I hope to offer the doc project one thing that I can do and perhaps others can't. The current pdf copy of the manual dated December 28, 2005, lacks an index. I know that this is supposed to come out of the docbook cycle somehow but it did not in this instance. Further, looking at the index for the December, 2004 edition I note some areas needing improvement. For example the following three main headings occur: Dialog Dialogs dialogs Obviously these headings should be consolidated and their subheads combined where appropriate. That is one reason why indexing cannot be a totally automated process. Judgment needs to be applied by a human being. The index can of course be a byproduct of the development cycle. But there are two problems I foresee. First the development cycle has long since gone past the Dec 28th edition of the manual, but that edition is the only one currently available as a pdf. An index must match the book exactly to be useful. The only way to make that match is with the text and the pagination of the pdf. Second, indexing through the cycle woould require working in each and every document to insert the appropriate indexing tags. If twenty people are writing modules of the document that won't be feasible. That process results in user-unfriendly duplications like Dialog etc. above and other anomalies. Therefore I will go through the Dec 28 pdf and create an index independent of the xml cycle. At this point there is no other way to create an index that matches that pdf. I will make that index available in pdf format for printing out as a companion document. The pagination will be correct to the Dec 28 edition which is the critical issue. When the next pdf version is made available then I will repeat the process. The html help documents don't need a general index so there is no conflict. If anyone see objections to this effort I would be interested in hearing them. I will prepare the index in any case for my own use. The only issue I see would be the posting of it alongside the main pdf file. Your input is invited. -- John Culleton Able Indexers and Typesetters _______________________________________________ Gimp-docs mailing list Gimp-docs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-docs
