Appendix within a chapter?

[Geoff Hart <Geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

John Posada poses the following dilemma: <<The software
developers... tried to make the application so cutomizable
that they've made it almost impossible to configure
for anyone with experience short of developer level...
Therefore, one of the problems is that almost every dropdown
box (and there are MANY) can be customized.>>

If you haven't already done so, is it too late to request that
they put in a "restore this to its default configuration" button
(or several such buttons, one per box)? Much kinder to the
user than having them reinstall the software just to get back to
where they started. I've used this kind of option before in
various software, and loved having it available.

<<... the procedure gets bogged down in side-processes that
makes the average user deviate from the normal procedure.
Therefore, I'd like to group the side-processes in a section at the
end of each chapter. In this way, if an advanced user wants to
address some of the configuration cababilities that most users
wouldn't care about, they can reference the procedure at the end of
the chapter.>>

It's not clear how the various customization options interact,
but my initial feeling based on the context you've provided is
that your approach would require too much page flipping. (I
may have misunderstood your description too.) If I've
understood it correctly, I suspect it would be simpler to do
something like this:

Step 1: Here's the text for what you do in step 1.
If you've chosen option:     Do this:
X =1                                   Set Y=2
X= 2                                   Set Y =1
etc.

In effect, what you've done is provide the main text ("Step 1")
for those who are using the default configuration, then a table
of additional steps (or modifications to the main step) for
those who have made various customisations (here, chosen
various values of X) without making the user flip pages to
find out the consequences of the additional options. If the
situation is more complicated than "set y=1" (it probably is),
you can probably include a 20-word summary of what to do,
then add a page reference to more detailed instructions for
those who need it. The summary will be all that the
"developer-level user" needs in many cases, but the page
reference provides additional meat for those who need it. This
strikes me as a reasonable compromise between too much
and too little information in one place.

--Geoff Hart @8^{)}     Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

"Though the editor is the author's ally, she should never forget that
she is also the reader's first line of defense."--Shoshanna Green


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