Re: indexing a book
On Fri, 2003-11-28 at 14:14, Rich Shepard wrote: On Thu, 27 Nov 2003, Ed Sawicki wrote: I love LyX but I dislike the way an index is created. I hope that it is not considered too off-topic to ask here about the art of indexing. This morning I bought a copy of Larry Bonura's The Art of Indexing. The most important insight I have gained so far is the difference in purpose of an index in a scientific book versus one in a technical manual. The index of a scientific book is used as a reference to specific information by (usually) someone who has already read the book. The index of a technical manual (or technical book) is used to answer how to questions by someone who may, or may not, have read the book. Bonura's book focuses on the latter need. So, can folks here recommend resources for me to read on how to decide on topics, organization and so on for a scientific book? There are many books out there and I cannot go through all of them trying to find the one that will teach me what I need to learn. I can also understand now why there's a dearth of indexing software. If the idea of the index is to extract ideas and concepts from the text -- from the reader's need to know -- how could software do this effectively? I don't think it can. That's why there's a strong human/manual component of the process, where the author or indexer (the human) of the book needs to make the important decisions. The software can only do the grunt work. However, the grunt work relives the author or the indexer of a significant burden. I've published electronic versions of my books where the index is a search engine. This shifts the burden of indexing to the reader and allows the reader to decide on his own search criteria. Note that some search engine software allows the author or indexer to assign priorities to words and phrases to put more likely sought after sections of the book closer to the top of the resulting list. Some software allows the addition of metadata, thus allowing the author or indexer to enhance a reader's search capabilities. I've toyed with the idea of providing readers with a Web site they could access once they've purchased one of my books. The Web site would allow the reader to access an electronic index that's more functional than the static index in the back of the printed book. Ed Thanks, Rich
Re: frontmatter/mainmatter
On Fri, 2003-11-28 at 13:33, Rich Shepard wrote: On Fri, 28 Nov 2003, Ed Sawicki wrote: The LyX graphical user interface doesn't seem to have a way to easily indicate where frontmatter and mainmatter begin. I use ERT to insert \frontmatter and \mainmatter. This is fine for me and I'm not complaining. I'm just wondering if I missed a more obvious way. Ed, Nope. That's just what I've used, too. Don't forget \backmatter when you get there. I did notice that in the Layout pull down menu there's an item called Start Appendix Here. I assumed that this did \appendix. This is what inspired my original question. Are \appendix and \backmatter synonyms? Rich
Re: indexing a book
On Fri, 2003-11-28 at 14:14, Rich Shepard wrote: On Thu, 27 Nov 2003, Ed Sawicki wrote: I love LyX but I dislike the way an index is created. I hope that it is not considered too off-topic to ask here about the art of indexing. This morning I bought a copy of Larry Bonura's The Art of Indexing. The most important insight I have gained so far is the difference in purpose of an index in a scientific book versus one in a technical manual. The index of a scientific book is used as a reference to specific information by (usually) someone who has already read the book. The index of a technical manual (or technical book) is used to answer how to questions by someone who may, or may not, have read the book. Bonura's book focuses on the latter need. So, can folks here recommend resources for me to read on how to decide on topics, organization and so on for a scientific book? There are many books out there and I cannot go through all of them trying to find the one that will teach me what I need to learn. I can also understand now why there's a dearth of indexing software. If the idea of the index is to extract ideas and concepts from the text -- from the reader's need to know -- how could software do this effectively? I don't think it can. That's why there's a strong human/manual component of the process, where the author or indexer (the human) of the book needs to make the important decisions. The software can only do the grunt work. However, the grunt work relives the author or the indexer of a significant burden. I've published electronic versions of my books where the index is a search engine. This shifts the burden of indexing to the reader and allows the reader to decide on his own search criteria. Note that some search engine software allows the author or indexer to assign priorities to words and phrases to put more likely sought after sections of the book closer to the top of the resulting list. Some software allows the addition of metadata, thus allowing the author or indexer to enhance a reader's search capabilities. I've toyed with the idea of providing readers with a Web site they could access once they've purchased one of my books. The Web site would allow the reader to access an electronic index that's more functional than the static index in the back of the printed book. Ed Thanks, Rich
