Confused! XHTML, HTML, HTML5, EPUB2, EPUB3???

[carlosbcg]

I would advise that if you don't need javascript/audio/video and stuff like that, to create an ePUB2 instead of ePUB3.

Hmm...I'll have to think about that. I like EPUB3 for reasons that don't have anything to do with that stuff (at least not yet for me).

It's clearer and less confusing to me than EPUB2 which seems more of a glued together standard and less cohesive. I suppose you could rightly say it's a more mature EPUB.

The documentation for EPUB3 that I have seen is far superior to that which I have seen for EPUB2 (which again is all over the place...I like definite and don't like somewhat nebulous and open ended).

OReilly has chosen to create their books in EPUB3 though they do take steps to be backwards compatible.

The DOCTYPE is real easy to grasp LOL. DOCTYPE html. That's it. Though Sigil messes it up since it doesn't do EPUB3 yet (but then again I am writing scripts to spit out this and other EPUBs of mine in the future so I won't be using Sigil).

More flexibility in how the TOC is done.

More CSS goodness available.

That's about it for now I think.

Carlos

[carlosbcg]

Originally Posted by mrmikel

To add to your misery, NO device fully supports any of the above.

I'm very familiar with that type of thing. It's exactly like it was when web browsers first came out and weren't all on board with respect to abiding by standards either.

Sigil is great program that handles many of the details for you, if you have an html file to feed it, or you can type in directly or paste in text.

It IS most definitely quite the program but I have noticed lately that it does some things which make it unlikely that I will use it. It messes up my DOCTYPE and uses a structure that is not recommended by the standard or that lines up with the epub directory structure which I am using.

Plus it creates some files like the mimetype behind the scenes such that I can't see what it is doing until after it saves my epub and I can look inside it.

I am a detail person who likes control over every aspect of what I am doing if I can conveniently achieve that and don't generally like it when things are created or happen without my having any idea of what happened or where things went or came from.

If one uses Sigil it would appear that one must then stick to using Sigil to have things go as smoothly as possible.

I create content in markup (with some hand coded HTML), use pandoc to convert to whatever, and then place the resultant produced files (whether HTML for a web page, XHTML for epub, PDF, or whatever) in various directories. A script I am creating will Zip up the files into an EPUB so I won't even need something like Sigil (though I understand there is a script here that does that too...most likely for Windows though...I use Linux).

Carlos

[carlosbcg]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

I am not quite sure he is less confused now...

I am much less confused than I was when I posted the OP. Seriously.

Your explanations have been great!

Carlos

[dgatwood]

Originally Posted by carlosbcg

Hmm...but...but...don't EPUB3 internal files holding the actual content of an ebook as HTML5 files (albeit with an extension of HTML) have to be what is termed "serialized XHTML" (not altogether sure what that means but I think it means pretty much XHTML)?

In other words don't EPUB3 content internals HAVE to be the XHTML variant of the HTML5?

Yes, AFAIK. But not all HTML5 content is in an EPUB. You can use HTML5 on the web, you know.

Originally Posted by carlosbcg

Hmm...interesting. I take it then that XSLT is completely uneccessary to creation of an EPUB?

Yes. It does make a convenient way to transform DocBook (or other XML dialects) into (X)HTML, but it is certainly not the only way (or even necessarily the best way).

Originally Posted by carlosbcg

But just out of curiosity...how exactly is an XSLT file with XML commands in it get executed to do it's conversion work? Does a browser execute the XSLT commands or something?

You use an XSLT processor. That's a tool that takes an XSLT file and applies it to an XML source file.

Originally Posted by carlosbcg

What is a polyglot document? Do you mean a document which has both XML and HTML5?

A polyglot is a file that is simultaneously interpretable according to the rules of two different formats or languages. In this case, I mean a file that is HTML5, but is fully compliant with XML. In other words an XML serialization of HTML.

Originally Posted by carlosbcg

So are XHTML5 and HTML5 the same thing? I mean if XHTML5 is defined as part of the HTML5 standard I mean and not separately like in the past?

