Best way to do italic and bold

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by fbrzvnrnd

Digital books opposed to digitized books.
Or, better, digital contents opposed to digitized papers.

Why didn't you say this in the first place given the literally/figuratively discussion?

[fbrzvnrnd]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The reason for the italics is to show that it's different. It's a dream sequence. It's not what happening when awake.

Star Trek eBooks use italics for one side of a conversation. So if the scene is on a planet where the person is talking to someone on the ship, the ship's side of the conversation will be italics so you know who is saying what.

It's very easy to understand all of this.

More tags I use, more I can handle. If I use different tags for quoting, book titles, emphasised phrases (and more...) I can handle those elements for everything. I can decide to change the typographic setting for a single element without touch the others, or query an element to add value to the ebook.
If I mark everything different as italic, I'm gonna create a flat book.

[DiapDealer]

This reminds me of the older "Adequacy of epub" thread. Which also boiled down to the fact that until a word-proccessing front-end exists (that is feature rich and intuitive enough that authors wouldn't dare to use anything else to create their masterpieces) which is capable of producing a semantic-rich and universally accepted--and standardized--markup representation of said work automatically, then this imagined future of auto-generated indices/compendiums and mined research data ain't happening.

People already don't use the semantic tools currently at their disposal with any sort of consistency. As such, I certainly don't see any advantage to a more complex and/or rigid specification that no two existing, industry-standard programs (which authors use to write/produce) would interpret consistently when producing their underlying markup. Nor do I see a new author-centric front-end capable of producing such capable, flexible, and perfectly semantic markup emerging to lure writers away from their current toolset.

Useful, flexible, industry-standard markup representations of books (novels or apps) are predicated on authors being able to produce such markup themselves. Either manually or with the assistance of their current preferred writing tools. In short ... any such future is a wholesale author paradigm-shift away. Until then, semantic-rich, highly-flexible, industry-standard markup is nothing more than a utopian pipe-dream.

[bookman156]

There is nothing more semantic-rich than the text itself. Words. Yes, words. Words placed into sentences and paragraphs. Already a complex thing is being done in writing a book. All these 'add-ons' seem little more than tinkering in comparison.

[bookman156]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I don't see the point of <em> when <i> will do. <em> adds two extra characters where <i> does not.

It's not me you need to persuade. I'd happily use <i> if I didn't think it was already a fossil. Perhaps <i> and <b> will come back into fashion with those who decide for everyone else which tags should be used, or perhaps they will just quietly disappear when those who still use these archaic tags have died off and their murmurs of dissent can no longer be heard, the ebooks that survive them appearing quaint if smelling a little musty.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by bookman156

There is nothing more semantic-rich than the text itself. Words. Yes, words. Words placed into sentences and paragraphs. Already a complex thing is being done in writing a book. All these 'add-ons' seem little more than tinkering in comparison.

I agree completely. EPUB is more than adequate (with a few exceptions) for the digital representation of books (including many accessibility enhancements). A consensus on the exact underlying markup required to do so is not really necessary (nor will it ever come about). And if you're (rhet.) looking to move "beyond" the digital representation of paper books, then you're not limited by the tools that are used to create digital representations of paper books in the first place. The sky's already the limit for the presentation of digital content. Why try to use software/specs intended for the creation (and experience) of the digital representation of "books" for the creation/enjoyment of that which is better suited to an app?

[fbrzvnrnd]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

People already don't use the semantic tools currently at their disposal with any sort of consistency. As such, I certainly don't see any advantage to a more complex and/or rigid specification that no two existing, industry-standard programs (which authors use to write/produce) would interpret consistently when producing their underlying markup.

Publisher use it. We use it, and year by year, more and more are using it to create indexes and other tools to read, search, navigate ebooks. Tools? We have a language to query microdata: XQuery. And tools like ePubEditor that allows query "live".

[fbrzvnrnd]

Originally Posted by bookman156

There is nothing more semantic-rich than the text itself. Words. Yes, words. Words placed into sentences and paragraphs. Already a complex thing is being done in writing a book. All these 'add-ons' seem little more than tinkering in comparison.

More people think like you, more work will be for me in the coming years. So, welcome!

[bookman156]

Originally Posted by fbrzvnrnd

Publisher use it. We use it, and year by year, more and more are using it to create indexes and other tools to read, search, navigate ebooks. Tools? We have a language to query microdata: XQuery. And tools like ePubEditor that allows query "live".

The concept of the index is really rather old technology. To be honest, I have only seen a decrease in the quality of the index in the past ten years. An average letterpress book usually had a very good index as standard, compiled from galley proofs on index cards with a pen. These days an index is usually a smattering of key words with little intelligence applied in its compilation. Certainly hyperlinked footnotes are very useful, and search, but what else are you bringing to this that constitutes such a marvellous horizon in the prospects for digital books? Do you have any examples to point out?

[bookman156]

Originally Posted by fbrzvnrnd

More people think like you, more work will be for me in the coming years. So, welcome!

I'm not sure I'd want you tinkering around in my books. Let's see proof of concept first.

[bookman156]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Why try to use software/specs intended for the creation (and experience) of the digital representation of "books" for the creation/enjoyment of that which is better suited to an app?

Yes, it does seem more an app that is being spoken about. If people are so dissatisfied with digital books they should make digital films or computer games. A book is a book. For all the fiddling around in the world that there may be a capacity for in ebook production houses, it relies on a writer mainly aiming to write a book, not create a multi-media experience. And if it needs an index, best if the author creates it as no-one understands the book better. Having someone unfamiliar and perhaps not even interested in the text in a production house tag words by rote method and call it an index is not something to be desired.

[fbrzvnrnd]

Originally Posted by bookman156

compilation. Certainly hyperlinked footnotes are very useful, and search, but what else are you bringing to this that constitutes such a marvellous horizon in the prospects for digital books? Do you have any examples to point out?

The UTET digital work around the "Etimologie" by Isidoro di Siviglia is very good. If I could talk about some we publish, I think the "Il ciclo della performance nei comuni" we build for italian government is a good example of hypertext ebook for ministerial reports navigation, and "Cuore à la Coque" is a good example of hypertext fiction.

[fbrzvnrnd]

Originally Posted by bookman156

Yes, it does seem more an app that is being spoken about. If people are so dissatisfied with digital books they should make digital films or computer games. A book is a book. For all the fiddling around in the world that there may be a capacity for in ebook production houses, it relies on a writer mainly aiming to write a book, not create a multi-media experience. And if it needs an index, best if the author creates it as no-one understands the book better. Having someone unfamiliar and perhaps not even interested in the text in a production house tag words by rote method and call it an index is not something to be desired.

A ebook is markup, computer information, code. Yes, it is an application.

[bookman156]

Originally Posted by fbrzvnrnd

"Cuore à la Coque" is a good example of hypertext fiction.

I had a look at this on Kindle preview. Some JavaScript that doesn't work in the preview but otherwise looks like text on a page. How would you handle the semantic markup of a page of 1982, Janine? Say the mental disintegration typography:

[fbrzvnrnd]

Originally Posted by bookman156

I had a look at this on Kindle preview. Some JavaScript that doesn't work in the preview but otherwise looks like text on a page. How would you handle the semantic markup of a page of 1982, Janine? Say the mental disintegration typography:

I never read it. It seems there is a scream in the right of the page, a narrative in center pyramid, and another in left, but I cannot read it, it is so little. I can create 3 SVG groups and give them a semantic class, if this can be useful. And follow similar steps in the bottom graphical. Oblivious this is a natural paper born text. Digital, non digitized...