Your ToC in the ToC in iBooks?

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

It does make sense. Apple seems to have targeted that particular file as it recognized it at the TOC and moved it to the external TOC. It was not accidental.

Except it's not targeting the entire file, just a portion of that file. That same file also includes the title page, illustration, and -- after my ToC -- the list of illustrations, all of which are marked to be included in the app's ToC and which do get included.

Oh, and it hasn't "moved it to the external TOC", because they're actually different, the items that my ToC contain doesn't quite reflect what's in the app's ToC -- for example, I have a section in the book with 40 poems, but in my ToC I just provide a heading/link to the section, and state that the complete list of poems can be found at the beginning of that section (and in the app's ToC, where they do show up, because I've meant for the full list of poems to be listed there). And there's other differences like that -- so it's not using my ToC as it's ToC, it's just totally ignoring it, as though it wasn't there.

I have a sneaky feeling that somehow iBooks notices that my ToC is, in fact, a ToC -- which isn't hard to do, considering that I have the words "Contents" at the top of it -- and basically just sees it as being redundant when you're looking at its ToC. If that's the case, though, I wish it wouldn't do that!

Apple also removes the cover from the book unless you display it in landscape mode.

I'm not sure what you mean -- my covers show up just fine in iBooks, when I'm viewing the book. If I'm at my title page, I just flip back a page and there it is.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Psymon

Well, except my book is epub2, plus my ToC is in the middle of a bigger file -- that one XHTML file contains the title page, full-page illustration, then the ToC, then the list of illustrations. It'll show all the other items in iBooks' ToC, but not my ToC.

If that makes sense -- I know it's confusing when I keep talking about "my" ToC and iBooks' ToC.

Well....for one thing, having "your" TOC--the toc.html, as it should be--in the middle of an XHTML file full of other things--is not going to make Apple's iBooks pay MORE attention to your toc. Have you tried the simple expedient (forgive me if you have; I read the beginning of this thread, but skimmed) of putting the toc.html in its own file, with the semantics/guide pointed at it? And how are you setting it in the OPF?

Hitch

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Well....for one thing, having "your" TOC--the toc.html, as it should be--in the middle of an XHTML file full of other things--is not going to make Apple's iBooks pay MORE attention to your toc. Have you tried the simple expedient (forgive me if you have; I read the beginning of this thread, but skimmed) of putting the toc.html in its own file, with the semantics/guide pointed at it? And how are you setting it in the OPF?

I can't believe how many times I have to explain this.

Okay, my file is called "frontmatter.xhtml"

It contains the following items (in this order)...

- Title Page & Illustration
- Table of Contents
- List of Illustrations

...all in that one file (called "frontmatter.xhtml", NOT "toc.html -- this is epub2, not epub3, and it is NOT my intention to use my inline ToC for the external ToC).

Each of those items (except for the illustration) has an <h1> heading which should be listed in the external ToC.

In ADE it works fine, and in the external ToC it shows...

- Title Page & Illustration
- Table of Contents
- List of Illustrations

...but in iBooks all it shows is...

- Title Page & Illustration
- List of Illustrations

Please, God, tell me that that's finally clear what the problem is.

[Toxaris]

Sounds more like a iBooks bug, although Apple will undoubtedly say it is a feature... I think it will scan for headers like 'Table of Content' and will hijack those. I vaguely remember reading about something like that a few years ago.

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

Sounds more like a iBooks bug, although Apple will undoubtedly say it is a feature... I think it will scan for headers like 'Table of Content' and will hijack those. I vaguely remember reading about something like that a few years ago.

That's pretty much what I figured, too (re the "hijacking" thing), although it's beyond me why they would program iBooks to intentionally look out for a table of contents and then not include it in the list of items for the external ToC -- especially if it's listed along with all the other front matter.

I guess I was hoping that this might have come up before (which it may have, from what you said) and that there was some sort of way to trick iBooks into passing it through and listing it -- but I starting to assume that there isn't. It does leave me wondering if perhaps I should just mark the ToC and List of Illustrations as "hidden", and then just have the Title Page get listed as "Front Matter" (collectively).

Or, hey, actually, now that I just wrote that, it just occurred to me that I suppose I could also just "hide" the List of Illustrations, and then mark the various items like this...

- "Front Matter" (for the title page and illustration)

- "Table of Contents & List of Illustrations" (for both of those, with the <h1> tag for the latter hidden)

Then, in ADE it'll show both items in the external ToC, but in iBooks it'll just show "Front Matter."

I think I just solved my problem, as I was writing this reply -- that is, solved iBooks problem.

