TOC panel - allow setting options even if there isn't a TOC

[MikeTO]

I've created a document with 4 levels of headings and I want the TOC to include just the first 3 levels of headings. The TOC panel generates the TOC for all 4 levels when I insert it and I have to turn off Heading 4.

That's easy but it leaves behind an anchor for every Heading 4 in the document. And since I have manually-created anchors I'd have to go through and figure out which ones I didn't want so I could delete them if I didn't have a workaround.

This isn't a big deal but I think it might be better if we could customize the TOC options before we insert the TOC.

The workaround: Rename Heading 4 to something else, it doesn't matter what. The TOC feature searches for anything that starts with the word "Heading" (or its equivalent in the other supported user interface languages) and adds it to the TOC. Renaming it to H4 will prevent the TOC feature from finding it.

[GarryP]

Would an alternative to this be: “Remove automatically-generated anchors for TOC entries for a particular style when that style is removed from the TOC”?

Or, having a user setting which tells the software which text style prefix to look for when initially creating the TOC styles?

Is there also something a bit strange when a Style is removed from the TOC and then put back?
See attached video where the anchors are nicely arranged at the start but they’re not after some removal/adding, with (sometimes) Heading 1’s being ‘inside’ Heading 2’s.
(Is this a separate problem?)