In Dr.Explain, just in case I didn't index all my topics in sequence (sometimes you get the urge to, or in fact NEED to jump around while indexing), I went back and changed all my topic status back to "In Progress". This changes their TOC tree entry to have a yellow background instead of green.  Now that I was on the indexing step, the meaning of the "In Progress" (yellow) and "Completed" (green) statuses now took on new meaning:  Yellow = page indexing has not yet been completed, and Green = the indexing for that topic has been done thoroughly and is complete and does not need to be revisited.

 

While indexing each topic, I went through all the steps documented in my indexing article for creating a high-quality index.

 

As part of this, I made it a point to create a level-1 index (keyword) entry for the title of each topic, as well as possible alternative wordings when there were any.

 

In alignment with the purpose of the index and how it will be used, in violation of traditional indexing guidelines, if an important word in a paragraph was not a noun, I indexed it anyway.  In my opinion, this will help more than it will hinder.  On the other hand, if an important word is only mentioned and not really addressed in that topic, I did not index it.  This helps by not leading the reader down an unproductive search path if he is seeking substantial information about that word.

 

Note when indexing proper nouns, every mention of them traditionally gets indexed.  This is to service the reader's possible need to find every mention of a certain entity or person in a large document.

 

I also made it a point to give every control and group box in my software a level-1 index entry.  If a control had the same name in multiple places in the application (a real example in my help file is that I had several buttons named "Reset"), I gave it a single level-1 entry, and had a subentry for each such control so that it was clear which control was being referred to.  In some cases, as you can see, it also refers to discussions that involve the concept of "reset" that were not controls.  Here is my index around the concept of "reset":

 

 

(For clarity, the subentry "software" refers to a microcontroller term called "software reset", which is actually shown in on of my screenshots displayed in my help file.  That subentry links to the topic with that screenshot.)

 

If the name actually appeared in the user interface anywhere, I gave it a level-1 index entry, and usually capitalized it in the same way it is capitalized in the software.  If a name in the help file it did not appear in the user interface (e.g. name of a callout for a group of controls that was not the actual name of a group box), then I reproduced that name as a level-1 index entry, but in all lower case, since it represented the general concept -- not an actual thing in my application.

 

Note that using this method, it was not uncommon to have 15-20 or more index entries per topic.  As long as each index entry represents some way and some wording that the reader might use to find specific material in that page, it is legitimate and helpful.

 

Sometimes, when I encountered an important word that I knew was used in a number of topics, I started from the top of the help file and did a FIND to find all occurrences of it, and made a link to that index entry for each (just that word in lower case).

 

Because I can get interruptions occasionally, if I start into a long-ish or multi-step task, especially connected with indexes, I either try to systematically do all of it in one sitting, or I write down what I was doing on a piece of paper in front of me, and then when I finish it, I check it off. Then if I get interrupted, it is quick to refresh my memory about where I left off.

 

An excellent example of using phrases to give context from my own help file:

 

 

Note that articles (part of speech) such as "the", "a", "an", are normally not used in such phrases.

 

In this case, I made the keyword gearbox link to all the topics where it occurred, plus I added the subentries so that the user could navigate directly to what he was looking for if needed.  "Relieving strain on" was mentioned in three places though, so the user will get a list of those three topics when he double-clicks that index entry.  The other subentries all lead to just one topic.