Adequacy of EPUB?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Thx, Doits. Not worried; just don't understand what on earth they were thinking, other than...well, just ONE "toc," I guess.

Excellent points, all round. (I honestly thought, initially, he was discussing DocBook, which for all intents and purposes, DOES do what he wants, as near as I can tell.) Great pointer on the meta-refines, too. In fact, I didn't know that much about using those, so I've saved it to read through.

Hitch

I think the committee was cutting relations with DAISY. But so far as the format goes I have no problems with the new TOC format. It is easier for a newcomer to learn than the old one was. Of course there is also the page number mapping issue to technical books.

Dale

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

That's why this thread is a boathouse.

NO it's not!!!!

It is of course a bikeshed.

Please stop acting as though bikesheds aren't important, just because you gave up on bikes.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Hitch

You are both 100% right. Y'know, sometimes, I start to think that a thread like this is a language, or sometimes, a knowledge problem. As in, the OP can't fully or clearly express what he wants, or because he doesn't know XXX (e.g., about the DC data for ePUB), that he's simply erroneous. When that happens, I tend to try--unfortunately, repeatedly--to make progress.

But you are both quite right. By now, the OP here would have pointed at a usable standard, or something. The fact that he keeps saying that what he wants isn't DocBook really should have been the tell--the thing that tells me to give the frack up. I've inadvertently fed it. I'm out.

Hitch

Contrary to your claim above?

Originally Posted by Hitch

Indeed. Now for some more:

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

I will stop feeding the troll. All he does is react to specific sentences without context and *never* actually genuine questions. Also, he ignores if someone falsifies one of his claims. That is no way of making a discussion.

Indeed. It is no fun to argue when the other person starts ignoring me.

[Sarmat89]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Many otherwise ordinary books have something like that, like the full-page "YES" (or was it "NO"?) in one of Terry Pratchett's books, the "mouse tail" poem in Alice in Wonderland, etc.

Well, you cannot have this with EPUB too, as HTML is a flow layout and therefore cannot have pages and vertical alignment, or the tail poem because it has to be set around certain font metrics; but you can always emulate something.
EPUB != iBook, you know.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

when the other person starts ignoring me.

Like where you asking for a scheme for a format not yet designed? Ask sensible questions and you'll receive the answer.

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

Well, you cannot have this with EPUB too, as HTML is a flow layout and therefore cannot have pages and vertical alignment, or the tail poem because it has to be set around certain font metrics; but you can always emulate something.

And yet the tail poem has been done in epub by an MR member and uploaded to our library. And the code isn't even all that complicated. You really haven't got a clue, have you?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

Well, you cannot have this with EPUB too, as HTML is a flow layout and therefore cannot have pages and vertical alignment, or the tail poem because it has to be set around certain font metrics; but you can always emulate something.
EPUB != iBook, you know.

Both of Jellby's examples have been done and work.

Like where you asking for a scheme for a format not yet designed? Ask sensible questions and you'll receive the answer.

That wasn't even me. That was HarryT.
(That being said, I actually agree with him, which according to you isn't "sensible", but still doesn't explain why all of a sudden you are no longer interested in answering posts like this one.)

You have now proven my point.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Indeed. It is no fun to argue when the other person starts ignoring me.

Yeah, but you're gonna go ahead anyway, right? <g>

Hitch

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

Well, you cannot have this with EPUB too

You cannot have them with just plain <p>, <b>, <blockquote>, etc. and default CSS. You need to be able to define your own customized styles (for <div> and <span>), which is my point.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Jellby

You cannot have them with just plain <p>, <b>, <blockquote>, etc. and default CSS. You need to be able to define your own customized styles (for <div> and <span>), which is my point.

WOW, Jellby! You mean to tell me that in XML, you can make a piece like the tail poem with simple p, b, blockquote and default CSS?! Holy COW, who knew? We should leap on switching RIGHT. NOW.

...Hitch

[Jellby]

I said "you cannot"

[Sarmat89]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

And the code isn't even all that complicated. You really haven't got a clue, have you?

That code is device-dependent, and works only in ADE (and in none of my readers—some of them fail to open that file at all.)

It was proven yet again that imitating the book layout should be relegated to PDF.

[Terisa de morgan]

So, basically, you're saying that epub format is too "weak enforced" to get all the metadata you want and can include some messy code (who cares), and a new standard should be defined, using xml as tools for implementing it (don't forget xml is nothing itself aside of a way to define attribute-valor pairs), that covers what you understand it's 95% of the fiction books and no effort through the others, pdf, that's all. And nobody will be allowed to publish a book it it doesn't include all the metadata the standard codification defines (that's the end result of the enforced definition).

Am I failing to catch anything?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Jellby

I said "you cannot"

Et tu, Jellby? You mean, I need that emoty?

But thanks for making my point for me again. You steely-eyed ePUB Pilot, you.

Hitch

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

That code is device-dependent, and works only in ADE (and in none of my readers—some of them fail to open that file at all.)

Just curious, what readers? Besides ADE, I can open (and read without troubles) that epub in Azardi, Readium, EPUBReader, PocketBook Reader, Kobo, Mantano, Gitden and in practically all epub readers for android. Even in CoolReader you could read the "mouse tail" poem by making some changes in the epub.css and fb2.css files inside the CoolReader folder.