RE: index entries for snippets

[Trevor Daniels]

Graham Percival wrote on 08 February 2008 19:49
> 
> Do we want index entries for snippets?  For example, in
>   NR 1.1.3.2 Key signature
> there are two snippets: suppressing natural signs in key
> signatures, and non-standard key signatures.
> 
> Do you want to have items like:
> @cindex key signatures, suppressing natural signs
> @cindex don't print natural signs in key signatures
> @cindex key signatures, non-standard
> @cindex key signatures, whole tone

These are not helpful, especially the one beginning
with "don't", which is silly, but I would like both 
these snippets to be indexed with

@cindex natural sign, suppressing

At present the only entry for naturals takes you to
a section on text markup commands.  Not helpful if
you're looking for a way to suppress extra naturals.
 
> More examples are in
>   NR 1.2.1.2 Tuplets
> 
> such as
> @funindex tupletNumberFormatFunction
> @funindex tupletSpannerDuration
> and
> @cindex tuplet bracket length
> @cindex triplet bracket length
> @cindex bracket length, tuplets 

An index is helpful only if it includes the term the
user has in mind when he conducts a search.  Sure,
if that term isn't found, he'll try another, but the
whole point of an index is to make it as quick and
easy as possible to go from query to answer.
So index entries should be constructed by thinking
of what questions the user might have which could
be answered by reading this section, and index the
key terms in the questions, not the terms in the
answer.  So these are good (I wrote them, so I have
to support them ;)

> Cheers,
> - Graham
> 
Trevor D