stylesheet.CSS anyone?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by phillipgessert

I think it just depends on the sort of book. If I'm reading a guidebook or some reference material and am literally just flitting my eyes across a page hunting for some topic or other, I think I'd rather the paragraph spacing. But if it's meant for continuous reading, is basically telling a "story", then the same rules apply as for fiction.

You don't need paragraph spaces in reference material because we can search for what we want.

[phillipgessert]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You don't need paragraph spaces in reference material because we can search for what we want.

Mm, I don't know about all that. A search can't do the job of a human eye scanning a page and interpreting surrounding content to figure what's worth reading and what's not. But design decisions like that are subjective to a degree, which really just highlights the need for thoughtful CSS.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by phillipgessert

Mm, I don't know about all that. A search can't do the job of a human eye scanning a page and interpreting surrounding content to figure what's worth reading and what's not. But design decisions like that are subjective to a degree, which really just highlights the need for thoughtful CSS.

What we need (IMHO) are options in the reading software to specify indents/no indents, & paragraph spaces (how wide) or none. So if an eBook was made properly, the software could be set how it's wanted to look. That would be a major step forward. Also, we need no margins so we can set the margins as we want. No line height unless there is a need and we can set as we want as well. Basically, most of the formatting could be set a certain way unless there's a need otherwise and set as we want.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

... you'd notice that the 505 does NOT allow changing fonts. The only way to change the fonts used in the 505 is to embed them.

<nitpick>Short memory, Jon? The custom font tricks that worked on the PRS650/PRST1 etc also worked on the PRS505, either using PRSPlus or a DIY approach. There never was a need to embed fonts into every epub.

P.S. A text indent of 1em isn't too small for me, in fact it's my personal Goldilocks option. Not too big, not too small, just right.</nitpick>

I have a personal calibre plugin which does epub surgical CSS tweaks via GUI point&clicks. Every now and again I think about releasing it into the wild. This thread is serving as a valuable reminder why it would be a Really Bad Idea. CSS preferences seem to be more of a Religion than a Science

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

<nitpick>Short memory, Jon? The custom font tricks that worked on the PRS650/PRST1 etc also worked on the PRS505, either using PRSPlus or a DIY approach. There never was a need to embed fonts into every epub.</nitpick>

That's embedding from outside the ePub. But it's still referencing other font(s).

I have a personal calibre plugin which does epub surgical CSS tweaks via GUI point&clicks. Every now and again I think about releasing it into the wild. This thread is serving as a valuable reminder why it would be a Really Bad Idea. CSS preferences seem to be more of a Religion than a Science

Please, release the plugin. Some will find it useful and use it. Others not and won't use it. It would be good for those that would find it useful.

[crankypants]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

So, if you have absolutely nothing to add in a css, what would you say, would be the utter minimum that a css file should exist out of?
Can you leave a css fine empty (zero bytes)?

Because all the <Hn> tags are so similar in size (to me), I like to make H2 and H4 underlined in the CSS:

h2 {text-decoration:underline}
h4 {text-decoration:underline}

But that's just me. And the default <h4> is the same size as regular text. Which can be odd.

[dgatwood]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What we need (IMHO) are options in the reading software to specify indents/no indents, & paragraph spaces (how wide) or none. So if an eBook was made properly, the software could be set how it's wanted to look. That would be a major step forward. Also, we need no margins so we can set the margins as we want. No line height unless there is a need and we can set as we want as well. Basically, most of the formatting could be set a certain way unless there's a need otherwise and set as we want.

IMO, to support that, we need:

1. A standard way to create a group of related rules that the reader must either use all of or none of, e.g. for positioning and font control of a drop cap, for specifying foreground and background colors of an inverted block of text, etc.

2. A simple way to specify lengths in more complex ways, e.g. setting margin-left to .25" or a certain percentage of the width, whichever is greater, without using JavaScript.

3. Agreement from the reader vendors on a standard way to specify default styles so that when we have specific paragraphs that actually need to have (for example) no indent, we can guarantee that the reader won't do something stupid when the reader turns on paragraph indentation.

