Adequacy of EPUB?

[Freeshadow]

@ eschwartz
this format rather supports a whim than vim

@ Hitch
thanks for clarification. A hairy matter that. But interesting to know

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

But....But.....But......

The front page of your website has a picture of you...it even says "Who are we? We're Booknook.biz. We're here to help." Please don't tell me that you DON'T have a perfectly clean desk, aren't perfectly coiffed, without a big friendly smile!!!

Well, I hate to burst the bubble, but no...that's not how my office looks. As I told Liz Castro some years ago, in a tweet, my office looks like Hobbits on crack raced through it looking for the One Ring. Perfectly-coiffed? Well...if you count wrangling long locks into a coiffed bun on the top of my head, sure. I think if my employees saw me smiling like that picture, they'd toss my desk drawers--so that they could get some of whatever it was I was taking. I do smile, though. It's usually more of a pained grimace, but...it's a smile.

Oh, wait--we ABSOLUTELY have big honking cups of coffee, though. We could run out of positively everything, before anyone would stir their sticks, but the coffee? Bygod, we never run out of that.

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

That's her clone.

Drat! My secret is out. Now I'll have to knock off all my clones and start over with someone else's DNA. ;-)

@Free:

GROAN. ;-)

Hitch

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I think if my employees saw me smiling like that picture, they'd toss my desk drawers--so that they could get some of whatever it was I was taking. I do smile, though. It's usually more of a pained grimace, but...it's a smile.

Ya know, I was thinking something like that...

You have a very charming grimace. It's almost like another member of MobileRead, or... something...
Anyway, it's part of your charm, it wouldn't be the same around here without it.

@Free:

GROAN. ;-)

Hitch

Indeed.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Ya know, I was thinking something like that...

You have a very charming grimace. It's almost like another member of MobileRead, or... something...
Anyway, it's part of your charm, it wouldn't be the same around here without it.

Awww, shucks. I actually think that this is the image everyone was thinking of: http://www.booknook.biz/images/Showc...09267Small.jpg (I should add, that's a licensed image from iStockphoto, just to ensure that anyone coming along later who thinks about grabbing it is aware.)

Trust me, half the time, I'm only one fingertip away from that eye of newt and a Voodoo doll...

Hitch

[WillAdams]

Conversations such as this would be much different if tei2epub had gotten traction:

https://www.safaribooksonline.com/bl...t-tei-to-epub/

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by WillAdams

Conversations such as this would be much different if tei2epub had gotten traction:

Really? Dang, you mean my hair would still be red?

Vis-a-vis tei2ePUB: hell, even the creators said it was never meant for end users, didn't they? Am I remembering that right?

Hitch

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by WillAdams

Conversations such as this would be much different if tei2epub had gotten traction:

https://www.safaribooksonline.com/bl...t-tei-to-epub/

Or ...... conversations such as this illustrate why software like tei2epub never seems to gain very much traction.

A classic case of, "if Aunt Edna had had testicles, we'd be calling her Uncle Edward."

A universal xml schema must exist before any xml-based book creation/rendering system could possibly become universally relevant. And a universal xml schema will never exist because humans never agree on things. So xml-based book creation/rendering would always be doomed to individual factions pushing their own schema/agenda--very much like the situation we already have with the epub-ish format. Same/same with little-to-nothing gained (other than disruption and change-for-the-sake-of-change).

The whole thing is cart-before-the horse anyway. If you (@OP you ) want to bring a change of this sort about, then create (or support) a Wordprocessor program (which can export beautiful, entirely comprehensive and utterly semantic xml--WITHOUT FAIL) that is sooo intuitive to use, and is feature-rich (yet gracefully simple) that authors wouldn't dare use anything else to create their masterpieces.

Because until authors are in love with the front-end of this magical piece of software that transforms their visionary work into the gobbledygook (which they care not a fig about, so long as it doesn't alter their vision of how their work should appear) that ebook creators need, then this is all for naught. They have their preferered tools, and aren't going to change just so all the behind-the-scenes gobbledygook makes more geeks happy.

Plain and simple: a smooth, efficient transition from manuscript to consistently rendered (yet intuitively marked-up ebook) entails nothing short of knocking Word/Adobe off their pedestals. I'm not opposed to it, per se. I'm just not going to hold my breath.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

A classic case of, "if Aunt Edna had had testicles, we'd be calling her Uncle Edward."

Or as my Dad would have put it, "Son, if yer aunt had balls then she'd be yer uncle. . . right?" - thanks for the memory

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

... very much like the situation we already have with the epub-ish format. Same/same with little-to-nothing gained (other than disruption and change-for-the-sake-of-change).

Or as someone else said (forget who, might even have been me), "Change won't occur until the cost of doing the same exceeds the cost of doing the change"

BR