[Hitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Hitch, that was a rather interesting read.

Yeah, I wish it were happening to someone else.

What I want to know is why is that that some who want an eBook made don't listen to those who know what they are talking about? Fixed layout was a bad idea for ePub3 and it's a bad idea for Amazon.

Wolfie, to be fair, this book can ONLY be made in FXL. There's no reflowable option for it. It's a textbook about drawing in pen and ink. There's no really good way to make it reflowable. You know me, we'd have done that were it remotely possible. The choice of FXL--that's not his mistake. It's fxl or naught.

You get people thinking their eBook would be best in fixed-layout when really, that's the worst idea ever. The problem is that the standards committee decided to let Apple dictate to them what would be good for ePub3. And what's good for Apple is usually bad for everyone else. Of course, Amazon has to have their own version of ePub3 aka KF8. And who at Amazon decided to allow the worst features of ePub3?

Well, Apple's influence at the Committee--yes, that was bad.

And because these features are part of the standard and even though they are so not supported, your clients see these features and go "Oooohhhh! Shiny feature. I want." (said in the voice of Homer Simpson) They don't listen when you say it's not a good idea and won't work well and your eBook won't sell. They don't listen until after you've put in the work to make it as the client wanted and then sees that you were correct.

I didn't tell him it was a bad idea, Wolfie. THAT part is not his fault, sugar.

So what really needs to happen is to take ePub3 and throw it away. It's garbage. This would mean that every ePub3 eBook made would have to be remade as ePub2. So be it to get rid of ePub3.

Wolfie, I think that your soapbox is starting to sag. ;-) There's nothing "wrong" with ePUB3. Yes, it has a litany of features that are...questionable, but there's no law that says that we, as bookmakers, have to use them. Part of our job is to steer clients away from bad choices. In my scenario, I didn't realize that the client had an idea about the job that wasn't going to happen. And I didn't realize (and should have asked, in hindsight) if the Zon had fixed the link issue. (sigh).

ePub4 needs to be created with features that that are not poorly implemented and that can be implemented on eInk Readers. And they need to leave Apple out of suggesting features for ePub4. ePub4 would be the chance to do it right instead of redoing ePub3 and making it even worse.

Weeeeeealllll, kiddo, while ePUB4 would be nice, I seriously, seriously doubt that they're going to take features AWAY. Right?

Hitch