What's New in SKY Index Professional v7.0

A FREE demo version is available. For more information and to download click here.

SI7 was in development for over 7 years and is a major upgrade to the already wildly popular indexing program. Below we've listed some of the new features that are unique to version 7 of SKY Index. This is by no means an all inclusive list of new features.

Undo/Redo

SI7 now has virtually unlimited undo and redo.

User Interface:

You can now arrange the Data Entry Grid and Preview Pane side-by-side, so that they both display more entries.

The program's appearance has been improved

Toolbars can be docked at the top, left, bottom, or right of the program screen

You can now tear the toolbars off the docking area and let them float anywhere on your computer's screen

There are now more toolbar icons for your common tasks

Configuration:

There are many new options for configuring the style of your index and the index's Preview Pane is updated as you make changes so you can see exactly how your changes will affect your index.

All configuration is done through well thought-out dialogs. There are dialogs for: Preferences - those options that affect all indexes; Document Options - for those options that affect how your document is layed out (things like margins and page size); Index Options - for the options you'll need to set to match the style guide your clients provide for your index; Data Entry Options - for options that affect what happens while you're entering or editing your index entries.

There are now "Managers" for Acronyms, AutoComplete, AutoEntry, Macros, and Translations. They are all grid based and all include Import and Export features. To see what they look like, click here (coming soon).

Index structure and configuration:

There are now up to 9 section labels for locators (chapter/volume labels)

You can define default prefix and suffix text for all locators and for all section labels.

You can now define custom alphabet separators and can also define what characters will appear in each section of the index.

You can now specify indents in inches, millimeters, centimeters, points, ems and ens.

You now have significantly more control over sorting. (You define what characters are equal to a space, what characters are symbols, and what characters will be interpreted as a full stop.)

Editing (general):

All 'core' editing commands are now assigned to a single function key for quick editing.

Core editing commands have modifiers for duplicating and grouping making it much easier to remember the commands for performing these compound commands. For a description of the core editing commands click here.

You can now apply "Note" formatting to text so that the text will appear in the data entry grid and the Preview Pane, but will not sort and will not appear in the generated index. You can group on this new text style.

The Data Entry Grid now allows you to select an entire column by clicking on the column header. You can then use any of the commands on the Format menu to apply that formatting to that heading level for all entries in the index.

Editing: There are new Editing commands to make editing your index even faster and easier than before.

Swap Acronym – allows you to swap the full text and acronym text with a single keystroke. Example: Change “American Society for Indexing (ASI)” to “ASI (American Society for Indexing)”.

Toggle see/see also – Toggles a cross-reference from see to see also and vice versa with a single keystroke

Create subheadings from locators – Creates a new subheading for each locator of the current main heading. The locators are then removed from the main heading.

Consume Subheadings – removes all subheadings of the current main heading (or subheading), and adds the locators of all those subheadings to the main heading.

Split – Allows you to automatically split entries according to a split delimiter and a split delimiter count in order to create new index entries with a single keystroke. Example: Split this one entry “Wilson, Samual R., Roberts, John H.”, into these two entries: “Wilson, Samual R.” and “Roberts, John H.” Note: If there are more than two names, just keep executing the command until all names have been split into new entries.

Create Reciprocal Xref – Creates a Reciprocal cross-reference with a single keystroke. Example: Given this entry: "American Society for Indexing. see also Indexing Societies" SI7 will create a new entry like this: "Indexing Societies. see also American Society for Indexing."

Copy/Cut/Paste/Delete Heading – You can now cut, copy, paste, and delete entire headings (which include all of their subheadings) with a single keystroke.

