Sigil-0.9.5 Released

[bookman156]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

I agree with you that a book should start with the cover, and I am pleased that this is the case with the Look Inside sample. I wish I could similarly get my published books to start there (I actually managed that, one time, but at the cost of having two covers!). But since I can't seem to manage that, at least not on a consistent basis, I no longer worry about it.

I wouldn't mind if the 'Look inside this book' feature did actually start on chapter 1, as by the time the foreword by someone else has been trawled through you've usually run out of sample or have skipped to the index bypassing the book itself so you still have no idea what the book is like or whether you want to buy it.

In my limited understanding, aren't semantic tags really an EPUB feature that just happens to get used by Kindle books more than they currently play any practical role in EPUB presentation?

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by bookman156

In my limited understanding, aren't semantic tags really an EPUB feature that just happens to get used by Kindle books more than they currently play any practical role in EPUB presentation?

They play a big role when used with accessibility software for people who need it. That is the reason semantics were introduced in the first place. That is also why semantics have been greatly expanded in epub3.

The whole concept is that if a person has a vision impairment, their reader software can figure out both the intended structure and the intended meaning of the text from parsing and understanding the guide/nav landmarks, and with em and strong and specially chosen class names (and under epub3 using epub:type) more about the structure of the document and intended meaning for things that may be ambiguous when you can not see things like styling.

That is why they were first put in epub2 and why epub3 has expanded on their use. Just because most commercial software for people without vision impairment seem to ignore it (or worse yet in remove it!) is in no means an indicator of their value to people who use accessibility software.

I consider epub2 and epub3 more like official archive quality versions (so use as extensive a set of semantics as possible) that other companies who have proprietary formats seem to want as "input" and to mangle for really no good reason. Kindle's myriad formats (including kfx) offers them absolutely nothing you could not do with an epub, pdf, or fixed layout pub and in fact are more limited by removing support for scripting, multimedia (unless you are a commercial publisher on specific platforms only), accessibility, and semantics.

Sad really.

KevinH

[bookman156]

Originally Posted by KevinH

I consider epub2 and epub3 more like official archive quality versions (so use as extensive a set of semantics as possible)

I like that way of looking at it.

[KevinH]

You might like this link of semantic types for both structure and meaning that can be used with epub:type attributes in epub3. There are entries that indicate a poem or verse, song, hymn, lyrics, etc, etc, etc. Quite a rich list and being a standard vocabulary, accessibility software could easily make good use of it.

http://www.daisy.org/z3998/2012/vocab/structure/

KevinH

[bookman156]

That's quite extensive. Fascinating. I'll have to look further into this.

[Notjohn]

I'm an old guy, so I am no longer a perfectionist, though of course I used to be. The two most useful things I have ever heard are "Good enough for government work" (said by military contractors during the Cold War) and "Just good enough" (said by Yankee farmers who built the barns that are still standing after two and even three hundred years).

[DiapDealer]

I must've missed the notice that today was Random Aphorism Day.

[Notjohn]

You didn't miss the notice; you missed the message, tee hee.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

You didn't miss the notice; you missed the message, tee hee.

I didn't actually miss the message. I just get tired of you repeating it at every opportunity. We get it. You don't like change. You're sticking with epub2 and Sigil 0.8.x.