Hello,

As some of you know, I'm preparing an illustrated multilingual edition of Dante's "La divina commedia". Since it's being a bit more involved than I foresaw at first, I'd like to share what I've done so far and get some comments, mainly about formatting and usability.

I have the original Italian and the English translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I'll try to find at least translations into Spanish, French and German. I could also include several translations for each language, but I'm afraid that would be too much. The Italian and English versions are (going to be) cross-linked. At the moment there is a link to the other language at the beginning of each "Canto", and the first Canto in the Inferno has cross-links every 15 verses (adding these links for the whole thing is going to be tedious).

I have also included the beautiful woodcuts by Gustave Doré. I'm currently re-extracting and enhancing them from existing scans, so in the future they will have better quality, but they are very good now anyway. Instead of putting each illustration in the text, I put only a thumbnail, which is a link to the full-size illustration. There is also a gallery of miniatures at the beginning.

I'm awaiting your comments and suggestions. :D

first of all, i want to applaud you for this project, which i'm really in admiration of. i've taken a look at your sample file and for the most part it looks quite good to me. excellent choice to put Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights on the cover. :) i also do appreciate the cross-linking between versions, and the gallery of images at the beginning is very nice.

a couple of remarks :

- is it possible to reduce the greyed-out portion of the cover, to see more of the illustration ? i think it is worth it. ;) also, take care with black text on a grey background, it might not be the most legible choice. maybe use a lighter grey, or use a black background and white text instead.

- i'm not sure whether this is your choice or mobipocket, but i think a serif font is much nicer for reading longer texts, and particularly here the sans serif seems out of place to me.

- i'm curious also about the thumbnail images in the body of the text ; why not include the full-size versions ? they are so stunning it's a shame not to be able to appreciate them unless you click on the link. and while i'm reading, i don't like to have to navigate back and forth very much, i'd rather have the illustrations linearly in the text. this shouldn't make any difference in the weight of the file, is there another reason you made this choice ?

anyway i'm really looking forward to seeing how this goes ! thanks for this.

- is it possible to reduce the greyed-out portion of the cover, to see more of the illustration ? i think it is worth it. ;) also, take care with black text on a grey background, it might not be the most legible choice. maybe use a lighter grey, or use a black background and white text instead.

Yes, I should give a bit more work to the cover, this one was just a quick thing.

- i'm not sure whether this is your choice or mobipocket, but i think a serif font is much nicer for reading longer texts, and particularly here the sans serif seems out of place to me.

I can tell you it's not my choice at all. There is nothing in the file that forces a sans-serif font. As a matter of fact, I have a serif font configured in my Cybook, so I read this book (and all other books) with a serif font. Change the font in your mobipocket reader :D

- i'm curious also about the thumbnail images in the body of the text ; why not include the full-size versions ? they are so stunning it's a shame not to be able to appreciate them unless you click on the link. and while i'm reading, i don't like to have to navigate back and forth very much, i'd rather have the illustrations linearly in the text. this shouldn't make any difference in the weight of the file, is there another reason you made this choice ?

There are two main reasons:

1. The images being large, they usually take a whole screen (at least the portrait-oriented ones, and in the next version I plan to have landscape images rotated, anyway), so they are not so much "in line". The page before the image is half blank and sometimes the page with the image has a single line of text. This is with a 600x800 screen.

2. With the current version of mobiperl (what I use to create mobipocket files), if an image is referenced multiple times, it gets included in the mobi file also multiple times. So including the full-size image in line with every language version would make the file huge. Including the whole set of thumbnails multiple times is much more acceptable.

Oops wrong thread. Sorry sorry sorry

Yes, I should give a bit more work to the cover, this one was just a quick thing.
no worries, just commenting on everything i noticed, to be complete, you understand. ;)

I can tell you it's not my choice at all. There is nothing in the file that forces a sans-serif font. As a matter of fact, I have a serif font configured in my Cybook, so I read this book (and all other books) with a serif font. Change the font in your mobipocket reader :D
heh, oops ! :o i almost never use mobi desktop reader, so i didn't realize i could choose the font to use. fixed now. :rolleyes:

