Back of book indexes, creating ranges

Back of book indexes, creating ranges

[John Culleton]

Most indexing programs, including Makeindex, Xindy, Cindex etc. will
automatically collapse successive page numbers into a page range. 
There may also be a mechanism for a manually specified range. Context 
has
the manual capability but I do not see any capablity for the automatic
collapsing of three or more successive page references into a range.
Before I go to the work of adapting Context to Makeindex via code
similar to that found in eplain, I would like to ask: is there an
automated range creation mechanism for Context, present or planned?

John Culleton

Re: Back of book indexes, creating ranges

[Taco Hoekwater]

Hi John,

Please please please don't go back to makeindex. If you want to
do something like this, use xindy. Please.

I'm not sure what the status of this part of context is at the
moment, but it is very straightforward to code the collapser in
TeX macros (I've done this at least half a dozen times already).
In fact, the code is in a submodule of my m-bib module
(m-list.tex, macro \compresscommalist)

On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 15:16:48 -0400, John wrote:

> Most indexing programs, including Makeindex, Xindy, Cindex etc. will
> automatically collapse successive page numbers into a page range. 
> There may also be a mechanism for a manually specified range. Context 
> has
> the manual capability but I do not see any capablity for the automatic
> collapsing of three or more successive page references into a range.
> Before I go to the work of adapting Context to Makeindex via code
> similar to that found in eplain, I would like to ask: is there an
> automated range creation mechanism for Context, present or planned?
> 
> John Culleton
> 

-- 
groeten,

Taco

Re: Back of book indexes, creating ranges

[Hans Hagen]

At 09:23 AM 9/18/2002 +0200, Taco Hoekwater wrote:

>Hi John,
>
>Please please please don't go back to makeindex. If you want to
>do something like this, use xindy. Please.
>
>I'm not sure what the status of this part of context is at the
>moment, but it is very straightforward to code the collapser in
>TeX macros (I've done this at least half a dozen times already).
>In fact, the code is in a submodule of my m-bib module
>(m-list.tex, macro \compresscommalist)
>
>
>On Tue, 17 Sep 2002 15:16:48 -0400, John wrote:
>
> > Most indexing programs, including Makeindex, Xindy, Cindex etc. will
> > automatically collapse successive page numbers into a page range.
> > There may also be a mechanism for a manually specified range. Context
> > has
> > the manual capability but I do not see any capablity for the automatic
> > collapsing of three or more successive page references into a range.
> > Before I go to the work of adapting Context to Makeindex via code
> > similar to that found in eplain, I would like to ask: is there an
> > automated range creation mechanism for Context, present or planned?
> >
> > John Culleton

actually, this feature is built into texutil [similar to index range 
feature] but not working at the moment (puzzled and looking into it)

Hans

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf
                     documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Back of book indexes, creating ranges

[John Culleton]

On Wednesday 18 September 2002 03:23 am, Taco Hoekwater wrote:
> Hi John,
>
> Please please please don't go back to makeindex. If you want to
> do something like this, use xindy. Please.

Well I understand that makeindex is not perfect and doesn't handle
non-English languages well, but it is configurable and 
well-documented.
I have done some nice indexes with it. 

For example I prefer that the letter headings be capitalized, centered
and set off with em dashes. That is simple in makeindex but would take
a long discussion here on the group for Context, possibly pulling you
and Hans away from more critical work. 

Even with Xindy I will need to either copy or create some macros to 
spin off the input file and import the output file. 

Are there objections to makeindex (beyond the limitations in handling 
other
European languages) that motivate you to discard it? 

Best,

John Culleton

Re: Back of book indexes, creating ranges

[Hans Hagen]

At 03:40 PM 9/18/2002 -0400, John Culleton wrote:
>On Wednesday 18 September 2002 03:23 am, Taco Hoekwater wrote:
> > Hi John,
> >
> > Please please please don't go back to makeindex. If you want to
> > do something like this, use xindy. Please.
>
>Well I understand that makeindex is not perfect and doesn't handle
>non-English languages well, but it is configurable and
>well-documented.
>I have done some nice indexes with it.
>
>For example I prefer that the letter headings be capitalized, centered
>and set off with em dashes. That is simple in makeindex but would take
>a long discussion here on the group for Context, possibly pulling you
>and Hans away from more critical work.

You're lucky: this took me 10 miliseconds -)

\def\Well#1{---#1---} \setupregister[index][command=\Well,style=\kap]

>Even with Xindy I will need to either copy or create some macros to
>spin off the input file and import the output file.
>
>Are there objections to makeindex (beyond the limitations in handling
>other
>European languages) that motivate you to discard it?

dunno, never used it

Hans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf
                     documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Back of book indexes, creating ranges

[Tobias Burnus]

Hi,

John Culleton wrote:
> Most indexing programs, including Makeindex, Xindy, Cindex etc. will
> automatically collapse successive page numbers into a page range.
Before Hans starts implementing this, I want to note that instead
of   45-46 frequently a 45f is used (or '45 f.' or '45 f'). Instead of
45-47 or 45-54 some use also 45 ff.

Tobias
-- 
This above all: To thine own self be true / And it must follow as
the night the day / Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Re: Back of book indexes, creating ranges

[Hans Hagen]

At 10:31 AM 9/18/2002 +0200, you wrote:
>Hi,
>
>John Culleton wrote:
> > Most indexing programs, including Makeindex, Xindy, Cindex etc. will
> > automatically collapse successive page numbers into a page range.
>Before Hans starts implementing this, I want to note that instead
>of   45-46 frequently a 45f is used (or '45 f.' or '45 f'). Instead of
>45-47 or 45-54 some use also 45 ff.
>
>Tobias

actually, this is quite easy to implement in the current version, but what 
key/value to use in the setup ... (of course the f/ff should be 
configurable and i shoul dnot forget to document it then)

Hans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf
                     documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------