Possible to remove indents?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by cybmole

yep, but I tested with several books and the default P tag was adequate except for needing to style the indent & line space. It's lazy, I know , & probably will come back to bite me someday :-)

your cascade solution is elegant but it's not clear to dummies like me, from your post exacly how to do it.

is cascade
part of the solution, or a commentary ?

seems that to do it your way I have to add 1 lines or more to my .css ( which I could paste in from one I made earlier ) and then also run a regex

I am confused because I read somewhere that you can only have one class per tag, yet you seem to have found a way of having 2 - the calibre class + the firstpara class.
how come that works, but adding (in-line) style text:indent 0 where you added firstpara does not work - I am pretty sure I tried doing it in line & it failed , even with all brackets in the correct places.

You can have MANY SELECTORS, but only 1 Class= (see my example) <p> tag
Let's face it, there are garbage CSS as well as HTML code.

KISS you want to be able to 'read' the selectors and quickly understand what is going on, without drilling way deep through layers upon layers of Div, span, classes to see what ultimately affects the one word that looks awful. (I have seen 5 selectors, it was terrible to follow)

A quick peek says calibre 10 controls the style, except for the case we modify it with 'firstpara'
Important is to parse Selector lists Left to right. The last value is the one used.
OH! firstpara just Zeroes the indent

[cybmole]

ok - catching up with you slowly - this next question will seem real dumb but what in the .css says that calibreX is a Class yet firstpara is a selector ?

does something become a class by being used in a "class=" construction in a line of code ?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by cybmole

ok - catching up with you slowly - this next question will seem real dumb but what in the .css says that calibreX is a Class yet firstpara is a selector ?

does something become a class by being used in a "class=" construction in a line of code ?

they are both selectors
I am probably not explaining well

you should only have 1 of those selectors with a display: block (or other legal value), that defines a 'box' in a class, the rest, just tweak the box a bit more.

[DMSmillie]

"Selectors" are simply the "identifiers" in a CSS definition that determine which elements in the HTML should have the specified CSS style applied. "Classes" are user defined labels which can be applied to HTML elements to make it possible to define selectors that involve just a subset of one or more elements.

Take the following example CSS code:

h1 {font-weight:bold}
p {text-indent:2em}
p.noindent {text-indent:0}

In the CSS example above:

• "h1" is a selector which determines which elements in the HTML will have the CSS formatting "font-weight:bold" applied;
• "p" is a selector which determines which elements in the HTML will have the CSS formatting "text-indent:2em" applied;
• "p.noindent" is a selector which determines which elements in the HTML will have the CSS formatting "text-indent:0" applied.

This last selector involves the use of a class "noindent", which makes it possible to specify different formatting for a subset of "p" elements.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by DMSmillie

"Selectors" are simply the "identifiers" in a CSS definition that determine which elements in the HTML should have the specified CSS style applied. "Classes" are user defined labels which can be applied to HTML elements to make it possible to define selectors that involve just a subset of one or more elements.

Take the following example CSS code:

h1 {font-weight:bold}
p {text-indent:2em}
p.noindent {text-indent:0}

In the CSS example above:

• "h1" is a selector which determines which elements in the HTML will have the CSS formatting "font-weight:bold" applied;
• "p" is a selector which determines which elements in the HTML will have the CSS formatting "text-indent:2em" applied;
• "p.noindent" is a selector which determines which elements in the HTML will have the CSS formatting "text-indent:0" applied.

This last selector involves the use of a class "noindent", which makes it possible to specify different formatting for a subset of "p" elements.

that is clearer,thanks

but a typical css has entires like
.calibre1
.calibre2...

not like
p.calibre1
p.calibre2....

yet the calibreN things are classes ?

[DMSmillie]

Yes, "calibre1", "calibre2", etc, are classes. When a class is used in the CSS code in the form:

.class_name {CSS formatting here}

- that's actually shorthand for:

*.class_name {CSS formatting here}

- which is a selector that specifies that any element with the given class name should be given the listed formatting.

So... "class_name" is a class, and in the stylesheet, it can be used in the any element selector ".class_name".

[DMSmillie]

(Further to the previous post

It's largely down to context.

In the HTML code, "H1" is an HTML element, but when used in a CSS stylesheet, it becomes part of a selector which specifies which element(s) should have a particular set of formatting rules applied. Being used as a selector in the context of a CSS stylesheet doesn't stop it being an element in the context of HTML.