No, and yes. If you are talking about something that must be XML-compatible, then it is a good idea to call it XHTML5, because HTML5 is not necessarily valid XML.

[dgatwood]

Originally Posted by twobits

There is only one SGML actually. It is an ISO standard now and descended from GML.

Potaytoe, potahtoe. SGML is an ISO standard technology for defining markup languages. HTML is an SGML-based language. I guess I should have used the word "dialect" to be pedantic, though.

Originally Posted by twobits

It is not a dialect of XML but a DTD for XML.

I've never heard of anyone who didn't use those terms interchangeably. A dialect of XML generally means a markup language based on XML that conforms to a particular DTD.

Originally Posted by twobits

At first html was only modeled on sgml, but was more adhoc then sgml allowed. It was not until later (4.0 or 3.2 can't recall which off hand) that it was given a formal dtd that made it true sgml.

True. Early HTML was... a big pile of hurt.

Originally Posted by twobits

Actually XSLT is a Turing complete language. To use it you usually also need to learn XQuery and XPath.

Worse, it's a Turing complete template language. To use it, you have to wrap your head around the concept of template-based languages, which inherently have no real notion of state. It is enough to cause brain damage in programmers, in much the same way that LaTeX does, and for precisely the same reason.

Put another way, even though I've modified XSLT for transforming XML to other output formats many times over the years, when I'm asked to write such a tool from scratch, I invariably end up writing it in Perl or C or some other actual programming language rather than a template language like XSLT. (Or, occasionally, Bourne shell scripts, if I want to cause people nightmares that they never wake up from. )

[twobits]

Originally Posted by dgatwood

Potaytoe, potahtoe. SGML is an ISO standard technology for defining markup languages. HTML is an SGML-based language. I guess I should have used the word "dialect" to be pedantic, though.

I've never heard of anyone who didn't use those terms interchangeably. A dialect of XML generally means a markup language based on XML that conforms to a particular DTD.

Hmm.. could be a regional difference or maybe a temporal one. I have not had to deal with this stuff professionally now for at least six years. At the time though we would consider a DTD to be an instance not a dialect. Never heard dialect used at all.

Worse, it's a Turing complete template language. To use it, you have to wrap your head around the concept of template-based languages, which inherently have no real notion of state. It is enough to cause brain damage in programmers, in much the same way that LaTeX does, and for precisely the same reason.

Put another way, even though I've modified XSLT for transforming XML to other output formats many times over the years, when I'm asked to write such a tool from scratch, I invariably end up writing it in Perl or C or some other actual programming language rather than a template language like XSLT. (Or, occasionally, Bourne shell scripts, if I want to cause people nightmares that they never wake up from. )

I never really minded TeX and most of LaTeX, guess because it beat other ways to get decent laser printed output I knew of. I too would use Perl or C when I had the choice, never did use Bourne for it, as I had to create things that often would work on a few OSes (VMS/OS2/Solaris/Windows) so setting them run under perl was the best bet as bourne shell clones for VMS never did handle its distinct path specification system well.

Guess I am going way

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by carlosbcg

I'm very familiar with that type of thing. It's exactly like it was when web browsers first came out and weren't all on board with respect to abiding by standards either.

Not quite the same. Browser could be fixed with an update. That will not happen with readers, as updates are scarce.

What kind of CSS3 things do you need for your book? If you can do it, use ePUB2. It is a fixed format that is supported much better. Unless you want to alienate your readers...

[dgatwood]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

Not quite the same. Browser could be fixed with an update. That will not happen with readers, as updates are scarce.

To be fair, part of what makes web development so problematic is the sheer number of people who have to keep using an old version of a browser (IE comes to mind) because some business-critical system doesn't work with the newer version, so you had (and still have) a fair bit of that problem in the browser world, too.

The bigger difference is that even in the early days of the web, there were only a handful of browsers that you really had to care about—Netscape, Internet Explorer, maybe Mosaic, maybe Lynx, and that was about it. You might have to care about a couple of versions of a couple of browsers from each vendor (Communicator vs. Navigator, for example), but either way, it was pretty much bounded at a single-digit number of browsers.

