how to generate nested toc.ncx with more than 6 levels?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by famfam

And a last question to sigil:
Whats the reason, to the 6 levels limitation? Is it so complicated to double the nummer auf levels? What is the problem? Sorry about my question, but I have no idea about that.

It's not a really Sigil limitation. Sigil will allow you to manually make as many nesting levels as you want in your NCX (either via the Edit ToC gui or editing the NCX directly). The automatic NCX generation feature is limited to 6 nesting levels because (x)html only defines 6 header tags--which is what the tool uses to quickly identify "levels."

I'm quite sure a Sigil plugin could be written to automatically generate much deeper NCX nesting by using predefined css classes or ids to identify the various "levels".

[HarryT]

famfam, it's really important that you consider what device you intend your book to be read on. As already mentioned, many devices will not display a TOC beyond two or three levels of nesting.

[famfam]

Originally Posted by HarryT

famfam, it's really important that you consider what device you intend your book to be read on. As already mentioned, many devices will not display a TOC beyond two or three levels of nesting.

What I'am usind since years on my Lifetab (Tablet) is a chinese reader named duokan.reader (3.5.0 android version), because I like it. 6 levels is no problem for duokan. I could find no information about the number of levels, duokan can work with. Anybody knows more about that?
Normally you cant find informations about the level-capacity of the devices or the android apps. Trial and error, seems to be the only way.

So: a plugin for sigil would be fine
or
a good idea, how to reorganize long texts down to a 6 level-toc.

I have no idea how to restructure a text down to 6 levels and no experience.
Lets think more about that.

[theducks]

Sigils NCX generator is base upon HTML H#'s. There are just 6 H#'s

Have you tried the TOC tool in Calibre Library (Also available in the editor)

Nothing stops you from hand editing the NCX (but it is a pain if you need man changes) . Saved clips can help with single entries, but nesting always bite me on the south-side

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by theducks

Nothing stops you from hand editing the NCX (but it is a pain if you need man changes) . Saved clips can help with single entries, but nesting always bite me on the south-side

You don't even have to manually edit the NCX file if you don't want. The Edit TOC feature will allow you to create/delete entries and indent/dedent (nest) entries via a gui dialog. You just have to remember not wipe out all your work by later running the automatic Generate TOC feature. It may be tedious, but it's certainly less tedious than hand-editing an xml file. Especially if you're not familiar with the syntax.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by famfam

What you mean by better organized in a different way? When the book already has that many levels? I found one with easily 10 to 12 levels. Sure, thats not the rule, thats a special case.

[...]

But again, how, do you think, could it be possible, to organize better a long text with 10 levels down to 6 levels? Any idea about that?

[...]

I have no idea how to restructure a text down to 6 levels and no experience.
Lets think more about that.

Hard to say without seeing the actual text. I am having a hard time even imagining anything beyond 7 or 8 (and even this is pushing it to the extremes).

What does the TOC currently look like?

In a compilation of multiple authors' entire books, you may see something like 6 headings:

- Author
-- Year
--- Book
---- Part
----- Chapter
------ Subchapter

In LaTeX, you are given access to 7 levels of headings:

- Part
-- Chapter
--- Section
---- Subsection
----- Subsubsection
------ Paragraph
------- Subparagraph

You say you have examples of 10 or 12 levels deep... I would be interested in how the author themselves are even citing locations within the book. It seems to me like it would get extremely unwieldy:

"As discussed in sections 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8-1.2.3.4.5.6.7.12, Tex said that so many subheadings would become confusing."