Re: frontmatter/mainmatter
On Fri, 2003-11-28 at 13:33, Rich Shepard wrote: On Fri, 28 Nov 2003, Ed Sawicki wrote: The LyX graphical user interface doesn't seem to have a way to easily indicate where frontmatter and mainmatter begin. I use ERT to insert \frontmatter and \mainmatter. This is fine for me and I'm not complaining. I'm just wondering if I missed a more obvious way. Ed, Nope. That's just what I've used, too. Don't forget \backmatter when you get there. I did notice that in the Layout pull down menu there's an item called Start Appendix Here. I assumed that this did \appendix. This is what inspired my original question. Are \appendix and \backmatter synonyms? Rich
Re: indexing a book
On Fri, 2003-11-28 at 14:14, Rich Shepard wrote: > On Thu, 27 Nov 2003, Ed Sawicki wrote: > > > I love LyX but I dislike the way an index is created. > > I hope that it is not considered too off-topic to ask here about the art > of indexing. This morning I bought a copy of Larry Bonura's "The Art of > Indexing". The most important insight I have gained so far is the difference > in purpose of an index in a scientific book versus one in a technical > manual. The index of a scientific book is used as a reference to specific > information by (usually) someone who has already read the book. The index of > a technical manual (or technical book) is used to answer "how to" questions > by someone who may, or may not, have read the book. Bonura's book focuses on > the latter need. > > So, can folks here recommend resources for me to read on how to decide on > topics, organization and so on for a scientific book? There are many books > out there and I cannot go through all of them trying to find the one that > will teach me what I need to learn. > > I can also understand now why there's a dearth of indexing software. If > the idea of the index is to extract ideas and concepts from the text -- from > the reader's need to know -- how could software do this effectively? I don't think it can. That's why there's a strong human/manual component of the process, where the author or indexer (the human) of the book needs to make the important decisions. The software can only do the grunt work. However, the grunt work relives the author or the indexer of a significant burden. I've published electronic versions of my books where the index is a search engine. This shifts the burden of indexing to the reader and allows the reader to decide on his own search criteria. Note that some search engine software allows the author or indexer to assign priorities to words and phrases to put more likely sought after sections of the book closer to the top of the resulting list. Some software allows the addition of metadata, thus allowing the author or indexer to enhance a reader's search capabilities. I've toyed with the idea of providing readers with a Web site they could access once they've purchased one of my books. The Web site would allow the reader to access an electronic index that's more functional than the static index in the back of the printed book. Ed > Thanks, > > Rich
Re: frontmatter/mainmatter
On Fri, 2003-11-28 at 13:33, Rich Shepard wrote: > On Fri, 28 Nov 2003, Ed Sawicki wrote: > > > The LyX graphical user interface doesn't seem to have a way to easily > > indicate where frontmatter and mainmatter begin. I use ERT to insert > > \frontmatter and \mainmatter. This is fine for me and I'm not complaining. > > I'm just wondering if I missed a more obvious way. > > Ed, > > Nope. That's just what I've used, too. Don't forget \backmatter when you > get there. I did notice that in the Layout pull down menu there's an item called Start Appendix Here. I assumed that this did \appendix. This is what inspired my original question. Are \appendix and \backmatter synonyms? > Rich
Re: indexing a book
On Thu, 2003-11-27 at 12:04, Rich Shepard wrote:
On Thu, 27 Nov 2003, Christian Ridderström wrote:
If you find the boxes annoying, send a suggestion/feature request/ to the
devel-list, saying that you'd like to have a way of _not_ displaying the
index-boxes.
Christian, et al.:
I believe the problem is not that index boxes are displayed, but that they
hide the word or phrase from view. The footnote boxes are the same: there's
a box with a foot label and to read the footnote it is necessary to expand
the box. However, one can read the text without the footnote visible while
writing and editing. Unfortunately, if a lot of words and phrases are marked
for the index then the text becomes difficult to read, or unreadable.
The main problem is as you describe - the text is more difficult
to read with index boxes that hide the word or phrase being
indexed.
