UUID creation?

[Turtle91]

Dang-it! I made a boo-boo. It's not angular speed that contributes to orbital velocity - that is a constant for the earth - it is the surface velocity derived from the angular speed which is greatest at the equator...

[/geek]

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Dang-it! I made a boo-boo. It's not angular speed that contributes to orbital velocity - that is a constant for the earth - it is the surface velocity derived from the angular speed which is greatest at the equator...

[/geek]

Darn, were you speaking to me? ;-) What was that, again?

Hitch

[abeonis]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Yes, that would certainly work. Since Sigil has the ability to generate a new UUID it would be really nice to have a button, or switch to activate that functionality...opening/copying/pasting/closing is sooooo '80's

I am not sure we must ask Sigil to do everything, and anyway what do we do before it is implemented?

I wrote an AHK_L script that does automatically the following (among other things) :

1. Unzip an epub
2. Create an uuid (AHK_L program)
3. Change the uuid in OPF
4. Update the NCX with new uuid
5. zip the epub

The reason I do that is because I use the new epub file to create a mobi with Kindlegen. I do want to have a different uuid for epub and mobi.

Conclusion: I suggest people here to google ahk_L. You can do amazing things with it, even if you are not a SW developer (my case). It is so easy to take the control of your design flow.

Systemize the routine, humanize the exception.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by abeonis

I am not sure we must ask Sigil to do everything, and anyway what do we do before it is implemented?

I wrote an AHK_L script that does automatically the following (among other things) :

1. Unzip an epub
2. Create an uuid (AHK_L program)
3. Change the uuid in OPF
4. Update the NCX with new uuid
5. zip the epub

The reason I do that is because I use the new epub file to create a mobi with Kindlegen. I do want to have a different uuid for epub and mobi.

Conclusion: I suggest people here to google ahk_L. You can do amazing things with it, even if you are not a SW developer (my case). It is so easy to take the control of your design flow.

Systemize the routine, humanize the exception.

Well, that's great if you're using an UUID generator, for whatever reason you're doing it, but as there isn't an centralized repository of UUID's, and no one is using them, I'm not sure I understand why anyone would go to all the trouble. As you have hundreds of books, I suppose I can understand why you'd create your own, but not even Amazon, Nook, etc., are using UUID's. That's why there is always this dead silence to the questions about UUID's; it's all well and good, except: nobody is using them. At best, retailers are using ISBN's, as are libraries.

For us, if someone asks us to embed an UUID--and in 2,000 books, we've never been asked--fine. But in the interim, I certainly wouldn't go to the trouble of creating a random number generator just to slap an unused identifier in an ePUB, myself, and certainly not for MOBI. It's unique (the old, one-in-17-trillion argument, or whatever) and usable only to the person who creates it. If you use them for your directories, for a naming schema, I can see it making sense, but in a commercial environment, it's really extraneous. There's plenty to do in making ePUBs, at least at my shop, without adding additional steps that aren't needed or used for commercial books. I don't think I recall anyone else ever saying, here, that they'd used UUID's. Anyone else recall someone using them?

Hitch

[abeonis]

Hitch, as far as I know you need different ISBN for mobi and epub. Intuitively, I deduce that I must apply the same rules for uuid and I know that anyway Amazon will assign its own ASIN.

Now, as you can see from my karma, I am the new kid in the block and need some years to reach your level of experience. However, I bring a different a new perspective to the same old problem (ebook design). I don't know how uuid will be used in the future and it takes me 0 effort to do it this way (it is done automatically) and I think anyway it is a good practice just in case I will need to modify 100 eBooks later on. Here we have obviously a difference in interests.

But in my mind this was not the most important topic in my post. I would like to use Sigil for what it is, a wonderful graphical ePub editor and implement all the rest outside. At least I express my opinion here.

I was trying also to give a solution to the "is sooooo '80's"

[abeonis]

BTW, I am curious, is this community populated exclusively by service companies or there are also some DIYers? Often, interests do not converge.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by abeonis

Hitch, as far as I know you need different ISBN for mobi and epub. Intuitively, I deduce that I must apply the same rules for uuid and I know that anyway Amazon will assign its own ASIN.

Now, as you can see from my karma, I am the new kid in the block and need some years to reach your level of experience. However, I bring a different a new perspective to the same old problem (ebook design). I don't know how uuid will be used in the future and it takes me 0 effort to do it this way (it is done automatically) and I think anyway it is a good practice just in case I will need to modify 100 eBooks later on. Here we have obviously a difference in interests.

But in my mind this was not the most important topic in my post. I would like to use Sigil for what it is, a wonderful graphical ePub editor and implement all the rest outside. At least I express my opinion here.

I was trying also to give a solution to the "is sooooo '80's"

abeonis:

I wrote a reply, and decided, particularly after re-reading the "new perspective" line, not to bother. Good luck.

Hitch

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by abeonis

BTW, I am curious, is this community populated exclusively by service companies or there are also some DIYers? Often, interests do not converge.

Most are DIYers in various states of expertise. We are also lucky that we have some professionals amongst ourselves. Most of the times we work together extremely well, since we have the same interest of creating good quality e-books.

What we do not like, are service companies that accept a paid assignment and then ask us to solve their problems. We have had our share of that in the past already.

[abeonis]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

What we do not like, are service companies that accept a paid assignment and then ask us to solve their problems. We have had our share of that in the past already.

I am not sure whether this is directed to me or not. In any case, I am not a service company and I appreciate help from professionals too. This doesn't mean I have to say amen to everything.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by abeonis

I was trying also to give a solution to the "is sooooo '80's"

I hope you didn't take my comment the wrong way. I have a very dry/quirky sense of humor. I wasn't trying to denigrate your solution in any way, other than to say going through all those steps to perform a function reminds me of the early days of computers when we had all these "work arounds" because software had only basic functionality.
Sigil HAS the ability to generate a UUID because it does it when opening a new document. It would be nice to have a button/option that said "Regenerate UUID" in the metadata editor.

I don't know who does (other than epubreader), or does not use the UUID (I've only created/cleaned personal books)...or what purpose the UUID will be put to in the future...but the spec requires a "unique" ID, so I try and put one in there.

Cheers!

[abeonis]

Don't worry Turtle91, my level of paranoia largely support your sense of humor. I was just trying to propose a solution and participate to the common effort. I will check what the spec says about the unique ID. This spec should be somewhere.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by abeonis

Don't worry Turtle91, my level of paranoia largely support your sense of humor. I was just trying to propose a solution and participate to the common effort. I will check what the spec says about the unique ID. This spec should be somewhere.

http://idpf.org/epub/201

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by abeonis

I am not sure whether this is directed to me or not. In any case, I am not a service company and I appreciate help from professionals too. This doesn't mean I have to say amen to everything.

It was not directed at you.

[abeonis]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

http://idpf.org/epub/201

Thanks. So far I have been doing with what I read here and there. Sometimes contradictory information. Even if I hate reading everything like specs or terms and conditions, I have no choice. It is now the good moment. Grrr...

[DiapDealer]

Don't worry. After familiarizing yourself with the specs, the only thing you have to worry about is learning which parts of the specs each of the various devices/apps chooses to ignore utterly or interpret differently.