How big is that e-book anyway?

[msundman]

Originally Posted by astra

Especially those who are quick to judge.

I have no idea what you're trying to communicate (e.g., I don't see how neither of us could be seen as quick to judge in this conversation - I first asked some questions to clarify what you meant and your answer made my conclusion obvious, and I even named the reason for the conclusion), but being quick to judge is certainly orthogonal to being confused. Let's not get carried away on tangents like these, OK?

[jupstin]

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

And one day in the future someone will be reading a book and will wonder. "What the hell is a page and why is my book measured in them?" A bit like cars and horsepower.

It might not be accurate but I use file size as a guide. I like books of around a MB.

Brilliant. I think the horsepower analogy is right-on

[Abecedary]

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

It might not be accurate but I use file size as a guide. I like books of around a MB.

I've got this 100-word story with a beautiful cover image that I just know you'll love!

[msundman]

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

And one day in the future someone will be reading a book and will wonder. "What the hell is a page and why is my book measured in them?" A bit like cars and horsepower.

Yes, exactly. There are many different definitions of "horsepower", and thus the definition is related to the context in which the term is used. This is very similar to pages in books (e and p), since they are also defined differently in different contexts. Both are very bad, for mostly the same reasons.

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

It might not be accurate but I use file size as a guide. I like books of around a MB.

Unfortunately file size is extremely misleading. I would consider it even worse than page count, because at least the reader can see the variables that affect the page count, but the file size is affected mostly by details related to the file format. E.g., in some xml-based e-book format (I'm sure there are many) the file size of a book might be 700% as large with indented XML in UTF-32 than with unindented XML in UTF-8, and yet the two versions use the very same file format and to the reader both versions look exactly the same (except for very different file sizes).

[ahi]

Originally Posted by jupstin

Brilliant. I think the horsepower analogy is right-on

Really?

- Ahi

[jupstin]

Originally Posted by ahi

Really?

- Ahi

I only mean that I think it's possible that one day "pages" won't be all that common, and I could imagine a scenario where people who have never picked up a book and turned a physical page still use the word "page" without necessarily understanding the etymology of the word: Like "horsepower."

I'd say it's safe to imagine a time in the not too distant future where the word "page" is primarily used to refer to what is visible on a screen at a given time and not what is written on physical paper. In fact, with the ubiquitous use of the term "web page," we may be there already.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by jupstin

I'd say it's safe to imagine a time in the not too distant future where the word "page" is primarily used to refer to what is visible on a screen at a given time and not what is written on physical paper. In fact, with the ubiquitous use of the term "web page," we may be there already.

And memory is sometimes measured in "pages"

[rogue_ronin]

Originally Posted by Zero9

I totally understand how you could feel way that, even though I'm completely different. I'm the kind of person who pages ahead (trying to avoid reading any words that would spoil what's coming up) just because I wonder how many pages are left before the end of a CHAPTER. Now that's something I'd like to be able to turn on in an e-book reader: a CHAPTER progress meter.

I expect I'm practically alone on this.

Originally Posted by hakim

Same here. Chapter progress bar could be a really neat feature

Talking about whole book size, maybe there could be some simple software which could
show approximate size of the book by opening an ebook? 3D visual representation.

FBReader has optional Chapter marks in it's progress bar -- little vertical lines that tell you where the breaks are.

Pretty cool, but I don't use them; regular progress bar is enough for me.

As for indicating progress within a book that you've closed -- perhaps the icon for the book (assuming your reader has one) could function like a battery meter, with bars for each chapter, or a standard 10 bars to indicate percentage or somesuch.

To indicate size, (based on word-count, not file-size so that images don't influence the analysis) perhaps the reader could display larger or smaller icons. Word-count could be added to the metadata so that we don't require too much processing from the hardware reader.

Two cents,

m a r

ps: re-reading, I see that you are discussing a progress bar within a chapter for that chapter itself. Okay idea. Two progress bars, though?

[ahi]

Originally Posted by jupstin

I only mean that I think it's possible that one day "pages" won't be all that common, and I could imagine a scenario where people who have never picked up a book and turned a physical page still use the word "page" without necessarily understanding the etymology of the word: Like "horsepower."

I'd say it's safe to imagine a time in the not too distant future where the word "page" is primarily used to refer to what is visible on a screen at a given time and not what is written on physical paper. In fact, with the ubiquitous use of the term "web page," we may be there already.