You should include a suggestion for how you think this display on/off-setting
should to be controlled... in the preferences, on a per document basis,
through some menu toggle, or a dialog etc?
What effort would be required to display an index box with the marked
word/phrase as a lable, similar to the way ERT is displayed? In my book I've
used ERT to enter, for example, '\texttrademark{}'. When I view the document
on-screen, I see all but the closing brace.
If index box entries displayed like this, rather than with the label,
'idx', I think Ed and others (including me) would be delighted.
Yes, I would be delighted with this solution. It appears
that it can be implemented easily making it an attractive
solution.
Alternative and superior solutions for me would be:
1.Normally hide any on-screen indication of index markup
and only display it by setting a mode.
2.Highlight the indexed word or phrase with a visual
attribute.
3.Display a symbol next to the indexed word or phrase as
FrameMaker does.
Ed
Thanks,
Rich
Re: indexing a book
On Fri, 2003-11-28 at 05:08, Helge Hafting wrote: Ed Sawicki wrote: I love LyX but I dislike the way an index is created. The indexed words are turned into boxes on the screen that I find annoying. I'd also like a bit more automation to make indexing easier. I'm wondering whether I'm overlooking a capability in LyX and whether someone has already created a solution. If there's no other solution, here's what I plan: 1. When the book is finished, convert it to ASCII and LaTex. 2. From the ASCII file, create a word list that consists of all the words in the book. Pare this list down to only the words that should be indexed using some automation and manual inspection and editing. 3. Add phrases that should be indexed to the list. I'll have to maintain a list of phrases manually as I write the book. 4. Have a script automatically insert indexing markup into the LaTeX file. 5. Fix any problems with manual editing of the LaTeX file. 6. Use the marked up LaTeX file to print the final book. Whenever changes to the book are needed, I modify the LyX version of the book. When finished, I go to step 1. Be careful with fully automated indexing. I never intended fully automated indexing. That would be foolish. That's why step 5 exists. Perhaps my wording of step 5 is vague. Indexing every page where some word occur usually makes for a poor index. It is easy, because all you need is to pick the words and let the computer do the rest. But the result is rarely good, as a normal text contain many indexable words in places people aren't interested in looking up. I agree, though this is less of a problem when the book is about a technical subject and most of the index entries are technical terms. I've got the following advice on index creation: 1. Try to not index more than three locations for a word. People simply don't try 20 locations, so it is a waste *even* if all of them are equally relevant. There may be exceptions to this depending on what you're writing - this is the general advice. 2. Avoid foo:56,57,58,59 (or foo:56--59) Simply index the start of the range, people will go there and read through it. 3. Index only the important places a word is used. People looking in the index for foo want to find the important pieces about foo, not everytime the word was used. This advice is more work and stands in the way of automation. Still, it usually results in better books. Helge Hafting
frontmatter/mainmatter
The LyX graphical user interface doesn't seem to have a way to easily indicate where frontmatter and mainmatter begin. I use ERT to insert \frontmatter and \mainmatter. This is fine for me and I'm not complaining. I'm just wondering if I missed a more obvious way. Ed Sawicki
Re: indexing a book
On Thu, 2003-11-27 at 12:04, Rich Shepard wrote:
On Thu, 27 Nov 2003, Christian Ridderström wrote:
If you find the boxes annoying, send a suggestion/feature request/ to the
devel-list, saying that you'd like to have a way of _not_ displaying the
index-boxes.
Christian, et al.:
I believe the problem is not that index boxes are displayed, but that they
hide the word or phrase from view. The footnote boxes are the same: there's
a box with a foot label and to read the footnote it is necessary to expand
the box. However, one can read the text without the footnote visible while
writing and editing. Unfortunately, if a lot of words and phrases are marked
for the index then the text becomes difficult to read, or unreadable.
The main problem is as you describe - the text is more difficult
to read with index boxes that hide the word or phrase being
indexed.
You should include a suggestion for how you think this display on/off-setting
should to be controlled... in the preferences, on a per document basis,
through some menu toggle, or a dialog etc?
