[Hitch]

Originally Posted by mattmc

So, after a long time of creating ePub2 files in InDesign and then scripting the living daylights out of them to make useable files for various platforms, an interesting turn of events had me using iBooks Author for the last several months.

Ah.

I have to say that I'm quite pleased with iBA. It's like a simpler InDesign, and it has the strong advantage in that it was a tool designed to make eBooks. It was also made by Apple, which may be a turn-off for some, but I find their design and UX principles to be generally sound and even superior. That's not to say that the product doesn't lack; I have 3 or 4 bug reports, usability fixes and so forth filed with Apple currently.

FWIW, it's definitely a turnoff for me. The Apple interfaces drive me NUTS. They seem so limiting.

It used to be that iBA could only make a .ibooks files, so it was iPad-only, but last year Apple added ePub3 output from iBA, so you can create a regular reflowable book. Prior to that, iBA had only been suitable for creating textbooks, interactive stuff, fixed layouts, etc. Now it's...basically a legitimate eBook editor.

I dunno, man. I've seen the code output from iBA, and I know you're a programmer. I find it odd that you aren't yanking your hair out about what's in the underside.

Despite this, I'm not comfortable taking my iBA ePub3 and distributing it elsewhere than the iBookstore. Out of curiosity, I dumped my ePub3 into Readium in Chrome, and I shuddered and had to close the browser. So fine, looks like iBA for iBookstore and that's it.

I don't mean to be dense, but...then why use it? Saleability-wise, it ertainly seems that the ONLY platform really using ePUB3 is indeed iBooks, and from what my clients tell me, they don't want to be stuck only selling there. Most sell one book on iBooks for every thou that they sell on Amazon. Seems like a ton of work for very, very little return. Didn't I see a post from you around here, with you pulling aforementioned hair out, because it was doing something or the other?

We are asked, fairly frequently, to "revamp" an iBA file, to make it usable for other platforms, and fixing that code would take longer, 10 times out of 10, than just making the book from scratch. Granted, that's pretty much true for trying to fix anyone else's eBook/HTML coding, but the iBA files are just egregiously bad. It's like looking at Pages' output into ePUB. Yikes. I assume that you've already tried using Pages-->ePUB, etc.

So now I'm going back to InDesign -> ePub2, and the more work I have to do in InDesign the more I miss iBA. When you're making a reflowable eBook, most of ID is a cumbersome, useless distraction, and you can very easily and invisibly pervert your document structure with one stray key press, only to notice an hour later when your post-export, pre-Kindlegen script is running. As valiantly as Adobe has tried to make ID relevant in the age of the ePub, it's just the wrong tool for the job.

We have customized templates that we use for iNDD. Granted, that's mostly useful for fiction, but I have House Style (stylesheets, translating for non-INDDers) set for INDD for all types of books, both fiction and non.

I'm working on developing a more streamlined and/or regulated workflow, facilitating straight-up style mapping, from word-processor to INDD to ePUB to MOBI. This doesn't have anything to do with what you're asking, EXCEPT that we're strong in the Force of Sigil, at my shop.

Now, we're not Mac folks. One of my people is a Mac user, but she's mostly handling admin stuff (emails and that). So, our expectation in interfaces is decidedly different than yours. We do also use Epsilon, but, pretty much post-HTML, everything is Sigil. I expect that even with the new processes, Sigil will play a key role.

...And yet, it does many things. Indexing, for example, which iBA lacks. It does hyperlinks pretty OK, and it has para & char styles, spacing & kerning and all that stuff which I have found to be vital in a layout program. It lets you add your own custom CSS, which iBA doesn't, and the markup it generates seems cleaner than iBA's.

Well, no custom CSS would be the death-knell for me. I don't have the luxury. To me, iBA sounds a bit like Vellum, which some of my clients have raved about, and gone on to use. Mostly because it's simple to use. And, compared to using us, it's cheap.

So I'm idly casting about for an alternative program with:

• The simplicity, clarity and focus of iBooks Author
• The power of InDesign (indexes, regex styles, scripting)
• Clean ePub2 export

Ideas?

Ideas for the Holy Grail of eBook production? Gosh.

I've seen a dozen different programs/apps, all aimed at being THIS. None of them are. I've been asked to alpha/beta test most, and while many seem somewhat promising, none do what a company like mine needs done.

Not to insult your programmer-fu, have you tried Jutoh? It has ePUB2 and 3, I believe, can do fixed-layout and regular, and builds MOBIs using KG. It's not my cuppa, again, because I don't like having to redo everything into Julian's (Julian Smart, the developer) odd take on "styles." (At my last gander, you can't put your own Stylesheet in there, and when you want to use a style, you have to scroll through 500 listed styles. That irks me, BUT, I've seen some people who claim that's not true.)

There's Bookalope, and another one (can't think of the name). Some people have touted Blue Griffon's ePUB editor, but it looks like the dog's breakfast, to me. Sigil's better, more powerful, and more advanced...and BG is quite expensive, for what it does. Obviously, Sigil isn't.

Push come to shove, for me, it's INDD->ePUB-->Sigil, and then onward from there. If you're married to the ePUB3 idea, you can do ePUB3 now with Sigil as well.

I don't know of any viable replacement for Sigil, or for INDD, for that matter. Quark's pretty badly outdated, in my experience.

Hitch