Use of indexing tools

[Richard Kimberly Heck]

On 9/1/23 17:08, Andrew Parsloe wrote:
> On 2/09/2023 4:03 am, Richard Kimberly Heck wrote:
>> On 8/31/23 20:07, Andrew Parsloe wrote:
>>> I hadn't used the indexing tools for many (10?) years and had 
>>> memories of a tedious process but having now compiled another index, 
>>> the process is vastly improved -- with only one quibble: not enough 
>>> built-in shortcuts.
>>>
>>> 1. The index-insert lfunction needs a shortcut.
>>
>> Since so many the single-key shortcuts are taken, I just use Alt-I+d, 
>> which activates the Insert menu, then uses the menu accelerator.
>>
>>> 2. Once in an index inset, pressing Return to create a subentry is 
>>> exactly right, but highlights the desirability of having shortcuts 
>>> for both see and see also references. (I found I inserted most of 
>>> these 'in a batch' after looking at the first draft of the index.)
>>>
>>> I assigned my own shortcuts built around ctrl+; for index-insert, 
>>> ctrl+shift+; to insert see refs and ctrl+alt+; to insert see also 
>>> refs (the mnemonic is Shift for See, and ALt for ALso). In fact the 
>>> shortcuts were more complicated to take account of different 
>>> situations (inset filled with a word or not, word selected or not, 
>>> word accepatable or not), in the course of which I found myself 
>>> wanting to put a command-sequence inside command-alternatives. Is 
>>> this possible? (Riki? -- I see "rgh" introduced command-alternatives.)
>>
>> I don't know if that would work. One problem, likely, is that it's 
>> hard to know when the command-sequence has ended and something else 
>> has started with the current syntax. That could be fixed. But a 
>> second and more serious problem is that the status checking for 
>> command sequences is somewhat limited. If I remember right, we only 
>> check the first action. The problem is that later actions may depend 
>> upon that one, i.e., not be active themselves until it has been 
>> completed, and we can't check that.
>>
>> Riki
>
> Thanks for the response. In relation to  "Alt-I+d" I see that 
> accelerator underlining depends on activating the menu with Alt. 
> Clicking on Insert in the menu bar doesn't show the accelerators. 
> After decades of computer use, I had never noticed this little quirk 
> before (but I see the User's Guide mentions it).

I think this is something that got changed in Qt at some point. I don't 
personally care for it, for exactly this reason.

Riki