how can i give a figure an extended caption without it going in my table of figures? [duplicate]

Question

I am writing my minor thesis which includes a number of tikz figures, which are all listed in a table of figures.

the table of figures gives the figure number, and then the title of the figure, as given by the caption.

the way i have put them into my document is in the following manner:

% ----------------
\begin{figure}[h!]
\centering
\includegraphics{./tikz/network.tikz}
\caption{Feed-forward neural network - The red line indicates the path a signal travels from input node $x_2$ to output node $y_4$.}
\label{fig:network}
\end{figure}
%-----------------

My problem is that the whole caption is being printed in the list of figures, and i would like it only to have "Feed-forward neural network" in the list of figures.

I would be greatly appreciative if someone could explain to me how i can separate the figure title from extended description.

thanks

Answer 1

You can define separate captions for the caption itself and the list of figures. Using \caption, the content of the [] brackets is displayed in the list of figures, the content of the {} brackets is displayed under the figure. So,

 \begin{figure}
 ...
 \caption[Feed-forward neural network]{Feed-forward neural network - The red line indicates the path a signal travels from input node $x_2$ to output node $y_4$}
 ...
 \end{figure}

With extensive descriptions, I recommend using notes below the figures instead of extensive captions, however. Here's examples for tables and figures.