Collapsible TOC?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Trane

Has felt like trying to get up Everest! In flip-flops... blind... carrying a piano! (Because a little exaggeration never hurt anyone.)

Fitzcarraldo wrangled a steam ship between two rivers in Brazil, or was it Peru

Must watch it again - thanks for the reminder.

BR

[Trane]

After trying the split method I don't think it will improve the reader's experience in the case of this particular book...

Theducks also suggested linking to a single file that is 'the expanded contents'. So I'm now considering creating an H1 TOC for the front of the book, with the last item "Expanded Table Of Contents," linked to a page at the end, which would be the full, expanded TOC.

A reader has no reason to need the expanded version until they've read it anyway, and they need to find a particular thing.

[edited out my questions about how to do it]

However, it's my understanding Amazon does not want a TOC at the end because of 'gaming the system' for the K Unlimited "page reads" ... where if someone has to jump to the end of the book for the TOC, they get more 'page reads' than is accurate. However I also read they will now allow it, but if they think you're gaming, they could take action or penalize you. (I emailed KDP but who knows when they will get back to me.)

EDIT: I managed to do what I wanted. For future novices like me, this is what I did:

1. Generated full TOC with all levels.
2. Copied code into notepad and saved as Expanded_Contents.xhtml [with UTF-8 encoding chosen in the drop-down (default is ASCI)].
3. Right-click on Text folder in Sigil to add existing files, to add that file.
4. Inside the new Expanded_Contents.xhtml file, removed the <div> code around the title "Table Of Contents" and made it <h1> (if you don't do this, it won't be included in the new TOC you generate.) Also edited to say "Expanded Table Of Contents." And Sigil auto placed it at the end of the epub where I wanted it...
5. Generated new TOC using only H1-H2.
6. Generated new HTML TOC.
7. Generated new TOC (ncx) again using all levels.

So now the H1-H2 only HMTL TOC appears as front matter, but the last link in that TOC is to the "Expanded Table Of Contents" at the end of the book. And the toc.ncx has all levels.

EDIT: For future readers, KDP informed me I cannot copy TOC code to make the 'expanded TOC' to place at the end, due to people"gaming the system" for page-reads for Kindle Unlimited. Instead they require a "reference page" at the end, which I was told must be built from scratch. I clarified this would require setting anchors, then links to those anchors for over 300 chapters/sub-chapters, and they still said (paraphrase) 'I realize it's more work but I wouldn't want you to be flagged and banned from further publishing.' (Note: If you take a 35% royalty and are not enrolled in KU this doesn't apply.)

EDT #2: OK, it got no errors in the online ePub Checker, or in Flight Crew, but Kindle Previewer won't convert it... spins forever. Hit cancel and said it might have errors or is corrupt... so not done yet.

EDIT #3: Turned out the ISBN number went missing from the metadata, and I had previously changed the UUID to be the ISBN, so I assume that was the issue. Put the ISBN back in the metadata and it converted fine.

[Trane]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Fitzcarraldo wrangled a steam ship between two rivers in Brazil, or was it Peru [...] BR

If he carried it on his back, yeah. That's about it.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Trane

oh, how I hate TOC!! So glad future projects will be plain old fictional novels. No pictures, no TOC, no headings beyond H1... my god it sounds like a dream!

On Amazon, every book requires the HTML TOC.

Originally Posted by Trane

After trying the split method I don't think it will improve the reader's experience in the case of this particular book...

[...]

but at least they won't be turned off from buying the book in the first place with 10 pages of TOC. ??

I don't see any reason why someone would get turned off by a large TOC (unless the TOC clearly displays horrendous writing skills).

What I typically do in these cases is leave the HTML TOC as a shorter one:

Part > Chapter > Subchapter

That should be granular enough for the normal reader... And then I leave the internal TOC (NCX) as the full TOC... but it depends on each book.

Take the Chicago Manual of Style as an example. It has 5 pages of TOC:

Part > Chapter > Subchapter

but the internal TOC is immense, dealing with 5 levels:

Part > Chapter > Subchapter > Section > Numbered Subsection

Part Two: Style and Usage
- 6. Punctuation
-- Hyphens and Dashes
--- En Dashes
---- 6.78 En dash as "to."
---- 6.79 En dash with an unfinished number range.

If your book is organized as well as that, "Hyphens and Dashes" is a perfectly acceptable jumping off point.

[Trane]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

What I typically do in these cases is leave the HTML TOC as a shorter one:

Part > Chapter > Subchapter

That should be granular enough for the normal reader... And then I leave the internal TOC (NCX) as the full TOC... but it depends on each book.

Thanks Tex, you brought up a great point I wanted to ask about. I agree a two-level HTML TOC should be enough, with the toc.ncx the complete TOC. (Though it gives me pause due to older readers not using toc.ncx as they have no built in Go To feature/function... from that I understand. But putting that point aside and getting to my main question...)

I assumed that both the toc.ncx and the HTML TOC had to be the same... that is, that generating the toc.ncx had to be done first, then that's what was used to generate the HTML TOC. I thought if they didn't match it would create a problem! D'oh!

Thanks and I did generate a 2-level HTML and a full level ncx.

And it validated in ePub and Kindle converted it. Hallelujah.

Thanks again for everyone's help, including Tex.