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Old 05-07-2009, 03:51 AM   #1
ondabeach
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Talking ePub native supports comes to Win Mobile Devices

Hi Guys,

ZuluReader will support epub files within a week or so. Basic RTF's (no tables or images and with a uniform font size) render really well now. So I am full speed ahead on supporting epubs. The speed at which I'm getting through this is a testament to the epub format... it really does rock! In fact once I'm finished I think I'll drop RTF support altgoether.

The DRM free ebook website I am developing (ZuluExpress) is also going to be converted to an epub only zone. That's how confident I am that the epub format is going to very quickly become THE format for eBooks.

Steve (ondabeach)

You can download ZuluReader here www.zuluexpress.com
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Old 05-07-2009, 08:46 AM   #2
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that's great news steve ! thanks for the info, and thanks for so actively supporting and promoting the epub format ! the more plateforms can use epub, the better, and the more people adopt it the faster it will become a universal standard format. and that's good news for all of us.
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Old 05-07-2009, 09:19 AM   #3
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I don't think the installer works. I sent an email.
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Old 05-07-2009, 05:17 PM   #4
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Thanks Zelda, I'll post in a week or so when zulu is epub ready and the update is available.

Nate, I got your email and have replied with a couple of questions for you.

Cheers Guys.
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Old 05-18-2009, 12:36 PM   #5
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Steve, you might want to check out these Harlequin ePub files (link is to MR post), to see if you can get them to work on ZuluReader. They may not be standard ePub, and they do not validate.
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Old 05-19-2009, 07:42 PM   #6
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Prompted by your post in ePub dictionaries
Quote:
Originally Posted by ondabeach View Post
The epub format support is going extremely well, Steve Jordan's books come up beautifully, also epubs created with Calibre. I am currently working on books from Harlequin, almost finished that now.

I would love to receive more DRM free epubs for testing purposes, and I am keen to get some more beta testers for ZR.
One of my favorite test ebooks is Ring of Fire by Eric Flint from the Baen free library. I like this because it is a collection of short stories (good for the TOC) and because the last story has a map.

Another good one is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, from the Adobe Digital Editions sample ebook library. You need to use Adobe Digital Editions to download this, but it is DRM-free. Text wrapped around images and the mouses tail, see ebook-viewer: Open source, crossplatform viewer for EPUB, LIT, MOBI, etc (note that the link to the ebook no longer works). Some of this formatting may be problematic on a small screen, but you need good fallbacks.
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Old 05-20-2009, 03:33 AM   #7
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Thanks wallcraft, I'll download those books and try them in ZuluReader. I just finished tweaking ZR to read an epub from Harlequin which exposed me to a number of things I needed to modify. It most of a day but ZR now renders them very nicely.

Cheers.
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Old 05-20-2009, 10:37 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wallcraft View Post
Text wrapped around images and the mouses tail, see ebook-viewer: Open source, crossplatform viewer for EPUB, LIT, MOBI, etc (note that the link to the ebook no longer works). Some of this formatting may be problematic on a small screen, but you need good fallbacks.
It's been pointed out elsewhere that e-books have no need to be simple digital recreations of printed matter. Such typographic "special effects" may be pretty and entertaining, but are not necessarily germaine to the actual text, which is the point of the literature.

I submit that, while a digital publisher can certainly consider adding what enticing visuals they can, they should concentrate on providing the text of the literature first, and treating the rest as optional elements.

IOW, Steve, don't knock yourself out trying to figure out how to wrap text around a mouse's tail or manipulate font sizes within an inch of their lives.
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Old 05-20-2009, 10:46 AM   #9
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Quote:
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IOW, Steve, don't knock yourself out trying to figure out how to wrap text around a mouse's tail or manipulate font sizes within an inch of their lives.
I agree, which is why I mentioned "fallbacks". The important part is that the Reader needs to be able to gracefully discard the "frills".
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Old 05-20-2009, 12:11 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan View Post
IOW, Steve, don't knock yourself out trying to figure out how to wrap text around a mouse's tail or manipulate font sizes within an inch of their lives.
I don't know if you know it, but the "Mouse's Tale" is a piece of "concrete poetry", i.e., it's not about wrapping text around an image, but giving the right shape to a piece of text, and the shape is actually part of the poem.
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Old 05-20-2009, 12:24 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jellby View Post
I don't know if you know it, but the "Mouse's Tale" is a piece of "concrete poetry", i.e., it's not about wrapping text around an image, but giving the right shape to a piece of text, and the shape is actually part of the poem.
I do know that. My only point is, it's the text that is most important to an e-book... the shape of it less so. E-books are a unique presentation medium, and they should not be expected to be "exactly like paper"... if that's what you want, buy the printed book (or convince the e-book publisher to include the image as an image... but not to try to find a convoluted way to bend, spindle and mutilate digital text).
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Old 05-22-2009, 07:11 PM   #12
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Thanks for all the input guys, you all raise good points. I will endeavour to recreate the author's work as faithfully as possible given the dimensions of the small screens on mobile devices. And as you say wallcraft, to 'gracefully' discard formatting which is not practical whilst reproducing the text itself. Over time I will be able to improve the way ZR renders epubs, FYI ZR does not use a html viewer control, I simply use a picturebox and my code analyses the documents which comprise the epub and determines hot to render the text and images. This is a lot more work but it gives me total control of how the result is rendered and to provide the user with formatting options.

Any and all input is most welcome, thanks again for your help.
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Old 05-22-2009, 07:27 PM   #13
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I thought you said that you were going to do a Windows CE version. Is it ready?
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Old 05-27-2009, 05:00 AM   #14
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On the site now.
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