Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker
Isn't there some form of source/distributor/etc. field in the epub standard? If so, having access to that through calibre might be a Good Thing.
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I'm not at all sure what metadata fields, and the acceptable content, are included in the epub standard. (Been to the site, but I'm not a programmer and most of what I read made little or no sense.) But some of what users want added might be a metadata related issue.
Some of the things we're asking for are what amounts, at least as I see things, as data that should inherently be a part of the book itself. Just as their is an Author, Publisher, ISBN, etc that would be found on a copyright page or frontispiece. A portion of the problem may well be that we're looking for metadata that is not yet a part of the official epub standard and so isn't being included in anyone else's ebook formats either.
I wanted a Version field (version numbering for the body text of the ebook, not any of the containers / scripting). Worldwalker is looking for a Source field. I am sure that others are asking for other material to be included (Artist/Illustrator for manga or comics, etc).
Anyway, perhaps differentiating between calibre's file management requirements and an ebook's metadata needs to be clarified? Effectively they overlap, so from the User's viewpoint you get a thought process of absolute(calibre metadata = ebook metadata) AND vice versa. Unfortunately this thought process might not be the case. While I understand that you do not want to add unnecessary fields to calibre, nor compliance breaking metadata to an ebook (in any format), something might need to be done. The user defined fields will be of help, but I am not sure it will be enough ultimately.
I've thought that calibre was using a subset of the entire range of available metadata fields on a well crafted ebook file. It wasn't until Worldwalker's comment quoted above that it occurred to me this might not be the case. (Yes, I did assume not all ebooks are well crafted, but still...)