[Zope] Using Catalog in a stand-alone application

[Noam Raphael]

Hello,

I intend to write a free (GPL) application for browsing and searching
a large collection of classic Hebrew texts, such as the bible. I want
to write it in Python, which is a language that I like very much. It
is supposed to be a stand-alone application, which could be
distributed on a CD.

Some semi-special things I want the search to be able to do: It should
be possible to select which books to search. I might want to allow
some specific variations on the typed words, which are common in
Hebrew. Another thing that may be nice is to find multiple results
within one document, since some texts are quite long.

I've found that Zope's ZCatalog is based on Catalog, which is said to
be possible to run without the full Zope. If you are familiar with
ZCatalog, perhaps you can help me a bit, or point me to places where
to find what I need. I ask, first, if it is reasonable to use Catalog
for such a task. I also want to know which parts of Zope are relevant
for what I need. A general overview about how it works would also be
very nice.

Thank you very much,
Noam Raphael