feelings on .epub ?

[jbenny]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

The eb1150 pre-paginates both choices when the document is created. Sony does this as well when you use connect to get your book but the other tools do not do this for Sony thus the hit the first time you change font sizes. A similar problem exists in Digital Editions but even worse since the pagination isn't saved to you take the hit every time you change font sizes. This can be a significant problem as you point out and I think that the epub standard ignores it.

Dale

Another way to handle pagination is how MS Reader does it. When you open an ebook, pagination is done in the background. While this is going on, you can start reading immediately. If you change font size, another background pagination. I don't know if it saves this information to reuse. I'll have to do a test and see.

Edit: Just did a quick test with MS Reader. I does save the pagination information for an ebook when you change font sizes, but only until you close Reader. This isn't bad, but I think saving this information for the last 5-10 ebooks you read would be a better idea.

An epub reader that did background pagination like MS reader does, but saved that information for re-use would certainly be a workable solution.

[andym]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

I am surprised you say repagination is excellent. It doesn't even do repagination on PDA's. Perhaps you are saying it is fast because you don't know what pagination is doing. It is fast because it doesn't do any work. It does not compute the pages in the document at all. It only shows the size and a percentage of how far you have read on the bar at the bottom.

Mobipocket show the page number, if you change the font size then the page number changes - if that isn't repagination then what is?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by andym

Mobipocket show the page number, if you change the font size then the page number changes - if that isn't repagination then what is?

Try this test. Jump to a new chapter and then back up one page. Look at the page and see if it is a full page down to the bottom. Now go to the previous chapter and work your way forward to that same page. Does it look the same? If not this the document is not paginated. It is easy to fake a page number that represents the distance into the file or other measures. MobiPocket is pretty good at hiding the repagination issue. For example it temporarily remembers some pagination such that if you read to a new chapter going forward and then back up a page it will look ok since it remembers where it was while going forward.

Also a paginated document knows the last page number always. Does mobi know? A progress bar is easy to show based on file sizes.

Dale

[JSWolf]

LRF shows the new # of ## when you change the page size and the internal ToC shows the new page numbers as well.

[aapezzuto]

I think footnotes are a strange literary phenomenon. They are an interjection that is allowed to have its own lexical formating, That in no way interrupts the tempo, rhyming scheme, or other literary devices of the sentence that contains it. On top of that, by nature of its identity, is known to not have a continuous contextual flow with the rest of the content. Really a wonderful way to represent the way that words will trigger associations with other thoughts.
Their other use, is somewhat less interesting, to cite a source of information.

I bring all this up because it seems that though if thought about, it is already known, It is not being focused on. are there other reasonable formating methods that can do both these things with similar grace, or is it in fact a need that .epubs next incarnation needs to address?

-----------------------
I have always felt that english needed a sarcasm mark... That would help prevent a sarchasm while reading, or messaging online.

[jbenny]

I have two thoughts on this. One, hyperlinks would be an acceptable way to deal with footnotes (essentially making them endnotes). The current problem is that of the few readers that presently support epub, DE has no way to return from a hyperlink jump, rendering the method useless. Since DE is the big gorilla right now, this is a major problem.

My second thought is that other means of dealing with out-of-context information like footnotes and definitions can be more useful and less disruptive to the reading process. In particular, I'm thinking about popups, but other methods may be suitable. The problem with popups is that some of the properties required to make them work are not mandated by the epub spec. You can use them, but there is no guarantee that they will work on any given reader. As I have mentioned before, DE doesn't work with popups.

I think these issues need to be addressed, both in current reader software and in future versions of the epub spec.

[andym]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Try this test. Jump to a new chapter and then back up one page. Look at the page and see if it is a full page down to the bottom. Now go to the previous chapter and work your way forward to that same page. Does it look the same?

Why would I want to do any of this? What possible use is it? Sorry but I can't see the relevance.

If I am reading a book in mobipocket it will tell me I am at say page 999 out of 2000. If I want to go to page 1999 I can do, if I want to go back to page 500 I can do. Why should I care whether the software is doing it for real or faking it?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by andym

Why would I want to do any of this? What possible use is it? Sorry but I can't see the relevance.

If I am reading a book in mobipocket it will tell me I am at say page 999 out of 2000. If I want to go to page 1999 I can do, if I want to go back to page 500 I can do. Why should I care whether the software is doing it for real or faking it?

You asked for a way to test this and I gave it to you. It was only a test to demonstrate behavior. If you don't want to do it why ask? If you are happy with the behavior of a program then I am happy for you.

Dale

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by andym

Why would I want to do any of this? What possible use is it? Sorry but I can't see the relevance.

If I am reading a book in mobipocket it will tell me I am at say page 999 out of 2000. If I want to go to page 1999 I can do, if I want to go back to page 500 I can do. Why should I care whether the software is doing it for real or faking it?

Because its behavior wont be consistent.

[andym]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

You asked for a way to test this and I gave it to you. It was only a test to demonstrate behavior. If you don't want to do it why ask? If you are happy with the behavior of a program then I am happy for you.

Dale

That's precisely the point, I didn't ask. And I don't care. You (and Kovid) seem to be intent on proving some arcane point whose relevance to anything is entirely lost on me.

[kovidgoyal]

It's not an arcane point, but it seems to be beyond your ability to comprehend, so I suggest moving on. You don't have anything fruitful to contribute to this discussion.

EDIT: I apologize if that was rude. The point is that with fake pagination if the file has a lot of hyperlinks, or is read in random access mode, behavior will be inconsistent, since page numbers of the same content will change on each pass.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by andym

That's precisely the point, I didn't ask. And I don't care. You (and Kovid) seem to be intent on proving some arcane point whose relevance to anything is entirely lost on me.

You said (and I quote): if you change the font size then the page number changes - if that isn't repagination then what is?

That is your exact question! I guess it was rhetorical but I thought originally that you were really interested. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Dale

[bowerbird]

this is a very interesting discussion. i'm pleased to see that there are
several people here who recognize the correct issues to be pondering.

i also think this demonstrates that one cannot judge an e-book _format_
in the absence of both its _viewer-programs_ and _authoring-tools_...

if a particular format has viewers that are powerful and beautiful, and
authoring-tools that make the creation task simple, it's a good format.
if not, then that format isn't gonna be much good to people...

i'd like to see _that_ as a possible answer on this poll...
(interesting to see that the answer that is closest to that
is the one that's leading the poll...)

-bowerbird

[bowerbird]

it really drives me batty that mobipocket's "pages" aren't consistent.
it's laughable to me that they thought they could get away with that.
and even more laughable that amazon paid $3.5 million for such crap.

-bowerbird

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Also a paginated document knows the last page number always. Does mobi know? A progress bar is easy to show based on file sizes.

Dale

Yes, Mobi shows you the last page number at the right hand side of its progress bar. This is true on both the iLiad and Pocket PC versions of the Mobi reader.