I'm willing to agree that it is an interesting analogy. But personally I find the notion that "pages" are somehow not relevant (or rather that they shouldn't and will permanently cease to be relevant) to eBooks to be naïve.

Books with pages are superior to scrolls for reasons that go beyond physicalities, and an eBook without pages is an eScroll... in my mind, a distinct step backwards.

- Ahi

[Teyrnon]

Originally Posted by ahi

Books with pages are superior to scrolls for reasons that go beyond physicalities, and an eBook without pages is an eScroll... in my mind, a distinct step backwards.

Could you elaborate on this declaration a little? The main advantage of books over scrolls that I know of are physical. It's easier to flip a book open to a page than it is to roll a scroll over to the right position. A book allows for more varied reading positions than a scroll. A book can be much longer than a scroll and still be comfortably read.

None of these things would seem to apply to ebooks.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Teyrnon

Could you elaborate on this declaration a little? The main advantage of books over scrolls that I know of are physical. It's easier to flip a book open to a page than it is to roll a scroll over to the right position. A book allows for more varied reading positions than a scroll. A book can be much longer than a scroll and still be comfortably read.

None of these things would seem to apply to ebooks.

Actually, since apparently scrolls have pages too, my comparison makes less sense than I initially thought... while my questioning of the presumed discarding of the page paradigm probably makes even more sense... pages having been seen useful and/or necessary even before scrolls became books.

- Ahi

[msundman]

Originally Posted by ahi

Actually, since apparently scrolls have pages too, my comparison makes less sense than I initially thought... while my questioning of the presumed discarding of the page paradigm probably makes even more sense... pages having been seen useful and/or necessary even before scrolls became books.

There are two different concepts here:
1) These things fit well together (e.g., a picture and the text describing the picture).
2) This location can be sensibly referred to (e.g., "now open up your books at page 42").

I don't think anybody opposes the former concept (it becomes more difficult in e, though, since a reader in some particular configuration can't necessarily fit some given content on the screen at the same time), but the latter concept is simply deprecated.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by msundman

There are two different concepts here:
1) These things fit well together (e.g., a picture and the text describing the picture).
2) This location can be sensibly referred to (e.g., "now open up your books at page 42").

I don't think anybody opposes the former concept (it becomes more difficult in e, though, since a reader in some particular configuration can't necessarily fit some given content on the screen at the same time), but the latter concept is simply deprecated.

Are you basing your sagely authoritative statement on anything other than your experience of using an eBook reading device? If so, please elaborate. If not, we'll have to agree to disagree.

- Ahi

[msundman]

Originally Posted by ahi

Are you basing your sagely authoritative statement on anything other than your experience of using an eBook reading device?

Which particular statement in the text you quoted are you referring to?

[Teyrnon]

Originally Posted by ahi

Actually, since apparently scrolls have pages too, my comparison makes less sense than I initially thought... while my questioning of the presumed discarding of the page paradigm probably makes even more sense... pages having been seen useful and/or necessary even before scrolls became books.

Yeah, scrolls have pages. They have pages because they're manufactured by taking individual pieces of parchment, papyrus, whatever and gluing or otherwise securing them together on the edges. Where the edges of the pages meet forms a slight barrier for writing on them. As a consequence you end up treating each page as a discrete entity. Not at all unlike the pages of a book. In fact the first books/codices were made by cutting scrolls at those break points.

Anyrate, I don't see pages going away. However I don't think that pages should be conceptualized the same way for an ebook as for a paper book. I especially don't think ebook pages should be forced to have a 1:1 correspondence to their paper counterparts. In the future a page will probably be a single screen full on whatever device its being read on.

What are the advantages of pages anyway? One I can think of is the ability to cite references to individual pages. I see this as less useful with an ebook where pages are going to be somewhat dynamic. Paragraph numbers within chapters might be best. Rather than referring to page 127 we'd instead refer to Ch. 5 Paragraph 11. Maybe even write that as something like Ch. 5-11 or some such. It'd allow greater precision. And as I recall from my schooling we often ended up referring to page and paragraph as counted from top to bottom on the page so this wouldn't be too different. We just need the devices to report paragraph numbers.

Coming back around to the thread topic I still think word count is the best way to really gauge the length of a text.