: Re: Writing a programming book: how to present directory structures What is good/preferred way of presenting directory trees in programming books? My main criteria are following: It should be readable

@Frith254

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Focus on your main goal:

It should be readable and intuitive

The other two goals make your life easier, but not necessarily the lives of your readers. Your readers come first.

So screenshots of a directory structure would be easy to comprehend. But if you have stress and have to finish the book because of some deadline, what will suffer most? Yes, revising the screenshots. Are they still correct? Do they correspond with the text? Is it easy to miss important things in a hurry? Yes. If they were easy to change, they would serve your readers better.

You see, I fooled you in the beginning, but that had it purpose: focusing.

"Looking professional" is an odd term, much overused, seldom defined. Care about the look later, or in between, but not at the beginning, you can change things.

So, you do not like

|-myproj
|-WEB-INF
|-classes
|-libs

Then make it simpler. What about

-myproj
-WEB-INF
-classes
-libs

Directory structures are hierarchical structures. Show the hierarchy and you are fine. Don't overstress showing some lines pointing from parent to child, just indent. That should be fine.

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