Today we have installed xindy (latest version from CTAN) and managed
to use it with LaTeX (teTeX installation 1.0). During the installation
we've got a lot of proposals for xindy. Here they are:
1) a lot of CVS directories are created during the installation. They
are probably of no interest for normal xindy user and could be removed
from installation process. Also there are some directories, which are
either empty or contain CVS directories only. They could probably
removed, too.
2) I'm a bit unhappy with the names of documentation files, as
"tutorial" and "manual" are too general. With teTeX, documentation can
be looked at through file name only, like "texdoc dvips", independing
of location and type of documenation file. It would be nice to have
"xindy-manual" and "xindy-tutorial" for that purpose. And, BTW,
"xindy-by-topic" should be called "xindy-FAQ" really ;-)
3) What we ware missing badly was a short and clear explanation how to
use xindy with LaTeX (esp. with german styles). The example in the
tutorial is rather a joke, as one get all files pre-assembled and all
changes are going to style file. This is probably not the way a new
user of xindy should start. First thing one will try is to get the old
functionality of makeindex back and not to make an index look nice.
Anyway, if one tries to imply the example to real life LaTeX, some
questions arise immediatly: how do I get .raw file? Where can I get
xdy-files for german without considering xindy internals first? At the
end of the mail you will find a proposal (in German) for
xindy+LaTeX+german combination.
4) xindy-by-topic explains under
"1.10 I want to process an index for my native language. What must I do?"
rather detailed how to use sort-rules and merge-rules and all those
things. At least for german this is not necessary at all, as all rules
are already defined. Why don't you write something like:
"Look first if there are style files for your language defined (under
modules/lang in the xindy installation directory). For the version
<whatever it is> of xindy, there are rules defined for german. If have
to create rules for your language, proceed as follows:..."
And there are spanish rules in contrib directory, why they are not under
modules/lang?
5) an overview about existing xdy files is missing. There is a README
in the modules directory, but it explains only categories of modules.
One had to read READMEs in subdirectories and xdy files itself, to
find out which files are used by which files. It would be nice to know
what is already there directly and do not compose this information
from manual, tutorial and READMEs.
6) Executable xindy has no option to show the built-in search path.
7) XINDY IS GREAT! MAKE MORE ADVERTISMENTS!
xindy is not mentioned in de-tex-faq. Why?
xindy is not part of teTeX. Why?
One more time, we like xindy very much, but it needs some manual
polishing.
--
Konstantin Malakhanov
---------------------
Institut for Hydraulic Engineering & Groundwater Mgmt., RWTH Aachen, Germany
E-Mail: malakhanov@iww.rwth-aachen.de Tel. +49/(0)241/807343
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Kurze Einleitung zur Benuztung von xindy für deutschsprachige
LaTeX-Dokumenten
Man benutzt Paket makeindex oder index[1] und macht Einträge wie
üblich mit \index{}. Nach dem LaTeX-Lauf wird xindy wie folgt benutzt:
xindy -f tex2xindy german.xdy <Name der idx-Datei>
german.xdy kann so aussehen
------------------------------ cut here 8< --------------------
(require "tex/makeidx.xdy")
(require "lang/german/tex.xdy")
;;(require "lang/german/din5007m.xdy")
(require "lang/german/duden.xdy")
------------------------------ cut here 8< --------------------
Nach dem xindy-Lauf wird LaTeX nochmal aufgerufen.
Eklärungen zum xindy Aufruf und german.xdy:
-f tex2xindy bewirkt, daß Indexeinträge aus der LaTeX-Form in die von
xindy lesbare Form konvertiert werden (Syntaxkonvertierung)
tex/makeidx.xdy - damit xindy den Inhalt der Indexeinträgen von LaTeX
verstehen kann (semantische Konvertierung)
lang/german/tex.xdy - bewirkt richtige Einbindung der TeX-Umlaute.
Auch wenn Umlaute mit inputenc direkt eingegeben werden, werden sie
beim Rausschreiben von Index nach TeX-Umlaute umgewandelt.
lang/german/duden.xdy - Sortieren nach Duden (ö wie o)
Sollte man Sortierung nach DIN benötigen (ö wie oe), muß man
Kommentarzeichen ;; vor (require "lang/german/din5007m.xdy")
entfernen und (require "lang/german/duden.xdy") entsprechend
auskommentieren.
Footnotes:
[1] Benuztung von index wird im xindy-Manual vorgeschlagen. Ich weiß
nicht, ob index auch mit KOMA-Skru]ipten funktioniert. In der
Dokumentation von index ist von umdefinierten LaTeX-Interna die Rede.