These days, many companies manufacturer multiple readers that don't use the same reader software (Amazon, I'm looking at you in particular), each with a different set of bugs. The resulting fragmentation in the eBook reader space today makes web development in the 90s seem positively tame by comparison.

But in concept, it's very much the same sort of situation, just turned up to 11.

[carlosbcg]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

What kind of CSS3 things do you need for your book? If you can do it, use ePUB2. It is a fixed format that is supported much better. Unless you want to alienate your readers...

Maybe I will indeed switch back. I just like the best and latest and some aspects of EPUB3 are nice (not including all the fancy stuff).

Definitely do not want to alienate readers .

Carlos

[ghostyjack]

Originally Posted by carlosbcg

Maybe I will indeed switch back. I just like the best and latest and some aspects of EPUB3 are nice (not including all the fancy stuff).

Definitely do not want to alienate readers .

Carlos

Best and latest are not always the same thing.

At present, the best would be Epub2 due to the the massive number of reading devices (software and hardware) that can interprest this format. I'm ignoring any techical improvements in Epub3 due to the fact that almost nothing can take advantage of them.

The Latest would be Epub3, but as mentioned, finding something to handle the format is a bit thin on the ground.

[carlosbcg]

Originally Posted by ghostyjack

Best and latest are not always the same thing.

I agree.

At present, the best would be Epub2 due to the the massive number of reading devices (software and hardware) that can interprest this format.

It is difficult for me to wrap my head around the lack of EPUB3 reader compatibility.

I mean it's just HTML5 (XHTML5 actually). Most all web browsers of any note can display that just fine.

So what's the big deal?

If they can display that then there should be readers galore that are able to do the same thing using whatever major browser rendering engine they care to use.

I am rather surprised by the lack of readers for EPUB3.

I mean the only other thing besides being able to render HTML5 (XHTML5) are the fancy keys that one can use to navigate what one is seeing and the uncompression and deciphering of the EPUB (again no big deal).

I just don't see what the big deal is about creating readers that can read HTML5 and display it in a nice interface. I'd create one myself if I was inclined to spend the time to create one but I have other things on my plate just now.

But I have made the switch back to EPUB2 and updated my scripts to reflect that change yesterday.

Carlos

[DaleDe]

Carlos: A browser does not an eBook reader make. Yes, most browsers have some support for HTML 5 but it is not nearly as homogenous as you make it sound. All are missing some features of HTML5. If you look at our wiki page for HTML5 you will see a link at the bottom that lets you test your browser for compliance with HTML5. This will not only test your browser but show you the conditions of various browsers. The PC ones are the most compliant while mobile browsers have a long way to go. Similarly for eBook readers using ePub3 the PC versions are ahead while the mobile versions tend to lag but for eBook Reading the mobile versions are the most used. If you look in our wiki under ePub 3 you will find a list of eBook readers that have some support specific to ePub 3 but again not all features are present.

In addition there are some copyright details to be worked out. Audio and Video formats are not all in the public domain and some of the most popular are patented so it is not clear is browsers like mosaic based ones and eBook Readers will ever support all the available formats. MP3 I believe will expire its patents soon and will thus become eligible but video patents have more time to run.

Dale

[carlosbcg]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Carlos: A browser does not an eBook reader make. Yes, most browsers have some support for HTML 5 but it is not nearly as homogenous as you make it sound.

I am beginning to realize that.

All are missing some features of HTML5. If you look at our wiki page for HTML5 you will see a link at the bottom that lets you test your browser for compliance with HTML5.

I guess I am kinda spoiled as Chromium (my browser of choice) scores 448 out of 500 which is plenty good enough.

But other browser start going downhill from there.

Carlos

[DiapDealer]

Woohoo! Dolphin Browser (w/Dolphin Jetpack) scores a 481 on my Android device!

[carlosbcg]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Woohoo! Dolphin Browser (w/Dolphin Jetpack) scores a 481 on my Android device!

Nice!

Carlos