New Edit View

Edit View (screenshot) allows you to edit your index at the heading level. In Edit View, you will be presented with a formatted index in indented style. You move about the index freely in the way you would in a word processor. If you wish to edit a heading, just move the highlight over the entry you wish to edit and press either F2 or Enter. An in-place editor will appear that will allow you to edit the heading and/or the locators/cross-references. When you're finished editing. Just press F2 or Enter again to commit the changes Although the data entry grid offers all of the editing ability of Edit View, there are certain types of editing that can be done more efficiently and much more intuitively in Edit View. Don't worry, though, the Data Entry Grid is still there to handle the special editing tasks that simply can't be handled by any other paradigm.

Multi-pane Browsing

SI7's new Browse feature (screenshot) allows you to compare two parts of your index side-by-side in two separate completely formatted views of the index. When you've found the index entries you wish to see, you can either exit the Browse Pane and leave the entry you were viewing prior to browsing unchanged by pressing Escape or your can make the browsed to entry current by pressing Enter.

Find/Replace (screenshot)

Totally new UI allows you to easily locate text with or without consideration of character style

Allows up to nine criteria (subsearches) using Boolean AND or OR and a new PLUS feature

There is now a "whole word" option

Your 20 most recent searches and your 20 most recent replaces are saved for reuse. They are saved with the index so they are there even if you close and reopen the index.

You can create up to 20 'Saved Searches' that are saved for all indexes and can be accessed through the Search menu or the Saved Searches toolbar

Press Ctrl+F3 to search for the currently highlighted/selected index heading.

Press F3 to find the next match or Shift+F3 to find the previous

Press Ctrl+Shift+F3 to create a group based on the currently highlighted/selected text.

AutoComplete

When cross-references are AutoCompleted, you can now optionally choose to automatically remove trailing parenthetical text.

Nine Labels: (screenshot coming soon)

Up to 9 labels

Each label can be assigned a name

Each label has a user configurable color

The labels are shown in both the data entry grid and the preview pane

There is a Go to next label function

There is a Group on current label function

There is a Label tool window to allow you to easily set or clear any of the nine labels while working on your index.

The status bar shows the name of the current record’s label

There is a keyboard shortcut to toggle any of the nine labels

Cross-references:

Can be configured to AutoCapitalize cross-references just as you can main or subheadings.

Can be configured so that formatting is not applied to "see" or "see also" if the target is formatted.

Can be configured to force the target text formatting for capitalization and character style to match exactly that actual text it points to regardless of how you entered it.

SI7 will recognize and automatically format 'under' when used in a cross-reference.

Error Scan will correctly verify cross-references that use 'under'.

Error Scan will ignore general cross-references during error scan. (You specify what leading text constitutes a general cross-reference.)

You can instruct SI7 to automatically place general cross-references after all other subheadings.

You can Ctrl+Click on a cross-reference to display the cross-reference's target in a mini Preview Pane. Press Esc or simply move to a different record to close it.

Other Improvements:

The file open/save dialog now keeps track of the 9 most recently accessed directories for single click access.

You can now change the sort order of the data entry grid while keeping grouped entries grouped.

The list of recently opened files now lists up to 9 indexes.

The merge command now allows you to select multiple indexes to be merged all at once.

The proofing report will now group records by locator when the index is in Page Ordered View prior to generating the proofing report.

The Title Case formatting command will not capitalize words that are in the ignored words list

The SmartSwap list will now accept phrases instead of just single words and now works independently of the Ignored Words list. This allows you to intelligently swap entries like:

You can now configure SI7 to automatically merge orphan subheadings.

There is now a Group on Orphan subheadings command so that you can manually merge orphans, if desired using the Promote or Combine command.

The Translation Table now includes the ability to define Unicode character translations quickly and easily.

Group on the heading under the marquee or the currently selected text by pressing Ctrl+Shift+G.

System Requirements

This program requires Windows XP, Vista, or 7. If your computer meets the minimum system requirements for the operating system that is installed, it also meets the requirements of SKY Index for random access memory (RAM) and for minimum CPU speed. You should have at least 60 MB of free disk space prior to installation. Microsoft Word is recommended, but not required.