What effort would be required to display an index box with the marked
word/phrase as a lable, similar to the way ERT is displayed? In my book I've
used ERT to enter, for example, '\texttrademark{}'. When I view the document
on-screen, I see all but the closing brace.
If index box entries displayed like this, rather than with the label,
'idx', I think Ed and others (including me) would be delighted.
Yes, I would be delighted with this solution. It appears
that it can be implemented easily making it an attractive
solution.
Alternative and superior solutions for me would be:
1.Normally hide any on-screen indication of index markup
and only display it by setting a mode.
2.Highlight the indexed word or phrase with a visual
attribute.
3.Display a symbol next to the indexed word or phrase as
FrameMaker does.
Ed
Thanks,
Rich
Re: indexing a book
On Fri, 2003-11-28 at 05:08, Helge Hafting wrote: Ed Sawicki wrote: I love LyX but I dislike the way an index is created. The indexed words are turned into boxes on the screen that I find annoying. I'd also like a bit more automation to make indexing easier. I'm wondering whether I'm overlooking a capability in LyX and whether someone has already created a solution. If there's no other solution, here's what I plan: 1. When the book is finished, convert it to ASCII and LaTex. 2. From the ASCII file, create a word list that consists of all the words in the book. Pare this list down to only the words that should be indexed using some automation and manual inspection and editing. 3. Add phrases that should be indexed to the list. I'll have to maintain a list of phrases manually as I write the book. 4. Have a script automatically insert indexing markup into the LaTeX file. 5. Fix any problems with manual editing of the LaTeX file. 6. Use the marked up LaTeX file to print the final book. Whenever changes to the book are needed, I modify the LyX version of the book. When finished, I go to step 1. Be careful with fully automated indexing. I never intended fully automated indexing. That would be foolish. That's why step 5 exists. Perhaps my wording of step 5 is vague. Indexing every page where some word occur usually makes for a poor index. It is easy, because all you need is to pick the words and let the computer do the rest. But the result is rarely good, as a normal text contain many indexable words in places people aren't interested in looking up. I agree, though this is less of a problem when the book is about a technical subject and most of the index entries are technical terms. I've got the following advice on index creation: 1. Try to not index more than three locations for a word. People simply don't try 20 locations, so it is a waste *even* if all of them are equally relevant. There may be exceptions to this depending on what you're writing - this is the general advice. 2. Avoid foo:56,57,58,59 (or foo:56--59) Simply index the start of the range, people will go there and read through it. 3. Index only the important places a word is used. People looking in the index for foo want to find the important pieces about foo, not everytime the word was used. This advice is more work and stands in the way of automation. Still, it usually results in better books. Helge Hafting
frontmatter/mainmatter
The LyX graphical user interface doesn't seem to have a way to easily indicate where frontmatter and mainmatter begin. I use ERT to insert \frontmatter and \mainmatter. This is fine for me and I'm not complaining. I'm just wondering if I missed a more obvious way. Ed Sawicki
Re: indexing a book
On Thu, 2003-11-27 at 12:04, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Nov 2003, Christian Ridderström wrote:
>
> > If you find the boxes annoying, send a suggestion/feature request/ to the
> > devel-list, saying that you'd like to have a way of _not_ displaying the
> > index-boxes.
>
> Christian, et al.:
>
> I believe the problem is not that index boxes are displayed, but that they
> hide the word or phrase from view. The footnote boxes are the same: there's
> a box with a "foot" label and to read the footnote it is necessary to expand
> the box. However, one can read the text without the footnote visible while
> writing and editing. Unfortunately, if a lot of words and phrases are marked
> for the index then the text becomes difficult to read, or unreadable.
The main problem is as you describe - the text is more difficult
to read with index boxes that hide the word or phrase being
indexed.
>
> > You should include a suggestion for how you think this display on/off-setting
> > should to be controlled... in the preferences, on a per document basis,
> > through some menu toggle, or a dialog etc?
>
> What effort would be required to display an index box with the marked
> word/phrase as a lable, similar to the way ERT is displayed? In my book I've
> used ERT to enter, for example, '\texttrademark{}'. When I view the document
> on-screen, I see all but the closing brace.
