Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
To me, from a trouble-shooting standpoint, I'm happier if I know that all the plain old, plain old p's are just that: the base. Whatever I decided that would be. Then I know that everything else is, well, something ELSE.
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Yep yep, I agree completely. Have your clean, minimalist BASE, and only make a class when you have an exception to that base (for example, smaller text in a copyright page, adding a margin up top, aligning something on the right, poetry indentation, ...).
Perhaps it is because I have seen too many horrors of spaghetti code.
I always hated seeing these bloated EPUBs with <p class="ind"> in every single paragraph, with only the first paragraphs of a chapter being a <p class="noind">, and about 12 different "ind" classes to handle every case under the sun (in a blockquote, in a footnote, in a blockquote in a footnote, ...).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
HOWEVER: we all know that there are a bajillion ways to make a book. Your way, my way, Wolfie the Curmudgeon's way...within certain reasonable standards, they all work.
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Yep yep. There is a million ways to tackle the same problem, important thing is that you apply it throughout the book CONSISTENTLY. This allows you to easily go back in the future and tweak it if needed, or allows tinkerers to easily go in and change it to THEIR preferences easily.
Side Note: Reminds me a lot like the typography/ellipsis chat we had in this topic:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=206482
The ellipsis character or a "manual" ellipsis with non-breaking spaces isn't wrong, just make sure you apply it consistently.
Other Side Note: JSWolf, buddy ol' pal... you should include multi-quotes in your posts! Instead of making 3 posts one right after the other, just include all three quotes + comments in a single one! Makes the forum much cleaner + easier to follow.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Notjohn
I tremble to enter this battle of formatting giants, but note that (as was said in another thread) html formatting is a matter of pairs. If you have a style in the style sheet, it won't be used unless the body of the book refers to that style; contrawise, there's no point calling for a class in the body of the book unless there's a matching style in the style sheet.
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Thanks for that input Notjohn, and never "tremble" when giving input on the forums. All questions/input is important! Especially for all the lurkers + people who stumble upon these topics in the future. There is probably another person out there who was having the same exact thoughts, but was just too afraid to post.
Although I have to say, SOMETIMES, you can leave code in there that can be used for semantic/organizational purposes, even if there is no reference in the CSS stylesheet. For example, wrapping Greek words in a "greek" span:
Quote:
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[...] (<span class="greek" xml:lang="grc">λείβω</span>, <i>labor</i>, <i>lapsus</i>, to flow or slip downward, a lapsing; <span class="greek" xml:lang="grc">λοβός</span>, <i>globus</i>, lobe, globe; also lap, flap, and many other words); [...]
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I don't necessarily have to have anything SPECIAL being done with the greek words, but having the empty class there does add some sense if you are looking at the code itself. (And allows you in the future to easily add in a special Greek font, or easily be able to track down all instances of Greek words within the book if you wanted).
Similar thing with inline math. You could mark all of that up with a <span class="math">, even though you won't necessarily be doing anything special with it in the EPUB. (I have been meaning to implement this in the future books... I still have to give it some thought):
Quote:
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<p>The equation <span class="math">2x + 1 = 5</span> is an example of an inline equation.</p>
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