Shortcut for adding words/phrases to the index

[avi10000]

Hi all,

I am looking for a way of assigning shortcuts key combos so I can (much) faster manually build an index. I want a shortcut so that I can select a word/phrase and then hit the shortcut and add it to the index.

Failing that, a toolbar button would also be good, but I also can't find one of those.

Option 3, is to use a system macros application that records Windows events, like key presses and mouse clicks -- I use Quick Macros -- so I tried , but it did not work. It displayed an the right-click menu "add to index" menu items as disabled.

Pointers, anybody?

Tia

- avi

[Peter Grainge]

I use MacroExpress from http://www.macros.com for many things.

However, RH itself does not assign index keywords to words or phrases in the content so it is going to be tough automating something that cannot be done in the first place. :-)

Index keywords are assigned to topics or bookmarks.

[avi10000]

>>Index keywords are assigned to topics

Do you mean index keywords are assigned to topic names/titles?

Tnx,

- avi

[avi10000]

While talking about topics, I notice something interesting, if I select only part of a word in a topic title, then I gert the same effect when I click right-click > Add item > Index Keyword.

I.e., the same effect as when I recorded a macro (using Quick Macros).

>> However, RH itself does not assign index keywords to words or phrases in the content
Actually, I am not sure what you mean by this. I see that I am able to select a word, right-click it and then assign it to the index list.

tnx,

- avi

[Peter Grainge]

No, I mean they are assigned to topics, the whole file.

When you were using Quick Macros, it was just ignoring what had been selected.

Right click without selecting a word and you will get the same option.

RH does not assign index keywords to text or titles, just the whole topic.

[avi10000]

>> No, I mean they are assigned to topics, the whole file.
Do you mean that the index doesn't jump you to that word?

>> Right click without selecting a word and you will get the same option.
Well I tried it. I right click without selecting a word and I see I do not get the same option; l it is disabled.

I just downloaded Macro Express, and lo and behold, it lets me record the whole macro and actually runs the phrase indexing operation and assigns the phrase/word into the index. So it succeeds where Quick Macros does not. Thanks for the suggestion! This is great! (So far.)

avi

[avi10000]

>> I just downloaded Macro Express
Sorry ... beginner's luck. It's not working.

Btw, I see that Macro Express operates on a different principle than Quick Macros.

Macro Express records the mouse motion , whereas Quick Macros identifies and records the actual Windows items and operations. Anyway, neither of them do it. Drat. A big Drat! This is one thing you can scarecely do with out - a one-lick method of adding words into the index. Where is the RH wish list for the next version?

tnx

- avi

[Peter Grainge]

Yes that is what I mean, the index does not jump you to the keyword.

I just opened RH to remind myself. When you right click with a word selected, that word is added to the index and that topic is assigned to it. If you go to the Index Editor you will see that. Try it by adding a new word such as Redrabbit and selecting that. When added using the right click menu, Redrabbit will be in the index with what topic shown below. If you compile and go to Redrabbit in the index, it will open the topic, it will not jump to the word.

MacroExpress can be set to work with or without the mouse so you will be able to set it up to do what you want.

Why not tackle the indexing a different way? Add the words you want and drag the topics from the topic list.

[avi10000]

Thanks.

Yes, I see now you can drag entries in.

(I just tried to drag a selected word into the Index pod; no it didn't work ...)

Tell me please, still on my original way of doing this:
What is the difference between choosing to enter the index word as "global" (the name of the RH project is presented) and selecting "Topic Index Keyword"? I suppose it has some effect on how the index results are displayed at run-time.

General question: when I define an index keyword, then at run-time is it supposed to show me a whole list of whichever topics happens to contain that word wherever the words are? Or only certain topics that I define as being part of the index? I guess this has something to do with my previous question?

Tia,

- avi

[avi10000]

Well, somehow I muddled along, succeeded in throwing in quite a large number of index entries to make a good impression that the Help is professional, and submitted my first ever draft of a RoboHelp HTML project.

Thanks for the help,

- avi

[Peter Grainge]

If I right click I see a list of the indexes in the project so that I can add the keyword to a specific index or I see Topic Index Keyword which adds the keyword to all indexes. I don't see Global.

Your general question in the first part is really what search does. Return a list of all topics with that word. Index returns just the topics yoyou link, other topics may contain that word but if you didn't link the topic, it will not be listed, that's the point of the index, you control it.

With things like this you will understand them much better if you create a simple test project with just a few topics. You can see what is going on.