[theducks]

Psymon
The name of the file does not mater,
It is all about the 'Semantics" setting

mine.xhtml Can have a 'Table of Contents' semantic

mine.xhtml CAN NOT have any other (additional) semantic., which is why we keep say: separate file (for each semantic type assigned)

IIRC ADE (MRSDK) does not really use the 'guide' (where semantics settings appear)

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by theducks

mine.xhtml CAN NOT have any other (additional) semantic., which is why we keep say: separate file (for each semantic type assigned)

Except that, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, I tried that and it still didn't change anything, iBooks still won't include my ToC in its ToC, even as a single, separate file.

[PeterT]

Why not post a sample book made up exactly as you are trying so the community can experiment with you. I suppose I fail to see why so few people are prepared to supply a test eBook that shows their problem, and no.. including an extract of CSS and (x)HTML as text in the messaged is not the same.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Psymon

Except that, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, I tried that and it still didn't change anything, iBooks still won't include my ToC in its ToC, even as a single, separate file.

But at least the other things wouldn't be missing. I think you are likely stuck with the TOC being missing unless you can fool iBooks into not noticing by removing the semantics.

Dale

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

But at least the other things wouldn't be missing. I think you are likely stuck with the TOC being missing unless you can fool iBooks into not noticing by removing the semantics.

Dale

I have some vague recollection of having to deal with this at some point in time, a few years back. I'll have to go back in our "brains" archives (notes) to see the what/how/why, but I know that we are able to put the individually-named frontmatter into a TOC for iBooks that shows everything. OTOH, we don't lump together the frontmatter into a single XHTML file. I'm sitting here right now looking at a file with a TOC that ilsts the Title Page, copyright, Foreword and Introduction. It's the NCX--not the toc.html; that much is clear. But it patently shows all the frontmatter quite nicely.

And I concur, we're air-punching here without a file to look at. Can't you just grab some lorem ipsum and slap it in there, and give us something to look at?

Hitch

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

I think you are likely stuck with the TOC being missing unless you can fool iBooks into not noticing by removing the semantics.

Except that I never had any symantics at all to begin with -- and adding them in (let alone splitting the various parts into separate files) didn't help or change anything either.

Originally Posted by Hitch

I'm sitting here right now looking at a file with a TOC that ilsts the Title Page, copyright, Foreword and Introduction. It's the NCX--not the toc.html; that much is clear. But it patently shows all the frontmatter quite nicely.

Now try adding in an inline ToC to those things, Hitch, and see if iBooks shows it in the external Toc. My book lists all the various front matter in the external ToC, too -- except for my inline ToC -- which is what I've been saying all along here.

Here, I've trimmed down one of the books I'm working on (Thoreau's "Cape Cod") to pretty much the essentials for this discussion, with a very simple ToC, List of Illustrations, one "illustration" and one chapter.

As you'll see, in ADE the external ToC lists my inline ToC, but in iBooks it doesn't.

[Psymon]

Oh well. I guess everybody else is as stumped as I am.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Psymon

Oh well. I guess everybody else is as stumped as I am.

Sorry: I haven't even had time to look at it. Honestly, given that the TOC is accessed, mainly, by the TOC icon at the top...I admit, I'm not sure I see the point. Are you complaining that you can't jump to the TOC from the TOC? If both the ncx and your toc.html contain the same content...???

Hitch

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Sorry: I haven't even had time to look at it. Honestly, given that the TOC is accessed, mainly, by the TOC icon at the top...I admit, I'm not sure I see the point. Are you complaining that you can't jump to the TOC from the TOC? If both the ncx and your toc.html contain the same content...???

Well, they do contain the same content -- and they don't. For example, one of my books (this is a series) is a collection of essays, etc. by Thoreau, including 40 poems. In the external ToC (ncx), all the various poems are listed, but in my inline Toc, rather than having a couple of pages (or more) listing all the poems, I put a link to the beginning of that section of poetry, with a little blurb stating that the list of poems included in that section can be found at the beginning of that section (or via the external ToC). It unclutters that inline ToC -- never mind that the whole thing, overall, is just so much nicer to browse through and get an overview of what all is in the book than the external one.

And apart from that, it's just weird to go to the external ToC and what you see at the beginning is

- Title Page
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword
etc.

...not even mentioning the "Table of Contents," as though it wasn't there at all -- and yet the "List of Illustrations" (which is a very similar thing) is.

In any case, I gather that, after all this, who knows what the reason is that iBooks does things that way (let alone who it "knows" that that's a ToC, and isn't just a paragraph that I have that includes a link to a particular page in the book), and I gather that there's nothing much one can do about it -- except, of course, the pseudo-solution that I came up with earlier in this thread.

Oh well. :/