>
> If index box entries displayed like this, rather than with the label,
> 'idx', I think Ed and others (including me) would be delighted.
Yes, I would be delighted with this solution. It appears
that it can be implemented easily making it an attractive
solution.
Alternative and superior solutions for me would be:
1.Normally hide any on-screen indication of index markup
and only display it by setting a "mode".
2.Highlight the indexed word or phrase with a visual
attribute.
3.Display a symbol next to the indexed word or phrase as
FrameMaker does.
Ed
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rich
Re: indexing a book
On Fri, 2003-11-28 at 05:08, Helge Hafting wrote: > Ed Sawicki wrote: > > I love LyX but I dislike the way an index is created. > > The indexed words are turned into boxes on the screen that > > I find annoying. I'd also like a bit more automation to make > > indexing easier. I'm wondering whether I'm overlooking a > > capability in LyX and whether someone has already created a > > solution. > > > > If there's no other solution, here's what I plan: > > > > 1. When the book is finished, convert it to ASCII and LaTex. > > 2. From the ASCII file, create a word list that consists of > >all the words in the book. Pare this list down to only the > >words that should be indexed using some automation and manual > >inspection and editing. > > 3. Add phrases that should be indexed to the list. I'll have to > >maintain a list of phrases manually as I write the book. > > 4. Have a script automatically insert indexing markup into the > >LaTeX file. > > 5. Fix any problems with manual editing of the LaTeX file. > > 6. Use the marked up LaTeX file to print the final book. > > > > Whenever changes to the book are needed, I modify the LyX > > version of the book. When finished, I go to step 1. > > Be careful with "fully automated indexing". I never intended fully automated indexing. That would be foolish. That's why step 5 exists. Perhaps my wording of step 5 is vague. > Indexing > every page where some word occur usually makes for > a poor index. It is easy, because all you need is to > pick the words and let the computer do the rest. But > the result is rarely good, as a normal text contain > many indexable words in places people aren't interested > in looking up. I agree, though this is less of a problem when the book is about a technical subject and most of the index entries are technical terms. > I've got the following advice on index creation: > 1. Try to not index more than three locations for a word. >People simply don't try 20 locations, so it is >a waste *even* if all of them are equally relevant. >There may be exceptions to this depending on what you're >writing - this is the general advice. > 2. Avoid foo:56,57,58,59 (or foo:56--59) Simply >index the start of the range, people will go there >and read through it. > 3. Index only the important places a word is used. >People looking in the index for "foo" want to >find the important pieces about "foo", not everytime the >word was used. > > This advice is more work and stands in the way of > automation. Still, it usually results in better books. > > Helge Hafting >
frontmatter/mainmatter
The LyX graphical user interface doesn't seem to have a way to easily indicate where frontmatter and mainmatter begin. I use ERT to insert \frontmatter and \mainmatter. This is fine for me and I'm not complaining. I'm just wondering if I missed a more obvious way. Ed Sawicki
indexing a book
I love LyX but I dislike the way an index is created. The indexed words are turned into boxes on the screen that I find annoying. I'd also like a bit more automation to make indexing easier. I'm wondering whether I'm overlooking a capability in LyX and whether someone has already created a solution. If there's no other solution, here's what I plan: 1. When the book is finished, convert it to ASCII and LaTex. 2. From the ASCII file, create a word list that consists of all the words in the book. Pare this list down to only the words that should be indexed using some automation and manual inspection and editing. 3. Add phrases that should be indexed to the list. I'll have to maintain a list of phrases manually as I write the book. 4. Have a script automatically insert indexing markup into the LaTeX file. 5. Fix any problems with manual editing of the LaTeX file. 6. Use the marked up LaTeX file to print the final book. Whenever changes to the book are needed, I modify the LyX version of the book. When finished, I go to step 1. Ed Sawicki
indexing a book
