmt}}
the other times I'll refer to the label
\index[per]{\ref{BRuehmt}}% Maybe I want even a shorthand for this :-)

Hope you find this interesting and stimulating,

Yours J"org Knappen.