Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
Oh, fun. Just found another bug with print replica that needs to be fixed in an update. Print replica does not honor page refresh. It doesn't do animations either, but they are there greyed out suggesting they may be added once the text layer is highlightable and dictionaryable (no, not a real word, but it should be). The page refresh does not work at all, it defaults to a full flashing page refresh whenever it feels like. In a (KFX) comic animations are not available, but at least page refresh can be enabled as a separate and independent setting (in aA menu rather than settings). I have gotten used to the animations by now, like them in combination with page refresh. This only works in books and PDFs, which is fine by me, for now. A PDF converted to KFX comic has the extra option of "crop margins," which should be also included in the PDF renderer. The contrast setting should be available in a comic. All in all, all settings should be everywhere where applicable and in the same spot (e.g. justified or left aligned should only be in a reflowable book, nowhere else). A unified GUI, is that really so complicated? But neither print replica nor comics have the animations. And print replica is missing the page refresh on top of that.
So, for now, my Scribe is getting either downloaded KFX, DRM removed books converted to KFX, or sideloaded PDF. Comics and print replica is lacking too much as of yet.
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I think it's going to take a series of updates to improve Print Replica support.
I'm seeing
some fixed layout books with page turn animation. I think the distinction is that the one I'm looking at does not have panel navigation. But I'll have to investigate and see if there is some other factor.
Contrast setting as it exists (assume you mean font weight?) applies only to text rendered from fonts. Comic books don't generally have such text: they're just pages of images, optionally with 'panel' definitions. So there's nothing to apply contrast to, unless you want a contrast setting that adjusts the contrast of the image as a whole (which would be a new feature of perhaps dubious value).
There are also fixed layout books (not categorized as comic books, but I think it is the same format) that do have actual text laid out on top of a page image. However Kindle platform does not support any operations on this (lookup, highlighting etc.).
Comic Book format does not have any accessibly features. One should be able to add alt-text with authoring tools so screen readers (and potentially TTS engines) can access that. And of course if its HTML has text content, you should be able to select it and do lookup, highlighting etc.
Print Replica is potentially 'accessible'. The Kindle app will, for example, read text out with Speak Screen on iOS, however there are issues (page turns do not synchronize with spoken text). (I have been meaning to try Voice View on Scribe to see if it works at all with Print Replica documents.)
So I agree that the 2 formats could benefit from some cross-pollination of features, wherever it makes sense.
But first, I want to see Scribe support for Print Replica measure up to the baseline set by the Kindle apps. Until then (as you relate) people are going to find reasons not to use it.
Even now, Print Replica is not great in the Kindle apps: does not support dark mode, does not support facing pages in landscape, no TTS or well functioning accessibility. But I think that's because they have not been widely encountered by users until now. With uptick in usage there will be more reason to improve the functionality and performance.