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Subject:Re: an indexing question From:Reinhard Jaehnig <jaehnig_reinhard_rej-d -at- BETASYSTEMS -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 15 Jun 1998 14:26:58 UT
Patrick,
You asked about indexing a common characteristic
like color in a database-like application.
> Color 7, 12, 18, 22, 29, 34, ...
or
> Color
> of eggbeaters 7
> of forks 12
> of toasters 18
> of woks 22 etc.
Just ask yourself: What does the user want to know ?
For example, "the users wants to select a red fork"
or "the user wants to know which objects in the data-
base have the database attribute color."
And then create an index that leads the user there.
For task B, I would expect the user to look up "color" in
the index. In this case, it would be very useful to provide
subentries for the individual objects.
But for task A, I would expect the user to look up "fork" in
the index, not "red" and not "color". If your document goes
on for 10 pages on forks, I would prefer:
