I will be updating the AZIndex plugin to version 0.4 within a couple of days after I have done a bit more testing.  It contains just about all the new features I plan to add (except for caching) before I declare the beta phase over.  The new features include:

• An option to use CSS style striping to decorate your index entries (e.g. add a gray background to alternate entries).
• An option to use your own customized sort to sort an index.
• An option to customize which alphabetical links appear with your index.
• An option to place index entries that do not begin with a character or number at the end of the index instead of the beginning.
• An option to ignore punctuation like quotes or double-quotes while sorting the index (useful if some of your post titles are in quotation marks, for example.
• Safe upgrades to new versions without having to uninstall and recreate your indexes.

I think that’s more than enough functionality for the first major release of this plugin.  Thanks to everyone who has given me feedback, reported bugs, or suggested enhancements.  This plugin is already much the better for your help, even though it’s not quite finished yet.

I hope to have the caching done before I go on my summer vacation, but it could be tricky to do, so I can’t promise anything.  However, from playing with the plugin myself, and from feedback I have received from a couple of users, if you are holding off installing AZIndex because of my dire warnings about performance, it seems that I might have been a little too cautious.  If your index contains fewer than, say, a couple of hundred entries, and is not going to be accessed by thousands of users an hour, then I think you’ll find that it’s ok to install without the caching.

So keep your eyes peeled for an update to AZIndex.  It should be coming your way before the weekend is over.