Propose an improved layout, removing baker's math section

[ramink]

• Comment out Baker's math section, for now.
• Move flow chart to top of Making a Starter Section
• Move Microbe War figure to paragraph after "epic battle"

[ramink]

This MR is not ready for merging. For now, it's just for showing how some things could be improved. I have commented out the entire Baker's math section, because:

1. The rest of the chapter lays out better without it. :-)
2. It really might make more sense to put that in an appendix or a general introduction chapter.

But, please consider how the chapter layout is with the flowchart and germ war items better placed.

[cedounet]

@ramink

General rule is we don't change text for a better layout. If we were typesetting Hamlet you would not change the text so that it fits better in your page. I am not exaggerating the slightest here :D

That being say I agree with you the baker math is puzzling... It has nothing to do in that section and at the same time this is a central piece of the book... but too short for its own chapter.

[hendricius]

@ramink

General rule is we don't change text for a better layout. If we were typesetting Hamlet you would not change the text so that it fits better in your page. I am not exaggerating the slightest here :D

That being say I agree with you the baker math is puzzling... It has nothing to do in that section and at the same time this is a central piece of the book... but too short for its own chapter.

Maybe this would be the best option. Having an own chapter just for baker's math. Many YouTube comments are on the topic and it's sort of the foundation of many steps in the book afterwards.

[ramink]

@ramink
General rule is we don't change text for a better layout. If we were typesetting Hamlet you would not change the text so that it fits better in your page. I am not exaggerating the slightest here :D
That being say I agree with you the baker math is puzzling... It has nothing to do in that section and at the same time this is a central piece of the book... but too short for its own chapter.

Maybe this would be the best option. Having an own chapter just for baker's math. Many YouTube comments are on the topic and it's sort of the foundation of many steps in the book afterwards.

Yes, there could be a chapter just for baker's math. If you're looking for other things that could go into such a chapter, there are international issues like measurement units, water, climate, and standards for milling, etc. I know they might be covered already elsewhere, but these are the issues that get in the way of the main story you're telling. It might be a nice option to isolate these things to a boring chapter.

Anyway, that's a bit of an aside. On the main topic of this issue, I agree with the general rule that you shouldn't tweak your text to micro-manage your layout. I see that this would be especially futile here where so many elements are changing frequently and there's never a final edition of this document to be targeted.

In the changes I put in this branch, I just wanted to be able to demonstrate how having graphics and related text close to each other could be beneficial. I am always very irritated when using books that have diagrams a page or two removed from the text that talks about it.

Removing the baker's math topic from this section made sense on its own, but helped the layout issue, so I went for it. I may have inadvertently clouded the main layout issue by touching on it. As it happens, if you choose to move it, then the layout problem seems solved for now. But all it would take is some more editing of the main text, and the Tex engine may end up laying out the figures far away from the text again. So it's not a real solution.

A better long term solution could be to adopt some rules of thumb that might increase the chances that the default layout algorithms will give us good results. For instance, "floating elements (including their captions) should be at most X cm tall."

The changes that we committed recently with the starter flowchart have helped with the particular issue raised here. I have committed some more changes in this branch to illustrate how splitting the microbial-war picture and shortening its caption can also achieve the desired sort of layout. Again, to be clear, the actual pictures and captions are not in a final state, it's just layout I'm demonstrating here. This is what the PDF looks like for these pages in this branch, even with the baker's math section back in:

So, there are many ways to contribute to a more suitable layout.

1. We should definitely place the elements suitably close to the referring text. (This is not the case in section 3 in the main branch)
2. We should keep floating elements as small as possible, if we want them to match up to particular passages.
3. We could consider putting limits on length of captions
4. We could consider shorter fonts for captions and figures (it seems there's already a decision against this, but I'm only vaguely aware of it)
5. We could consider length limits on footnotes

I'm sure there are more. Whatever rules are decided here could go into some sort of editorial rules document. Pardon my ignorance if such things exist already. I'd appreciate any pointers!

[hendricius]

@ramink thanks for the changes! I took a note and will review them in detail thursday/friday this week. Thanks!

[cedounet]

@ramink I think I agree with all you're saying in theory... how practical this is is a different story.

So, there are many ways to contribute to a more suitable layout.

1. We should definitely place the elements suitably close to the referring text. (This is not the case in section 3 in the main branch)

Yes.. always there will not be any push back on that.. might not work but at least we tried. The other thing is that each float shall be referenced in the text... If it isn't what is it even doing there? graphics shall support the narrative/

2. We should keep floating elements as small as possible, if we want them to match up to particular passages.

3. We could consider putting limits on length of captions

Yes. I also don't like block of text in captions... makes me feel this should have been in the text (see above) on multi pics we should also have caption per pics a) b) c) ... like on the bacterial war pics you took as an example.

4. We could consider shorter fonts for captions and figures (it seems there's already a decision against this, but I'm only vaguely aware of it)

They already are smaller and can't realistically be much smaller.

5. We could consider length limits on footnotes

Not sure we have very long one... although here I would support use of margin for "footnotes"

I'm sure there are more. Whatever rules are decided here could go into some sort of editorial rules document. Pardon my ignorance if such things exist already. I'd appreciate any pointers!

I have been contemplating writing a contributing document... which I think would help. Need to word it carefully because a lot of people are afraid of TeX, let alone TikZ, therefore:

1. we would need to make it welcoming and explain them they don't need to know that much text/content is what matter and for simple things you don't need to know much TeX

2. of course we would also need to layout rules for typographical content, balance it with 1. see for example:

• https://github.com/oetiker/lshort/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.MD
• https://standardebooks.org/contribute

C/

[hendricius]

I reviewed the changes and how do you guys feel about moving baker's math to the how sourdough works chapter? It could be a bit more fitting. I also like the proposed idea of a "boring" chapter, although I disagree with the name 😎

[ramink]

@ramink I think I agree with all you're saying in theory... how practical this is is a different story.

@cedounet Thank you for considering the points!

[my suggestions and your responses omitted for space]

I'm sure there are more. Whatever rules are decided here could go into some sort of editorial rules document. Pardon my ignorance if such things exist already. I'd appreciate any pointers!

I have been contemplating writing a contributing document... which I think would help. Need to word it carefully because a lot of people are afraid of TeX, let alone TikZ, therefore:

1. we would need to make it welcoming and explain them they don't need to know that much text/content is what matter and for simple things you don't need to know much TeX
2. of course we would also need to layout rules for typographical content, balance it with 1. see for example:

• https://github.com/oetiker/lshort/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.MD
• https://standardebooks.org/contribute

C/

This all sounds like a good idea! I'm happy that you are contemplating such a thing, and am happy to leave it hear. If you want me to do anything, let me know. As for this Merge Request, I will undo the temporary illustrative changes I made, and simply do the straightforward task of moving the two images close to the text that references them, and I will update it to be caught up with changes to main branch. So the changes relative to main branch will be:

• Move flow chart to top of Making a Starter Section
• Move Microbe War figure to paragraph after "epic battle"

The will take care of my concerns here, for the HTML version, but might not solve things for the pdf versions.

[ramink]

I reviewed the changes and how do you guys feel about moving baker's math to the how sourdough works chapter? It could be a bit more fitting. I also like the proposed idea of a "boring" chapter, although I disagree with the name 😎

@hendricius I think the how sourdough works chapter is more appropriate than the current location. I like the "boring" chapter, or appendix, even more!