1. The images being large, they usually take a whole screen (at least the portrait-oriented ones, and in the next version I plan to have landscape images rotated, anyway), so they are not so much "in line". The page before the image is half blank and sometimes the page with the image has a single line of text. This is with a 600x800 screen.
yes, i suspected that was probably (at least partly) the reason. although, i still would prefer to have the images full-size, even if they do take up the entire screen and create short pages. but that is my personal preference. i was mostly curious about your reasoning.
2. With the current version of mobiperl (what I use to create mobipocket files), if an image is referenced multiple times, it gets included in the mobi file also multiple times. So including the full-size image in line with every language version would make the file huge. Including the whole set of thumbnails multiple times is much more acceptable.
:smack: now *that* is the most idiotic thing i've ever heard. i can't believe they cannot just include the image once, and then display the same file wherever it is linked, like in html. but okay, since this is the case, i can understand why you would choose to include thumbnails, otherwise this book will take up the entire internal memory when you load it onto your liseuse ! :rolleyes: (yet another reason to prefer epub. ;))

:smack: now *that* is the most idiotic thing i've ever heard. i can't believe they cannot just include the image once, and then display the same file wherever it is linked, like in html. but okay, since this is the case, i can understand why you would choose to include thumbnails, otherwise this book will take up the entire internal memory when you load it onto your liseuse ! :rolleyes: (yet another reason to prefer epub. ;))

Just to be clear, I don't think this is a problem of the mobipocket format (but maybe it is, I don't know). It is a "problem" of the mobiperl scripts, which Tompe created, and maybe it is not trivial to fix (or he needs some motivation :D). I'm very grateful to him for creating this tool, anyway.

It might happen that mobigen (or whatever its name is) does not have the same behaviour, but if I understand the web page correctly, it will always reduce the image size below ~64kB. With mobiperl, at least, I know how to prevent this quality reduction, and I know the resulting mobi file works fine in the desktop reader and in the Cybook.

If this problem is solved, I may try again having the full-size images in line. And I'll probably do it that way with the ePUB version (if I live long enough to do it :D).

Just to be clear, I don't think this is a problem of the mobipocket format (but maybe it is, I don't know). It is a "problem" of the mobiperl scripts, which Tompe created, and maybe it is not trivial to fix (or he needs some motivation :D). I'm very grateful to him for creating this tool, anyway.
ha okay, sorry. i am also very grateful to developpers who make tools for us. but if it is a problem only with that script, i do hope he will find the motivation and the time to fix it.

It might happen that mobigen (or whatever its name is) does not have the same behaviour, but if I understand the web page correctly, it will always reduce the image size below ~64kB. With mobiperl, at least, I know how to prevent this quality reduction, and I know the resulting mobi file works fine in the desktop reader and in the Cybook.
yes, makes sense to me.
If this problem is solved, I may try again having the full-size images in line. And I'll probably do it that way with the ePUB version (if I live long enough to do it :D).
okay well fingers crossed for a solution. and :stunned: just keep away from falling pianos, clifftops, and out-of-control buses please !!!

Just to be clear, I don't think this is a problem of the mobipocket format (but maybe it is, I don't know). It is a "problem" of the mobiperl scripts, which Tompe created, and maybe it is not trivial to fix (or he needs some motivation :D). I'm very grateful to him for creating this tool, anyway.

It might happen that mobigen (or whatever its name is) does not have the same behaviour, but if I understand the web page correctly, it will always reduce the image size below ~64kB. With mobiperl, at least, I know how to prevent this quality reduction, and I know the resulting mobi file works fine in the desktop reader and in the Cybook.

If this problem is solved, I may try again having the full-size images in line. And I'll probably do it that way with the ePUB version (if I live long enough to do it :D).

I do not get why this is a problem. The reader would be very stupidly written if it used more internal memory just because of that. The reason I have not fixed it yet is that I cannot see how it matters when we have 2G cards to store the books on.

I do not get why this is a problem. The reader would be very stupidly written if it used more internal memory just because of that. The reason I have not fixed it yet is that I cannot see how it matters when we have 2G cards to store the books on.

Well, my Cybook has only 64MB of internal memory. The whole set of images is around 12MB. If I get to the the 5 languages I'm planning, that's 60MB for this single book. (Yes, I have a 2GB SD card, but that's optional.)

More troublesome, for me, is uploading time. My internet connection is not so great, it takes me ~5 minutes to upload this 12MB file. A 60MB file would take 25 minutes... and although it's less than half an hour, it's too long for uploading a book, I believe.

The other reason is more "aesthetic". I think it's a waste of resources to use 60MB for something that should take only 12MB, it just doesn't look right.