[cybmole]

thanks again - I am still looking for a good we page / crib sheet that covers the shorthand forms. books I have seen are aimed more at web page makers, I just want to understand all the stuff I see used in e-books.

[DMSmillie]

Originally Posted by cybmole

thanks again - I am still looking for a good we page / crib sheet that covers the shorthand forms. books I have seen are aimed more at web page makers, I just want to understand all the stuff I see used in e-books.

There's no difference between the HTML and CSS used in ebooks, and the HTML and CSS used for web pages (at least when considering EPUB ebooks). Except that e-reader devices and applications might only understand a subset of CSS (and working out what does and what does not work in an ebook is largely a matter of trial and error). But it's not like there's a different "flavour" of CSS used in ebooks compared to web pages. It's identical.

[cybmole]

yep - it's finding a source that mostly just has the relevent subset, not 100s of pages on how to do interactive forms n stuff.
I looked through several & they failed to explain what you told me in a couple of short posts ( well maybe it was buried somewhere in the detail within the books, if I'd read them cover to cover )

[DMSmillie]

I know the official CSS specs can be hard going when you drill down into the deep detail, but they can be useful in terms of top level detail too - there's a table in the CSS2 spec that lists the different CSS selector types and syntax, which is actually quite useful in getting an overview. It's then a matter of choice whether to drill down into the more complex, detailed explanations of what each type of selector means and how it functions.

As far as the subset of CSS etc that is relevant to formatting ebooks, the most commonly referenced source of reliable info on formatting EPUBs that I've seen is Elizabeth Castro's book "EPUB - Straight to the Point". I haven't read it yet myself, but I've seen others here recommend it highly. Might be worth a look, if it isn't already something you've looked at.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by cybmole

that is clearer,thanks

but a typical css has entires like
.calibre1
.calibre2...

not like
p.calibre1
p.calibre2....

yet the calibreN things are classes ?

My understanding is:
p.calibre15 is only valid for
<p class="calibre15">
and NOT valid for
<h3 class="calibre15">

(All I care is what I type there works and with no anywhere else )

[DMSmillie]

Originally Posted by theducks

My understanding is:
p.calibre15 is only valid for
<p class="calibre15">
and NOT valid for
<h3 class="calibre15">

Mine too. I don't think anything I wrote contradicts that? Was just clarifying what a "selector" is, for cybmole, that's all.

[DaleDe]

There is an article on CSS in our own wiki that is oriented toward eBooks as well as hundreds of articles on other eBook topics.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by theducks

Way too much code

in the css

.firstpara { text-indent: 0 }

Now in your book
just ADD firstpara AFTER the calibre10

<p class="calibre10 firstpara">Ipsum ...</p>

[B]Cascade[/
B], use it or lose it
All yo did was change a single attribute. and tack that OVER the base style

your solution, as given does not work - tested on several books. I am having to also define the line spacing in the noindent class

e.g. this css does not cascade the line spacing - it still defaults to 1em for my (now not indented) 1st para. .description 1 is the para style in this instance - so I add your noindent code immediately afterwards like so:

.description1 {
border-bottom: 0;
border-top: 0;
display: block;
margin-bottom: 0.3em;
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: 0;
margin-top: 0;
padding-bottom: 0;
padding-top: 0;
text-indent: 1em
}
.noindent {text-indent: 0}

it works only if I add another line to noindent like so
.noindent {
margin-bottom: 0.3em;
text-indent: 0}
book code

<br class="calibre6" /></h2>

  <p class="noindent"><span class="none">Randy left the house in time to see Missouri wedge herself under the wheel of the Henrys' Model-A Ford, an antique -so certified with a "Q" tag issued by the state-but kept in perfect running order by Malachai's mechanical ingenuity. "I haven't finished but I got to go now," she said. "Mrs. McGovern, she holds the clock on me. I'll be back tomorrow."</span></p>

  <p class="description1"><span class="none">The Model-A, listing to port with Missouri's weight, bounced down the pebbled driveway. Randy got into his new Bonneville. It was a sweet car, a compromise between a sports job and a hardtop, long, low, very fast, .and a lot of fun, even though its high-compression engine drank premium fuel in quantity.</span></p>

that is easy to do - but my understanding of css cascade rules says it should have worked without that extra line - tested, as I say on several different books

can you explain this please.
is it because the preceeding style to noindent ( in the book html, is calibre6, which inherits from calibre5 which inherits... - do I have to backtrack up that structure and/or place the .noindent definition elsewhere in the css ?