Re: What do you put in figure captions

["Backer, Corinne" <CBacker -at- GLHEC -dot- ORG>]

Suzette has a good idea, in a way, but this has caused me problems in the
past. Listing them this way forces your reader to skip over the long phrase
"Customer Information Window" every time in search of the real information,
which is "Add a new customer" etc. I would suggest reversing the clauses,
thereby following the old journalists' maxim of putting first what the
reader really needs to know, and trailing it with backup/support.

Corinne

> From: Suzette Seveny
>
> What about compromising and using two level headings, with the name of the
> window followed by the function of the window?
>
> i.e.:
> Figure x.x: Customer Information Window - Add a New Customer
> Figure x.x: Customer Information Window - Changing Customer Information
>
        -------------------

> On Tuesday, June 08, 1999 4:41 PM, John Posada wrote:
> <snip>
> > Due to poor software design, the titles of the windows
> > in the application are not descriptive of the
> > contents. The same type of windows with different
> > contents will have the same name in the title bar.
> > BTW...this is why I have so many screen shots. It is
> > hard to mention a window in the text without a picture
> > when the contents is different and the person reading
> > the instructions might think of one window when the
> > software is displaying another.
> >
> > Because of that, I want to compose the figure caption
> > based on a descriptive format based on the contents
> > but I'm outvoted by one or two people around here that
> > want me to use the title of the window as the figure
> > title, regardless of how redundant they may be.
> >
> > The problem is that when I generate the Figure TOC
> > (LOF to those in the Frame world), the list doesn't do
> > much to help a person find a graphic of a window since
> > he may find 12-15 figures listed with the same
> > caption.
> >
>

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