Re: [Groff] Creating an index with mom

[Peter Schaffter]

Blake --

Sorry to take so long to respond.  Easter and all that.

On Sat, Apr 19, 2014, Blake McBride wrote:
> I would absolutely prefer to have a one-size-fits-all index ability within
> mom rather than no real ability at all.  Also, IMO, once a
> one-size-fits-all index is added, I am sure format controls will
> increasingly slip in and over time and ultimately lead to a very powerful
> indexing ability.  We just need to start with a basic ability first.  IMO,
> this would be a very powerful addition to mom's already existing TOC
> ability.
> 
> Has anything been done along these lines?

Quick answer: no.  Main reason: time. :)

The subject of indexing in mom first came up about a decade ago
at an OCLUG talk I gave.  I spent some time afterwards with a
very knowledgeable archivist/librarian--name escapes me--who made
me aware that indexing is both a science and an art.  In almost
no other area of document design are expressive formatting and
content so closely linked.  I agreed with him that full indexing
capabilities would be a feather in mom's cap, but concluded then,
as now, that it would take months of committed work to iron out the
bugs.  Still haven't managed to buy myself that chunk of time.

I have an aversion to LISP so xindy is out (someone once remarked
that LISP stands for Lost In Superfluous Parentheses), and I'm not
well-versed about makeindex.  However, I'm thinking that if Denis
has got indexing working with makeindex, perhaps the best route to
go with mom would be to adapt the indexing facilities from -markup.

Denis, if you have any thoughts on this, I'd welcome them.

-- 
Peter Schaffter
http://www.schaffter.ca