How to use classicthesis?

Question

Once I discovered classicthesis I fell in love with the layout and used it for study reports and so on. In the first step I downloaded the sources and customized the settings in various files as suggested in the documentation. The original project structure in this scenario is as follows.

├── Bibliography.bib
├── CHANGES
├── Chapters
│   ├── Chapter01.tex
│   ├── Chapter02.tex
│   ├── Chapter03.tex
│   └── Chapter0A.tex
├── classicthesis-config.tex
├── ClassicThesis.pdf
├── classicthesis.sty
├── ClassicThesis.tcp
├── ClassicThesis.tex
├── ClassicThesis.tps
├── COPYING
├── Examples // Removed branch.
├── FrontBackmatter
│   ├── Abstract.tex
│   ├── Acknowledgments.tex
│   ├── Bibliography.tex
│   ├── Colophon.tex
│   ├── Contents.tex
│   ├── Declaration.tex
│   ├── Dedication.tex
│   ├── DirtyTitlepage.tex
│   ├── Publication.tex
│   ├── Titleback.tex
│   └── Titlepage.tex
├── gfx // Folded in.
├── LISTOFFILES
└── README

In another project I realized that classicthesis is part of the LaTeX distribution and therefore I changed my setup. Basically, I loaded the package.

\documentclass[dottedtoc, headinclude, footinclude=true]{scrreprt}
\usepackage[pdfspacing]{classicthesis}

This dramatically reduced the overhead of files in the project. However, there are some components and settings where I still not understand how to configure them. Here is a list of particular problems.

1. Frontbackmatter (Titleback, Titlepage, acronyms, ..) are defined in separate files. How am I supposed to customized (title pages) or add values (acronyms list in Contents.tex) without including them to my project?
2. Should I add macros to the preamble of my main document such as \newcommand{\myTime}{September 2012\xspace} to provide the values for the title pages?

As you can see I am not the experienced LaTeX user and I am still searching for best practice advices on how to create a project. Therefore, please do not hesitate correcting me if I totally misunderstood the supposed usage of the package.

Answer 1

As a best practice, it is better to keep separate files for different components of the document, as given in the ClassicThesis distribution. It not only makes your life easy; but makes someone to easily adapt to your style later on.

You can even bring the individual files to a single folder; but then you have to update the \include commands accordingly.

Still if you want to get rid of these individual files, you can combine them into one, by pasting the contents of the file marked by \input or \include command at their respective places. Therefore

1. You can add the various elements of the front matter in the desired order in the main document. Those elements will include customizations for title page, acronyms, etc.
2. Yes you would need to add them to the preamble. They are actually in the classicthesis-config.tex. (in the multi file set-up; a single command \input{classicthesis-config} in the preamble includes the whole customizations in that file. It also includes call to the classicthesis package with a lot of options and \newcommand{\myTime} etc commands)