But, as I said, I'm not blaming anything on you. Mobiperl is already a great tool!

Oh my God! I'm up to the neck in the mess of translations :D

If you know of a good translation (into any language), free of copyright and available online, please tell me.

When I had almost finished with the French Purgatory, I realized that the Wikisource text is by an unknown translator. The cover page had one name, the comments proposed other different names, but as far as I could tell (comparing with scans and other sources), the text does not match any known translation. So out of Purgatory and back to Hell :D

Well, my Cybook has only 64MB of internal memory. The whole set of images is around 12MB. If I get to the the 5 languages I'm planning, that's 60MB for this single book. (Yes, I have a 2GB SD card, but that's optional.)

More troublesome, for me, is uploading time. My internet connection is not so great, it takes me ~5 minutes to upload this 12MB file. A 60MB file would take 25 minutes... and although it's less than half an hour, it's too long for uploading a book, I believe.

The other reason is more "aesthetic". I think it's a waste of resources to use 60MB for something that should take only 12MB, it just doesn't look right.

But, as I said, I'm not blaming anything on you. Mobiperl is already a great tool!

I am still thinking in terms of 64kb maximum image size... As I undertstood it it was only one image that was duplicated so I do not get how you loose more than the size of one image per book.

"aesthetic" is a good reason. Against that is the risk to introduce bugs when you have to have more complex code.

I am still thinking in terms of 64kb maximum image size... As I undertstood it it was only one image that was duplicated so I do not get how you loose more than the size of one image per book.

Hmmm... No, it's not only one image, it's every image that's referenced multiple times (and it's included as many times as referenced). Maybe you are thinking of the cover image being included twice if no thumbnail is given, that's probably the same (or very similar) issue, but I agree it would be minor if it only affected a single image. However, in this case it would affect all 135 illustrations (thats 8MB even with the 64kB limit), every time I reference the illustrations, the filesize would increase at least 8MB...

Here's a Russian translation:
http://lib.ru/POEZIQ/DANTE/comedy.txt
The date specified is 1982, but apparently it only applies to the foreword: the translation itself was done 1940s, and the translator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Lozinsky) died in 1955, so I guess it is in public domain now.

Just to be clear, I don't think this is a problem of the mobipocket format (but maybe it is, I don't know). It is a "problem" of the mobiperl scripts, which Tompe created, and maybe it is not trivial to fix (or he needs some motivation :D). I'm very grateful to him for creating this tool, anyway.

Calibre's oeb2mobi will definitely just reference the same image multiple times. Are there any features you need that it's missing?

Calibre's oeb2mobi will definitely just reference the same image multiple times. Are there any features you need that it's missing?

Umm... the ability of installing it :D

Also, I use html2mobi, with a simple HTML file (with some mobipocket-specific markup and a <guide> in the <head>). Doesn't oeb2mobi need an additional structure?

Here's a Russian translation

Thanks, I'll give it a try, but it'll be challenge for me.

Ah, right -- had forgotten about your old-Linux issues. And to use oeb2mobi you do need to create a full OEB structure; i.e., what you need for an EPUB version.

Another preview. Now with new cover and a bit larger thumbnails for Zelda ;)

I've removed the full size images from this version, to make the size reasonable (it is more than 20MB with the images). I have now Italian, German, English, Portuguese and Russian, it's disappointing to find no copyright-free Spanish version online, and the French one I've found it's prose (I'll add it anyway). The mobi file takes a LONG time to build with html2mobi (and my poor laptop gets quite hot), maybe due to the high number of hyperlinks and anchors.

PS. I've just noticed some references to thumbnails are wrong in the Portuguese version, it's already fixed.

PPS. I'd like to send/upload the source files to someone who can try oeb2mobi, and see if it takes a shorter time to build and if the filesize is smaller due to images not being duplicated... Volunteers?

PPPS. Although I'm not proofreading the texts, I tried to make typography right (curly/angle quotes, italics, dashes...) Please tell me if there is something to improve.

PPPPS. Oh, and I would need a sentence in Russian saying that "The Russian text comes from http://..." or something similar (and if there is anything wrong in the sentences in other languages, please tell me too).

looking at it just quickly it looks really nice ! i like the new cover much better. i still think the thumbnails are too small :rolleyes: but i'm not complaining about that. ;) i didn't read through the whole thing but the typography looks very nice to me. i like the way you used square brackets for the links to the italian version to set it off from the translations. excellent job so far.