Quote:
Originally Posted by j.p.s
All I have done is point out that existing devices will display, in addition to roman numerals and ascii integers, page numbers such as 4.5 (and I assume 13b).
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Okay, 13b I can see some use for.
Good that you were testing that. I never really messed with much beyond your usual Roman Numerals + basic numbers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by j.p.s
I have not tried to predict characters per screen or anything like that, just inserting anchors with fractional page ids in between the existing anchors with integer page ids, [...]
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Well, initially you said:
"and still show change for each ebook page turn."
This made me think you were trying to emulate some sort of "Screens", but hardcoding even more of them. So you would arbitrarily split every page into .1, .2, .3, to try to get closer to a "screen per page".
Still would recommend against that because it would interfere with blind readers who want to skip to next pages.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MGlitch
Of course going by word count has the benefit of not being subject to the medium. I’m sure there are drawbacks such as longer works getting unwieldy in terms of the numbers. But that can be worked around.
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There's also the case of what's a "word".
I discussed this all in the linked threads, and came up with the concept of "Format-Specific" and "Format-Neutral".
A "Format-Specific" example would be:
Page Number (like in a physical book). Only fits with that specific page/font size, those specific margins, [...].
A "Format-Neutral" example would be:
Paragraph Count. It doesn't matter if it's physical, Large Print, HTML, Ebook, the amount of paragraphs should be the same across formats. (Also think laws: "see Section 8, paragraph 3".)
Every reference format is going to have pros/cons. Here's what I wrote on Word Counts:
- Word Count
- Note: Depends heavily on what you count as a "word".
- Do you count numbers as a word? There are quite a few differences between "word counts". For example, Microsoft Word/Sigil/Calibre all disagree and vary in "word count" by tiny margins.
- My personal thoughts on this method... I believe it is "too specific", and would lead to too many errors if trying to reference it.
Elsewhere in the thread, I also discussed a few more complicated edge cases with Word Counts. Here's some newer examples:
- Generated text (Javascript)
- Tables
- Does each cell count as 1 word? Or do Tables not count?
- What about a 5x5 table of numbers? 25 words?
- Text that displays in one format and not another.
- Think MOBI vs. KF8. MOBI might display an image of a complicated table, KF8 displays an actual <table>.
- Math
- Is "x + y = 2" 3 words or 0? What about "x+y=2"? 1 word?
- 1½ (3 words? 2? 1?)
- 1 1/2 (3 words? 2?)
- Languages without spaces
- Many Asian languages don't use spaces at all. So what's a "word"? Each symbol?
- Spaces
- How do you deal with characters like zero-width joiners, or no-break spaces. Does that mean you treat both sides as a "single word"?
- Dashes/Hyphens
- (I grabbed a few of these from Wikipedia's En Dashes)
- The hospital–nursing home connection (5 words? 4?)
- The pro-conscription–anti-conscription debate (4 words? 3?)
- love–hate relationship (3 words? 2?)
- love-hate relationship (3 words? 2?)
- non–Euclidean geometry (3 words? 2?)
- See pages 123–125. (4 words? 3?)
- Periods/Colons
- 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. (4 words? 3? 7? 8?)
- 11:00a.m.–1:00p.m. (1 word? 2? 5? Other?)
- U.S.A. (1 word? 3?)
- As H.M. Smith said. (5 words? 4?)
- As H. M. Smith said. (5 words?)
- "I…I don't know." (4 words? 3?)
- "I...I don't know." (4 words? 3?)
- "I-I don't know." (4 words? 3?)
If anything, I would say Paragraph Count is more neutral/steady across mediums. It's pretty well-proven in cases like laws ("see Section 8, paragraph 3, clause a"). And laws have to be written in a way and published in many different formats, they can't rely on something too specific/variable.