I love LyX but I dislike the way an index is created. The indexed words are turned into boxes on the screen that I find annoying. I'd also like a bit more automation to make indexing easier. I'm wondering whether I'm overlooking a capability in LyX and whether someone has already created a solution. If there's no other solution, here's what I plan: 1. When the book is finished, convert it to ASCII and LaTex. 2. From the ASCII file, create a word list that consists of all the words in the book. Pare this list down to only the words that should be indexed using some automation and manual inspection and editing. 3. Add phrases that should be indexed to the list. I'll have to maintain a list of phrases manually as I write the book. 4. Have a script automatically insert indexing markup into the LaTeX file. 5. Fix any problems with manual editing of the LaTeX file. 6. Use the marked up LaTeX file to print the final book. Whenever changes to the book are needed, I modify the LyX version of the book. When finished, I go to step 1. Ed Sawicki
indexing a book
I love LyX but I dislike the way an index is created. The indexed words are turned into boxes on the screen that I find annoying. I'd also like a bit more automation to make indexing easier. I'm wondering whether I'm overlooking a capability in LyX and whether someone has already created a solution. If there's no other solution, here's what I plan: 1. When the book is finished, convert it to ASCII and LaTex. 2. From the ASCII file, create a word list that consists of all the words in the book. Pare this list down to only the words that should be indexed using some automation and manual inspection and editing. 3. Add phrases that should be indexed to the list. I'll have to maintain a list of phrases manually as I write the book. 4. Have a script automatically insert indexing markup into the LaTeX file. 5. Fix any problems with manual editing of the LaTeX file. 6. Use the marked up LaTeX file to print the final book. Whenever changes to the book are needed, I modify the LyX version of the book. When finished, I go to step 1. Ed Sawicki
Lab manual
I need to create a book that includes hundreds of lab exercises for students. Many exercises are formatted with steps as in this nonsense example: 1. Connect to the Internet and download ... Here's an example of how to do this: lynx http://www.blahblah.com/... Be sure to . 2. Untar the file with a command similar to this: tar xzvf carnivore-1.2.tar.gz 3. You must now compile the program. ... using a command similar to this: ./configure --prefix=/opt/carnivore Is there a document class that comes close to this? Ed Sawicki
Lab manual
I need to create a book that includes hundreds of lab exercises for students. Many exercises are formatted with steps as in this nonsense example: 1. Connect to the Internet and download ... Here's an example of how to do this: lynx http://www.blahblah.com/... Be sure to . 2. Untar the file with a command similar to this: tar xzvf carnivore-1.2.tar.gz 3. You must now compile the program. ... using a command similar to this: ./configure --prefix=/opt/carnivore Is there a document class that comes close to this? Ed Sawicki
Lab manual
I need to create a book that includes hundreds of lab exercises for students. Many exercises are formatted with steps as in this nonsense example: 1. Connect to the Internet and download ... Here's an example of how to do this: lynx http://www.blahblah.com/... Be sure to . 2. Untar the file with a command similar to this: tar xzvf carnivore-1.2.tar.gz 3. You must now compile the program. ... using a command similar to this: ./configure --prefix=/opt/carnivore Is there a document class that comes close to this? Ed Sawicki
copyright symbol
Is there a way to enter the copyright symbol from the keyboard using Lyx? I've search the documentation and couldn't find it, so I used the ERT button and put in \copyright. Ed Sawicki
copyright symbol
Is there a way to enter the copyright symbol from the keyboard using Lyx? I've search the documentation and couldn't find it, so I used the ERT button and put in \copyright. Ed Sawicki
copyright symbol
Is there a way to enter the copyright symbol from the keyboard using Lyx? I've search the documentation and couldn't find it, so I used the ERT button and put in \copyright. Ed Sawicki
cut-and-paste issues
I compiled LyX 1.3.3 from source with Qt support and run it on a Linux/KDE system. I cannot cut text from another application and paste it in a LyX document. Is this normal? Ed Sawicki
cut-and-paste issues
I compiled LyX 1.3.3 from source with Qt support and run it on a Linux/KDE system. I cannot cut text from another application and paste it in a LyX document. Is this normal? Ed Sawicki
cut-and-paste issues
I compiled LyX 1.3.3 from source with Qt support and run it on a Linux/KDE system. I cannot cut text from another application and paste it in a LyX document. Is this normal? Ed Sawicki
