Thread: (x)html ebook specification
View Single Post
Old 05-21-2009, 07:43 AM   #25
rogue_ronin
Banned
rogue_ronin has learned how to read e-booksrogue_ronin has learned how to read e-booksrogue_ronin has learned how to read e-booksrogue_ronin has learned how to read e-booksrogue_ronin has learned how to read e-booksrogue_ronin has learned how to read e-booksrogue_ronin has learned how to read e-books
 
Posts: 475
Karma: 796
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Honolulu
Device: Nokia 770 (fbreader)
Brevity is the soul of wit!
Back home again for a while, so here we go...

I think this will do as a tentative final format for the head, and all meta info. You can't use <div>s in the head, right?

Code:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<head>

<title>A Princess of Mars</title>

<!-- BEGIN: DOCUMENT HISTORY -->

<!-- Created on 20/May/2004 -->
<!-- Revision # 0.10 on 30/Jun/2004 -->
<!-- Revision # 0.20 on 28/Dec/2004 -->
<!-- Revision # 0.40 on 13/Apr/2005 -->
<!-- Revision # 0.70 on 30/Sep/2006 -->
<!-- Current Revision # 0.80 on 18/May/2009 -->

<!-- END: DOCUMENT HISTORY -->

<!-- BEGIN: REVISION GUIDELINE -->

<!--
   0.10 :: Initial Conversion
   0.20 :: Cover and Frontispiece
   0.30 :: Sections, Chapters and TOC
   0.40 :: Endnotes and/or Blockquotes
   0.50 :: Initial Spellcheck
   0.60 :: M-dashes and Hyphens and Ellipses
   0.70 :: Italics, Bold, and Pre-Formatted Text
   0.80 :: Reading Proof
   0.90 :: Checked Against Canonical Source
   1.00 :: Final Version -- Optimal
 1.00+ :: Minor Error Corrections
-->

<!-- END: REVISION GUIDELINE -->

<!-- BEGIN: EBOOK META INFORMATION -->

<meta name="filename" content="APrincessOfMars" />
<meta name="fileid" content="FoundText0085" />
<meta name="filecreationdate" content="20/May/2004" />
<meta name="fileversion" content="0.80" />
<meta name="filerevisiondate" content="18/May/2009" />
<meta name="filesource" content="University of Virginia Electronic Text Center" />
<meta name="filescanner" content="Judy Boss" />
<meta name="fileproofer" content="Kelly Tetterton" />
<meta name="fileproofer" content="Peter-John Byrnes" />
<meta name="fileproofer" content="Found Text (foundtext@gmail.com)" />

<meta name="title" content="A Princess of Mars" />
<meta name="subtitle" content="Barsoom #01" />
<meta name="series" content="Barsoom" />
<meta name="seriesnumber" content="01" />
<meta name="genre" content="Science Fiction::General" />

<meta name="author" content="Edgar Rice Burroughs" />
<meta name="authorlast" content="Burroughs" />
<meta name="authorfirst" content="Edgar" />
<meta name="authormiddle" content="Rice" />
<meta name="authoralpha" content="Burroughs, Edgar Rice" />

<meta name="illustrator" content="Frank Frazetta" />
<meta name="illustratorlast" content="Frazetta" />
<meta name="illustratorfirst" content="Frank" />
<meta name="illustratormiddle" content="" />
<meta name="illustratoralpha" content="Frazetta, Frank" />

<meta name="publisher" content="Found Text" />
<meta name="publicationdate" content="08/July/2010" />
<meta name="publicationcity" content="Honolulu" />
<meta name="publicationcity" content="Bangkok" />

<meta name="copyrightholder" content="" />
<meta name="copyrightdate" content="" />

<meta name="isbn" content="" />

<!-- END: EBOOK META INFORMATION -->

<!-- BEGIN: STRUCTURE HINTS -->

<!--
<h1 class="title"> :: Title of book
<h2 class="subtitle"> :: Subtitle of book
<h3 class="chapter"> :: Chapter headings
<p class="normal"> :: regular paragraph
<p class="epigram"> :: quotation that opens chapters
<em class="psionic"> :: telepathic communication
etc. etc.
-->

<!-- END: STRUCTURE HINTS -->

<!-- BEGIN: MANIFEST -->

<!--
APrincessOfMars.html :: main document, this file
images\cover.png :: cover image, 1-bit, 314x480px
images\arrow_down.png :: chapter navigation down button, 1-bit, 30x30px
images\arrow_up.png :: chapter navigation up button, 1-bit, 30x30px
images\bar.png :: decoration, 1-bit, 150x9px
images\book_plate.png :: series logo, or frontispiece image, 1-bit, 314x224px
images\end_of_book.png :: colophon image, closes book, 1-bit, 250x170px
images\logo.png :: publisher logo, 1-bit, 70x70px
images\return.png :: endnote return button, 1-bit, 40x13px
images\toc.png :: navigation button, links to Table of Contents, 1-bit, 30x30px
sounds\logo.wav :: publisher logo sound, 8 bit, unsigned single channel (mono), 16khz sample rate, 16KB/s
-->

<!-- END: MANIFEST -->

</head>
Using the format of "item :: description" for the comments/info. The structure hints are the actual tag, the manifest uses relative path.

I guess that leaves me with only two questions remaining for meta info: 1) If <div>s can be used in the head, then maybe the BEGIN and END comments should be changed to <div>s? And 2) When/if there are more than one author or illustrator, should there be a numbering system -- as there are 4 entries for each name, would it be easier (or necessary) to parse based on numbers or positioning?

Moving on to structure, this is what I'm thinking most books have. I got a lot of this from a page on book structure years ago, from the "George A. Smathers Libraries Digital Library Center". (The page is gone now.)

I've modified some of the pieces a bit for ebook use...
  1. Cover (links to the first of Preface, Foreword, Part or Chapter; quick start)
  2. Frontispiece (Half-title, illustration, and/or series list)
  3. Front Matter (generic for pre-book junk)
  4. Title Page (Title, Author, Illustrator)
  5. Verso Page (book meta info page)
  6. Inscription ("To So-and-So")
  7. Acknowledgments ("Thanks!")
  8. Preface (usually by another author/editor)
  9. Table of Illustrations/Maps (with links)
  10. Table of Contents (with links)
  11. Foreword (comments by the author)
  12. Parts (sometimes called "Books", has navigation links)
    • Prologue (has navigation links)
    • Chapters (has navigation links)
      1. Chapter Title (name of the chapter)
      2. Epigrams (quotations that open chapters)
      3. Illustrations/Images/Maps/Tables
      4. Scene Break (blank lines or "* * *")
      5. Sections
        • Sub-Sections
          • Paragraphs
      6. Pull-Quotes (quotations from the text)
    • Epilogue (has navigation links)
  13. Afterword (comments by the author, has navigation links)
  14. About the Author Page (pic and bio)
  15. Colophon (production notes and link to cover -- "closes" book)
  16. Endnotes (definitely linked and back-linked)
  17. Glossary (possibly with links)
  18. Index (preferably with links)
  19. End Matter (generic for post-book junk)

Is there anything else I should add, remove, rename or re-arrange? Next step will be to pick tags for each piece, once I'm happy with the overall structure. Not every book has everything, I'm just trying to come up with a master structure that should serve 90%, or more, of books.

m a r
rogue_ronin is offline   Reply With Quote