[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I know that ePub gets defaults from HTML but, I'm talking about the formatting.

You're talking nonsense. "I'm not talking about the formatting, I'm talking about the formatting!"

Originally Posted by JSWolf

eBooks should have a standard set of formatting rules such that the options can then be used so the user can set the eBook to look how he/she wants.

More nonsense. You've just tossed book-level, spec-level, reader-level, and UI implementation into a blender and hit "puree." You either don't know what you're talking about or can't express yourself; either way, you're just babbling.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There is a difference between the defaults of HTML and the defaults of formatting. I'm talking formatting, with some HTML defaults but not all. I'd go with the default font size and the default line-height. But I would not go with the default text-indent or the default paragraph space.

At the risk of sounding even more like a broken record - more nonsensical babbling. See my first paragraph in this message. You sound like you want readers to change some of the display defaults that are defined in the HTML spec, and I told you before that that's just not going to happen.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The problem is that most reading software cannot subtract but only add. So when you have left/right margins of 1em you can only make them larger, not smaller. So yes, we need CSS to help change some of the defaults of p.

The complete non sequitur in your third sentence transforms the entire paragraph into gobbledegook. Yet again, you're blending things that happen at different levels as if they're all one thing, not to mention stating outright falsehoods. (P's left/right margins default to zero, not 1em.)

Let me be clear. What I'd like to see is not a change in the specs, in reader software/devices, or anything like that. I'm advocating a simple, basic stylesheet that publishers and authors could use as a starting point for the ebooks they produce, and an accompanying set of principles to use in case a particular book needs rules that aren't defined there. That's all.

For instance, suppose we all agreed to define a standard body text paragraph as having zero margins all around, no changes to font size or line height, and a first-line indent of 1.5em... and then we defined that as class "std". A non-indented version would be the same, except for a zero value for first-line indent - and since that's usually used to start a section/chapter, that could be "first". These are CSS classes, and those two right there are sufficient to lay out the bulk of your average novel.

In terms of principles, those would be more like "use the body text indent value as your standard unit of indentation, applying to lists and blockquotes as needed." Likewise, "always accompany center-justification with a first-line indent value of zero" to prevent "centered" text that isn't, "define text sizes in ems or percentages, instead of pixels, cms, or inches" to make sure scaling works right, and "define your standard document properties - font, justification, et al. - in the BODY element's style rules, instead of over and over in every class" to promote compactness.

None of that talks about reader software or device GUIs, because that's not its job. The guiding principle here is to trust the platform to do its job and focus on giving publishers an easy way to deliver a robust, flexible book that any platform can render well.

Do you see the difference in how I'm talking about this versus how you are? Any publisher reading my advice above can put it to work immediately, but someone reading your prescriptions would be lost about whether these were things they should do in their books or things future platforms would handle for them.