Hi Clayton, On Tuesday, 19. June 2007 10:04:19 Clayton wrote:
[...]
In traditional documentation, a good index was important.
I still consider this important, so probably Rebecca is not the only one obsessed by indices. ;) Really good documentation do not just have an index, they create terms what are useful for the readers.
As we move more and more away from traditional doc techniques and go to web based docs we rely on search engines to fill the gap where indexes and index tagging (in traditional tools like Framemaker) are missing.
Yes, and that's sometimes really a pity. In short texts, an index isn't really necessary. However, in larger documentation, a good index is a benefit for the reader.
How important are people finding the index in newer doc methods? What can be done to fill that missing indexes for online docs? Especially for online docs (such as Wiki) that can be converted to PDF to deliver a traditional book for people who prefer to read off line?
I can only speak for myself and for LfL: If you create an indexterm in one of our DocBook sources, it will create an index both in online and print formats. However, apart from the technical side, I consider a really good index still as a kind of an "art". In a project like LfL we haven't defined indexing yet. In book production, indices are created at the very end, and I think LfL makes no exception to that. Many publishers let one person create the index to have a consistent wording. From my perspective, I don't think it makes sense to work on index on LfL now. Nevertheless, if we (as a community) think LfL has reached some "stable" grounds we can implement indexing. So these are just some random thoughts. Best wishes, Tom -- Thomas Schraitle ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX GmbH >o) Documentation Specialist Maxfeldstrasse 5 /\\ 90409 Nuernberg _\_v http://en.opensuse.org/Documentation_Team --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-doc+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-doc+help@opensuse.org