I'd like to set up the structure of my report as follows.
Different chapters should have a nice big heading, like the one of the Chapter environment, and should be separated in the table of contents as well. Each chapter can then contain some sections and subsections.
My only problem with this environment is the numbering: numbering of sections should proceed unaltered by the fact that we are passing from one chapter to another. In other words there should be no counter for chapters in the total numbering.
How it is:
\documentclass[11pt]{report}
\usepackage{geometry}
\geometry{letterpaper}
\usepackage[all]{xy}
\usepackage{mdframed}
\usepackage{amsthm}
\usepackage{makeidx}
\numberwithin{equation}{section}
\makeindex
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\chapter{First chapter}
\section{Section1}
\section{section2}
\chapter{Second chapter}
\section{section3}
\section{section4}
\end{document}
Basically I'd like the discrete numbering features of the part environment, but the graphical layout of the chapter env.
Best Answer
In answering, I've removed commands which caused errors and packages which were extraneous to the issue.
If you just don't want the chapters numbered at all, but you do want them to show up in the contents, something like this might be suitable:
If you want the chapters numbered, this might work: