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Originally Posted by kovidgoyal
LRF > other proprietary formats means that LRF is superior to other proprietary formats (by this I mean mobi/azw/prc/pdb, pdf, rtf)
epub > LRF means that epub is superior to LRF.
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OK, thank you for the clarification.
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By superior I mean technically superior.
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That much I gathered. What I didn't (and don't) know was what features you feel
make it superior.
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As for why I think it's superior, PDF and RTF are obviously inferior ebook formats (I know a lot of you love RTF, but that's only because it's old and therefore relatively better supported. Technically, it's crap)
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As it happens, I think I agree with you, but "obvious" is not the term I'd apply.
I don't care for PDFs because they don't display well on handhelds as a rule. I like RTF files a bit better, as they
are well supported, in that a large number of programs can read and write them, and they can be used as a starting point for conversions.
You like LRF better. Why? What does it bring to the table that other formats don't?
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As for the Palm format, I've studied it a little and it was originally designed by one guy to enable him to read ebooks on his ancient CPU limited Palm handheld. Its base design is thus optimized for extremely CPU/memory limited devices. Since then various people, Mobipocket/Amazon being the last, have bolted extra functionality on top of it in a very haphazard manner. Contrast this to the development process that went into the design of LRF and epub, both of which were designed from the ground up to be modern ebook formats.
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Er,
which Palm format? If you mean the "doc" file, it's a plain text file with compression, decompressed on the fly by Palm doc viewers.
The advantage is that it's a lowest common denominator format that just about every Palm document viewer can display in addition to the native format it supports. PalmReader/eReader and MobiPocket on PalmOS display doc files as well as their own files, as does Documents to Go, Quick Office, iSilo, and an assortment of other things.
The disadvantage is that it's plain text (and really needs to be generated from files with *nix line endings -- embedded CRs mess up reflow), with no support for images, fonts, text attributes, or links.
The current twist on it is the zTXT file, still plain text, but using a Palm shared library port of Zlib for gzip compatible compression.
The Palm Database file format is a different animal, and just about anything might be in one.
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As for the question of conversion tools. LRF is undoubtedly the best supported at this time. And epub, by its design is very easy to write conversion tools for, so if it ever takes off, I anticipate it being well supported as well.
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Assuming the design takes off.
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Dennis