your opinion about list structures

10 Aug 2023

      Hi, this is about my ConTeXt book again…

[ToC]

At the moment, my table of contents has chapters and sections and is 8 
pages long. I would probably hardly use it.

Maybe it would be better to show only chapters (29 content + 12 appendix 
= 2 pages) and include a list of sections after the chapter title (or 
not at all).

[Registers]

I split between command and topic index (9 pages each), because I find 
it annoying to have the commands between the topics.
I also include the topics that are mentioned in titles in the index, 
because I hate it if I must look in two places.
(Otherwise I wouldn’t think about omitting the sections from the ToC.)

At the moment there‘s also an index of todo items, but that will 
disappear before print.

[Glossary]

There’s a short dictionary of technical terms in the appendix (8.5 p.). 
Each lemma is also included in the index.

Should I add a list of abbreviations? (TDS, TEI, OCG, RAL, PDF, SVG…?)
They’re in the index and explained where they matter – I don’t think the 
meaning of many abbreviations like file types is important.

[Other lists]

Should I include a list of colors, like the output of 
\showcolor[crayola]? (I think it would only bloat the book, and everyone 
can create the list themselves.)

I have lists of supported languages (should get checked), fonts in the 
distribution and all math fonts, because these are not easily 
reproducible (AFAIK).

So, what do you think, and how do you like to work with technical books?
What kind of information (about ConTeXt or documents/printing in 
general) do you find hard to find?

Hraban

Henning Hraban Ramm

Keith McKay

denis.maier＠unibe.ch

Henning Hraban Ramm

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