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Originally Posted by aapezzuto
I don't care if it ever gets read natively on devices... If it is a good standard, and we can start converting all of our books to a single format... then regenerate them from there... Thats fine!
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I was very happy when I learned I could take apart an epub document and fix it or modify it for use on my device. Regeneration is an important feature of epub.
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So, anyone willing to put their 2 cents in on what it will take for this format to become popular with people who archive their own books?
Im guessing they will need to build a good editor that can be used to easily alter/generate .epub files... without having to figure out all the compression levels for files, and mime types... etc...
Maybe a version of the spec that was meant to be read by a user rather than a software rendering engineer.
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I think an editor is important. It is also important to have tools to troubleshoot and fix problems with the document. For example css can be a bitch to work with when it doesn't do what you thought. There needs to be a way to find out the exact css entry that is causing particular text to appear as it does. Tools should also spot and fix grouping errors and in many cases special character problems should be dealt with with in automatic or prompted ways.
I think there needs to be at least three documents. One for the software engineer, one of the author, and one for the user. The user document is a key piece to selling the epub standard by showing the benefits and establishing the expectation. The author document is critical and supplements the authoring tools. An author is not necessarily a technical person who can edit html files manually. There also needs to be a collection of tips for authors to help with special case problems and provide examples.
I think there are more items that require implementation in the standard but what we have is a good start. I have been putting together requirements for a possible future eb1150 device on my web site. Many of the items, as it turns out, are applicable to any epub solution.
Dale