ok, now on to everyone/everything else:
Quote:
Originally Posted by kovidgoyal
Consider doing it in python rather than C++, much faster lead times and much easier long term maintenance.
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I will not argue the merits of different programming languages, I will push to have python be considered as the plugin language of choice, or at least an interface for it to be made. I share your affection for python, as me and c++ have never gotten along for anything other than image manipulation. However when a person says "here, let me do a full time job for you for 12 weeks, and you dont have to pay me... what do you want?" you don't argue when they say they want to do it in something that they can compile for different platforms rather than something that can be interpreted on different platforms. And yes I know that everyone who has written code since the dawn of interpreted languages has a strong view on this one way or another... But to this dialog its just not significant.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gudy
the internal format should probably be closer to something like FB2, except perhaps richer.
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The appeal of the epub standard is that it will allow for something like fb2, but with significantly more flavor and texture. We have been talking about defining an epub lite (choosing how much flavor we want to support) and also the idea of allowing people to define interface elements that will create new flavors as needed. The slippery slope here is that for every new and strange case you add, though epub compliant, you make it MUCH more difficult for the average programmer to write a good converter to output to the format of your choice... Thus, the less standard the file, the less useful it will be to others.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
When you say "replace Book Designer", do you mean a GUI tool which will, like BD, allow numerous formats (text, HTML, RTF, PalmDoc, etc) to be input, and the creation of numerous output formats (Sony LRF, MobiPocket, IMP, etc)? If it's to replace BD, it's obviously vital that it be able to read BD's ".html0" storage format so that books can be transferred to it from BD.
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YES! This is exactly what we are after. BD is the default because its all that there is for us non-programmers (yes i consider myself object minded, but sense i would delegate ANY coding task to others.. i am no programmer). It will natively (out of the box) only support epub files, however... as a fundamental feature, we will be developing a standard interface for load/save add-ons. This feature is so significant that it will supersede many of the interface elements as far as priority. At the end of core development, all extra energy will go to developing as many different high quality import/export plugins as possible, utilizing this interface.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Forgive my ignorance, but the main thing that distinguishes BD from the other tools is its GUI book editor. Can one write GUI apps in Python?
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my general rule of thumb is not to ask this exact question... I have found that people will argue the most extreme cases when asked if something is possible, perhaps a question of ideal or a "good idea" is a better one.
Python has great capabilities, and is my language of choice for all sorts of tasks. If i don't want to do it by hand, I want a program to do it.. if i don't want to run this program on a hand held device I do it in python or java. both of those languages have the possibility to write the entire front end gui of an entire OS, control robots, and even do
FEA, However I will leave it to people willing to do the work to decide what tools they want to use. If I cant trust them in that respect, I wont work with them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Duntemann
What I really need is probably a little more than a 500-hour project, fersure (especially if executed in C++) but here's the gist: I'd like to have a way to generate a fully paginated pbook print image (basically, a PDF) as well as all the major reflowable ebook file formats without losing pbook page equivalence.
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Though I don't think this will fill your every desire, if the project meets my goals, it will serve as a good platform to extend to yours. The real design problem here is how to have the output of one file feed back into the original source... and that is not difficult, its just time consuming to decide the best course. Kinda like solving a suduku puzzle... it takes 45 sec to write down 65-70 missing single digit numbers... it takes longer to decide how to write them down.
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Originally Posted by moz
Come on, we can't even agree on spelling, what chance we can agree on sitation standards? You're all fulls!
I am going to make my tagline here "homonyms are not synonyms".
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This is either a great observation, or a low blow to my monumental lack of spelling grace. Probably both. I entered college with a 5th grade spelling level, finished with a 7th grade level.. all things considered, I'm glad that you can read what I type and extract most of my meaning... My wife is currently trying to get my brain to tell the deference between sense and since... it took me more than one try to get spell check to move me to each of those words, so she still has a ways to go!