Website for the Sony Reader: Ajax, LaTeX and RSS

[Hadrien]

Hello,

I've been working on a project for the last 2 months, trying to create something really usefull for the Sony reader and all the other e-ink devices.
I've spent quite some time online, and found many e-books available, mostly books in the public domain, but I wasn't really satisfied by their presentation or the format being used.
This new project is based on LaTeX, an old technology, but still the best thing around when you need to create scientific papers for example. Using this website (I used Ruby on Rails for this), people will be able to download PDF files (A4, Sony Reader and Custom PDF) first, but it could be any kind of files in the near future as long as it's supported by LaTeX. Unlike most websites, we don't store books as files, we store them in a database, separated into parts/chapters/sections. This way we can create table of contents for these books too, or make a much nicer presentation overall.

The website should be divided into 3 main sections:
- Books in the public domain: the usual stuff, but with books generated using LaTeX. We'll provide a way for people to send books for this section of the website, and then check if these books really are in the public domain before publishing them (a bit like wikisource ?).
- Books written by you: using a simple Ajax interface, anyone will be able to send their own book. Books will be generated using LaTeX too, and this section will have most of those trendy web 2.0 things like tags.
- Newspaper: Should come in 2 flavours, rss generated and user generated. It will be possible to create your own newspaper using rss feeds and then share it with anyone on the website. You're a complete newbie and you don't know what RSS feeds are for ? Not a problem, just click on one of those popular rss generated newspaper that someone created for you. Using an ajax interface, people will also be able to write articles and create their own fanzine, publish their views on the world etc... It's like blogging but for e-newspaper (correct name for this ?)

We'll begin with content in english and french, but everything is unicode, website and LaTeX included, so it will be possible to write or read books/newspapers in any language.
I'm still working really hard on this project, but I guess it will be ready for beta near mid december. I'll receive my sony reader tomorrow, so I haven't generated pdf files for it yet. Here's a sample using A4, if you have any advice for the sony reader (size of the pdf, size of the font etc...), I will be working on this issue tomorrow night so go ahead and express yourself.

EDIT: Added a demo on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o-66_ZxTR4
EDIT2: Version française sur dailymotion:
http://www.dailymotion.com/Feedbooks...ooks-demo-1-fr

[Hadrien]

Just added a short demonstration on youtube on how you can create a book using this website:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o-66_ZxTR4

[Hadrien]

French version available / Version française disponible aussi, sur dailymotion cette fois ci:

http://www.dailymotion.com/Feedbooks...ooks-demo-1-fr

[Hadrien]

First test for the Sony Reader:
- 4.13in x 5.83in
- Font is Bookman, 16pt

I really don't know which size would be the best suited for the reader, just got it a few hours ago, so if you have any advice they'll be appreciated.

[NatCh]

General consensus on page size seems to have settled around 90mm X 120mm (3.54" X 4.72"), Hadrien.

Hope that helps.

[scottcstoness]

Originally Posted by Hadrien

First test for the Sony Reader:
- 4.13in x 5.83in
- Font is Bookman, 16pt

I really don't know which size would be the best suited for the reader, just got it a few hours ago, so if you have any advice they'll be appreciated.

The actual screen is 90 x 120 mm, or 3 5/8 x 4 7/8 in; 4x6 in works as well, but things end up smaller.

In terms of font size, that tends to be a personal preference, so it might be nice to have that set as an option when using the software/website.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by scottcstoness

The actual screen is 90 x 120 mm, or 3 5/8 x 4 7/8 in; 4x6 in works as well, but things end up smaller.

In terms of font size, that tends to be a personal preference, so it might be nice to have that set as an option when using the software/website.

Yeah I'll offer such an option...
The idea is to offer a generic template for the Sony Reader, which will make things much easier for the newbies etc... + it'll be possible to cache the files this way
But the system can generate anything, so you will be able to click on Custom PDF and choose what you want. If you're logged in, it'll remember all this, making it easier for advanced users.

[Big Daddy Exlax]

Which document class are you using?

[Hadrien]

Book if there's any chapter or part in the file that I have to generate. Otherwise, if it's just sections, it's report.

[neilm2]

Hadrien, your site sounds very interesting. Do you need beta testers? If so, I'd love to sign up.

[Hadrien]

The beta test will be open for everyone in this forum + a few blogs, and tech websites. I'm still looking for a large community of users who like to write too. It could be really fantastic to discover new authors that are not published and wish to share their work.

[Kosst Amojan]

If you have a short story section, that would be great. I have several just sitting on my computer and I can get a lot more.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by Kosst Amojan

If you have a short story section, that would be great. I have several just sitting on my computer and I can get a lot more.

Yes we do have a short story section... Books in the public domain have what we call types, and one of these type is short stories.
For books writtent by users, the system is 100% based on tags, so you just have to tag your book with "short stories" and whatever describe your book best.
We could also provide categories for these user submitted books, but I'm not necessary a huge fan of this kind of system, though it'll be easy to add it, we'll see during the beta...

[Kosst Amojan]

Categories are crucial, it shouldn't be that hard to create a dozen or so standard categories for users to tag their stories with. If this "Books for Mobile Devices" site grows like we hope it will, people aren't going to want to waste time scrolling though romance stories to get to sci-fi for instance.

A few more questions. Why LaTeX? If this is for books and stories and not academic papers why is it needed? (I know a bit about it but not that much). Also will users be able to download entire books, not just chapter by chapter. That's what I'm most aperhensive about, these files are custom and chances are many of them will be unique to your site. How do you archive them in a non-propriority format? If the software you're using to save them is no longer upgraded what happens to the files? I've just had several problems with my companies website in the past, they posted articles to the site that went into the database. When we wanted to upgrade the site, it turns out we couldn't export those articles and the software was no longer supported. (Copying and pasting hundreds of articles is not fun )

BTW: are you designing this site from scratch or using a database program? If so which one?

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by Kosst Amojan

Categories are crucial, it shouldn't be that hard to create a dozen or so standard categories for users to tag their stories with. If this "Books for Mobile Devices" site grows like we hope it will, people aren't going to want to waste time scrolling though romance stories to get to sci-fi for instance.

A few more questions. Why LaTeX? If this is for books and stories and not academic papers why is it needed? (I know a bit about it but not that much). Also will users be able to download entire books, not just chapter by chapter. That's what I'm most aperhensive about, these files are custom and chances are many of them will be unique to your site. How do you archive them in a non-propriority format? If the software you're using to save them is no longer upgraded what happens to the files? I've just had several problems with my companies website in the past, they posted articles to the site that went into the database. When we wanted to upgrade the site, it turns out we couldn't export those articles and the software was no longer supported. (Copying and pasting hundreds of articles is not fun )

BTW: are you designing this site from scratch or using a database program? If so which one?

Categories wouldn't necessarily alway fit what everyone wants, that's the main problem with it. As long as people tag their content correctly, it is easy to find their books. If your book is tagged "science fiction" then you will be able to find it as long as you search for science fiction. And let's say that you tag it with "science fiction" and "hard science", then it'll be possible to find similar books this way, something that just a few categories couldn't possibly do.
I'm using LaTeX for these main reasons: it's pretty fast, great looking and can output a whole lot of file formats. Users will always download the whole book, and not chapters.
The books themselves are not saved using some special software that I won't be able to use in the near future, they're stored in a database, which means that I can output anything (for example I can dump books in XML too, which could be interesting if an XML based book format became popular and widely used).
And the whole thing is built from scratch using Ruby on Rails (powerfull web 2.0 framework) on a server running FreeBSD, Lighttpd and MySQL (opensource for all of these, just like LaTeX).