MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Website for the Sony Reader: Ajax, LaTeX and RSS

alex_d · 12-19-2006, 10:18 PM

"Whenever someone download a book using one of these generic formatting, the book is generated and cached, which mean that the next one won't have to wait the 1 or 2 seconds it takes to generate a book. But if you want to generate a custom pdf, then ok, as long as you're logged in, we'll remember the settings that you're usually generating custom PDF with, and you'll be able to select, the font size, the margin etc... These custom generated books are not stored in cache afterwards, but it's still possible to generate any book that you'd like this way."

Ok, I see. That's pretty much all I was arguing for. I probably wasn't reading carefully enough (indeed, i see you did mention it briefly in post 7). I'd still argue, though, that your personal preference for latex notwithstanding, incorporating other formats (even with reduced layout) is a useful thing. You might not like spaces between words, but others just use landscape and have changing preferences for font size with different light levels and hate the page-turn and font-rendering penalty of pdf. I'm just saying that if you build a database you should make the most of it, and I'm glad you're already incorporating some of the possibilties.

About getting content into the system... why do you seem to say it's tougher to correct errors than to just do the whole thing manually? If the interface is nice and responsive (very important), and there's some sort of credit system, I think you could drum up volunteers to correct a lot of books. I think you'll get more books corrected than entered. You'll definately need to organize the community in some sort of concerted effort either way. (Don't just say, if you feel like doing it, go ahead).

Also, typesetting is quite an art, and you might consider offering different pre-made "themes" (fonts, margins, spacings) that users could choose between (and which users could contribute and vote on). This would be a good way to further explore that power of latex that you're talking about.

Lastly, I still say hoping that 90% of people won't generate their own content is just saying that you don't think it's worth generating (and, by extension, worth implementing). I say start thinking about how you could use clustering to distribute the workload and add enough features that 90% of people will _want custom versions of books.

12-19-2006, 10:18 PM	#26
alex_d Addict Posts: 303 Karma: 187 Join Date: Dec 2006 Device: Sony Reader	"Whenever someone download a book using one of these generic formatting, the book is generated and cached, which mean that the next one won't have to wait the 1 or 2 seconds it takes to generate a book. But if you want to generate a custom pdf, then ok, as long as you're logged in, we'll remember the settings that you're usually generating custom PDF with, and you'll be able to select, the font size, the margin etc... These custom generated books are not stored in cache afterwards, but it's still possible to generate any book that you'd like this way." Ok, I see. That's pretty much all I was arguing for. I probably wasn't reading carefully enough (indeed, i see you did mention it briefly in post 7). I'd still argue, though, that your personal preference for latex notwithstanding, incorporating other formats (even with reduced layout) is a useful thing. You might not like spaces between words, but others just use landscape and have changing preferences for font size with different light levels and hate the page-turn and font-rendering penalty of pdf. I'm just saying that if you build a database you should make the most of it, and I'm glad you're already incorporating some of the possibilties. About getting content into the system... why do you seem to say it's tougher to correct errors than to just do the whole thing manually? If the interface is nice and responsive (very important), and there's some sort of credit system, I think you could drum up volunteers to correct a lot of books. I think you'll get more books corrected than entered. You'll definately need to organize the community in some sort of concerted effort either way. (Don't just say, if you feel like doing it, go ahead). Also, typesetting is quite an art, and you might consider offering different pre-made "themes" (fonts, margins, spacings) that users could choose between (and which users could contribute and vote on). This would be a good way to further explore that power of latex that you're talking about. Lastly, I still say hoping that 90% of people won't generate their own content is just saying that you don't think it's worth generating (and, by extension, worth implementing). I say start thinking about how you could use clustering to distribute the workload and add enough features that 90% of people will _want custom versions of books.