CSS to "wrap" text between two .xhtml files?

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Technically, that's true, but in practice, we all know that huge ePUB files will choke most ePUB readers at some point.

Originally Posted by theducks

A Calibre Catalog 'book' of 4000 books will kill ADE (MRSDK) on my Hanlin V5
Just too many entries in the OPF if you include cover images in the catalog.

That's not contrary to what I'm saying. My point is that the limitations are in the devices or reading software, not in the format itself.

And I guess future readers will have more memory and be able to manage large files (that won't make older readers magically work, though), but they'll still have pagebreaks between files.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by theducks

@ Jellby
A Calibre Catalog 'book' of 4000 books will kill ADE (MRSDK) on my Hanlin V5
Just too many entries in the OPF if you include cover images in the catalog.

The OPF and NCX are huge, the actual pages are tiny


Big is relative

Of course, this is a totally unrelated problem to the one being discussed in this thread. Having too many TOC entries and too many files is not related to one great big file.

Dale

[exaltedwombat]

Originally Posted by weberr

Large amount of text -- way more than epub can handle as a single html file -- but no way to include breaks without destroying the objective of the file.

Sorry, but if the objective is to have one continuously-scrolling screen with no page breaks, it's an impossible objective.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

Sorry, but if the objective is to have one continuously-scrolling screen with no page breaks, it's an impossible objective.

The really fun part of MR is our ability to internally amuse ourselves with near-endless discussions of the hows/whys/best practices long after the OP has left the building. Or the street. Or the town, city, country, and finally planet and universe. ;-)

{sigh}. I wonder if we'll ever find out why it has to be an endless sheet of toilet paper? Now my interest is piqued.

Hitch

[sjkramer]

My understanding is that some readers balk at any individual xhtml file sizes greater than 300kb. I don't know if this has changed, but I still break up individual files at that size, even though it does cause a false chapter break when being read.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by Hitch

The really fun part of MR is our ability to internally amuse ourselves with near-endless discussions of the hows/whys/best practices long after the OP has left the building. Or the street. Or the town, city, country, and finally planet and universe. ;-)

{sigh}. I wonder if we'll ever find out why it has to be an endless sheet of toilet paper? Now my interest is piqued.

Hitch

maybe he's the new Jack Kerouac - "On the Road" was a continuous roll http://www.bl.uk/whatson/exhibitions/kerouac/

& Amazon are selling:
On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) [Kindle Edition]

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by sjkramer

My understanding is that some readers balk at any individual xhtml file sizes greater than 300kb. I don't know if this has changed, but I still break up individual files at that size, even though it does cause a false chapter break when being read.

For older readers that is still the case of course. Most newer readers can handle larger files, but they will seriously slow down the further you get into that large file. Page flips can than even be around 5 seconds.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by cybmole

maybe he's the new Jack Kerouac - "On the Road" was a continuous roll http://www.bl.uk/whatson/exhibitions/kerouac/

& Amazon are selling:
On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) [Kindle Edition]

Yeah, yeah...

Once upon a time, when I was young and pretentious, I read Kerouac. LOL. It was pretty standard stuff, those of us lamenting the "passing" of the Beat Generation, sitting in smoky coffeehouses.... Lord.

Hitch

[weberr]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Well, yes, Jellby,

Technically, that's true, but in practice, we all know that huge ePUB files will choke most ePUB readers at some point. I've had large ePUBS with many chapters (files) in them that nearly killed a NookColor. So...I wouldn't recommend trying it.

weberr:

What could a few breaks, that are nearly transparent, going to do that would "destroy the objective of the file," really, given that it's a book? (I mean...it's a book, not a program or an app. Even then...) As has been mentioned already in this thread, ADE, which drives a large number of readers, will arbitrarily insert page breaks in paragraphs hither and yon, anyway--so even if you do only create a single HTML-file ePUB, you have a better than 90% probability that your readers will experience page breaks along the way.

So: I'm really curious. How could a few page breaks destroy the file's "objective?" This is such unique wording that I'd love to know.

Hitch

Hitch -- purely personal choice and a peculiarly strong offense at less than perfection. If the author, including myself, for his own reasons, felt it essential to his flow of story to make and print it as one long and continuous paragraph, then I just naturally want to duplicate that objective in an ebook form. Yes, I could use Sigil and edit the individual files to my satisfaction and then make it one giant html file at the end -- which probably will choke some readers. But, what's the big deal about not including such a command in the spec and ebook readers being designed to act properly on such a command. After all, judging by the traffic on this one thread/subject over so many years, a lot of us want that capability. After all, its all just software.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by weberr

But, what's the big deal about not including such a command in the spec and ebook readers being designed to act properly on such a command.

It's not a big deal at all. You simply have to start with getting the idpf to include such a non-breaking command, and then get all the various reading apps/RMSDKs/devices to honor it. But it has nothing to do with Sigil at all. Sigil will be more than happy to let you create one continuous, uninterrupted, novel-length paragraph. It may be slow-going, but it won't mind at all. And when you do get the new non-breaking command added to the spec, Sigil will still have no bearing on the issue. It will work right out of the box.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by weberr

Hitch -- purely personal choice and a peculiarly strong offense at less than perfection. If the author, including myself, for his own reasons, felt it essential to his flow of story to make and print it as one long and continuous paragraph, then I just naturally want to duplicate that objective in an ebook form. Yes, I could use Sigil and edit the individual files to my satisfaction and then make it one giant html file at the end -- which probably will choke some readers. But, what's the big deal about not including such a command in the spec and ebook readers being designed to act properly on such a command. After all, judging by the traffic on this one thread/subject over so many years, a lot of us want that capability. After all, its all just software.

One long paragraph?

Wow. Well...no matter what you do, it's going to have paragraph breaks inserted for no apparent reason on pages (screens) where you think that they should not occur, and yes, it will choke some readers, unfortunately. (Depending on length, it might even choke a Nook).

But I know what it's like (oh, do I) to work with someone's artistic vision. I'd recommend that you break it up at some intervals to make your life easier while working on it in Sigil, and then use "merge file" to put it all back together into one single, uninterrupted file, just so it works rapidly (Sigil).

Best of luck! Let us all know when it comes out.

Hitch

[PeterT]

I have to say that I as a consumer would have no interest in reading a piece of writing formatted as a single paragraph

[theducks]

I, as a CONSUMER would return it as DEFECTIVE in Materials and workmanship.

I may have gotten a D in English writing, but even I can see the RED marks: Run on paragraph

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by PeterT

I have to say that I as a consumer would have no interest in reading a piece of writing formatted as a single paragraph

Originally Posted by theducks

I, as a CONSUMER would return it as DEFECTIVE in Materials and workmanship.

I may have gotten a D in English writing, but even I can see the RED marks: Run on paragraph

Maybe (she said hopefully), it was a typo? He meant, one long manuscript? I have to admit, I didn't want to say anything, but I wouldn't read it, either. It might be the best thing since sliced bread, but when I see anything along those lines, it screams "experimental fiction!" to me. Unfortunately, being who I am, and seeing many, many manuscripts per day, this usually means "hopeful author who has absolutely no clue about the craft and thus calls it experimental fiction."

BUT, ya never know. Maybe we'll all be reading about this shortly. If I'd seen 50 Shades on that Twilight Fan Fiction site (had I ever been remotely inclined to go to such in the first damn place), I would never have thought it would sell. Of course, "commercial" and "quality" are not necessarily synonymous, as we know. We likely shouldn't condemn it without having seen it first. We're better than that.

Hitch