[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by nabsltd

I don't have a problem with "new or interesting things" in eBooks, but I haven't seen a lot of people asking how to do "new or interesting things" using tools like scripting.

I have seen a lot of people ask questions that are basically "how can I turn an e-reader into a web browser?" That's not really "new or interesting". There's also a lot of questions that really come down to "advanced CSS still isn't quite enough to give me the exact same look across all possible reader sizes and font choices". Having done a lot of that kind of CSS, I fall squarely into the camp of sometimes having to live with "close enough". OTOH, if somebody could come up with a way other than fixed layout to properly render The Demolished Man on any device, I'd be really interested.

Here's a "new or interesting" thing I have never seen anybody ask how to do, and it's something that has actual application to eBooks:

There has been a lot of discussion about the editing of older books to meet current political correctness, and many readers want to know which version of the book they are getting. How about a system where both versions of the book are in the EPUB, and you choose which you want to read. This is easy to do by having both versions in the file and just picking from a table of contents. The "new and interesting" part would be to have a way to have a single copy of the book, with only the differences being a "duplicate". A button click at the beginning would hide/show the text based on the version chosen. That would be a "new and interesting" use of interactivity, and has real utility for readers, since it keeps the file size much smaller.

An even cooler addition to this would be to optionally highlight the changed text in either version, and allow a click on that specific text to toggle the view of only that change.

Unfortunately that idea is not new or different either. Although the application to ebooks is a different use.

A long time ago there was a dvd player that came with "ClearPlay" technology embedded in the hardware which would automatically mute bad words and skip violent scenes, etc. by applying a filter while watching the movie. There was a lot of concerns about copyright infringement because it was changing the product. I don't remember how that turned out(??), however the concept is the same as you are suggesting.

Personally I would be against changing historical documents (assuming you could only change books that are out of copyright) just to appease a current morality fad (whatever fad that might entail). When you read older documents it is incumbent on the reader to understand that their sensibilities might not be the same... Can you imagine trying to read Alex Haley's Roots while having any mention of "slavery" or "master" being edited out or changed to something else??!!?! Could you consider yourself as having read Roots??

Anyway, while JS might not have widespread use in ebooks now, it certainly never will unless people are allowed (and encouraged) to experiment. Someone may discover the next best thing that will become the defacto standard in 5 or 10 years. They would never be able to do so if their ideas are squashed by those saying "I've never seen it and it is useless anyway". I say "Let them try it; the market will determine if it is worth it, or not."