4. Agreement from the reader vendors to not do stupid things like Amazon does, where they forcibly set a minimum line height of 1.2, making drop caps and other such things a pain in the backside.

5. Agreement from the reader vendors on one standard way to specify the default body font, and one standard way in which it will be overridden by every vendor, so that Nook won't use styles in a different way that breaks fonts on headings, iBooks won't use styles in a different way that ends up breaking styles in spans, etc.

6. Agreement from the reader vendors to not use the universal selector in their reader stylesheets. Ever.

And so on.

[ProDigit]

Originally Posted by crankypants

Because all the <Hn> tags are so similar in size (to me), I like to make H2 and H4 underlined in the CSS:

h2 {text-decoration:underline}
h4 {text-decoration:underline}

But that's just me. And the default <h4> is the same size as regular text. Which can be odd.

Yeah, which is why I don't use any heading under h4, as h5 is actually smaller than the paragraph text.

For HTML, have you tried doing:

<a href="" <h2>Heading underline</h2> </a>

It's an option that might, or might not work, depending on your device, as an alternative to:

<u><h2>Heading underline</h2></u>

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

Yeah, which is why I don't use any heading under h4, as h5 is actually smaller than the paragraph text.

For HTML, have you tried doing:

<a href="" <h2>Heading underline</h2> </a>

It's an option that might, or might not work, depending on your device, as an alternative to:

<u><h2>Heading underline</h2></u>

That is ugly coding! There is no need at all for a hyperlink or the underline tag. It can easily be solved in the stylesheet. Also, if you want to change something later to the styling like size, italic, bold, position, margin, whatever, you only need to change the stylesheet and it is done in all the (x)html files using the stylesheets without the need to change it manually to all the tags.
Using stylesheets really, really makes your life a lot easier and creates cleaner code.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

Yeah, which is why I don't use any heading under h4, as h5 is actually smaller than the paragraph text.

For HTML, have you tried doing:

<a href="" <h2>Heading underline</h2> </a>

It's an option that might, or might not work, depending on your device, as an alternative to:

<u><h2>Heading underline</h2></u>

Which shows why CSS is a much better solution. Rather than changing the coding of every instance of <h2>, just add one line to the CSS file.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

Yeah, which is why I don't use any heading under h4, as h5 is actually smaller than the paragraph text.

Which is why you should use stylesheets. Use <h1>...<h6> as the structure requires them, and then use stylesheets to give them the look you want, making sure they are all larger than normal text, if that's your wish.

[HarryT]

ProDigit, you seem to be thinking up every excuse under the sun for not using CSS, when it's hugely beneficial to do so. Having all your formatting instructions together in one place is enormously easier than applying formatting separately to each element in the book.

By having a CSS definition for your <p> tag you can instantly change the spacing and indentation for every paragraph in the book by editing one definition in the CSS. Surely you see the benefit of this compared to having to edit every paragraph individually if you want to change its indentation?

[JSWolf]

Besides, in CSS you can change the default font size of the H tags to whatever you want.

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Besides, in CSS you can change the default font size of the H tags to whatever you want.

Yes!

On my websites, I use tags all the way from H1 to H5. In my books, from H2 to H4. (It's not just font size, either; I use centered and flush left, italics and roman.) For the books:

h2 {
margin-top:1em;
font-size: 150%;
text-indent: 0em;
font-style: italic;
text-align:center;
}

h3 {
margin-top:1em;
font-size: 125%;
text-indent: 0em;
text-align:center;
}

h4 {
margin-top:1em;
font-size: 125%;
text-indent: 0em;
text-align:left;
}

Those being the chapter heads, major section breaks, and breakheads. (I am sure that most of you can guess why there is no H1: it originally was for the book title.)

[ProDigit]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

That is ugly coding! There is no need at all for a hyperlink or the underline tag. It can easily be solved in the stylesheet. Also, if you want to change something later to the styling like size, italic, bold, position, margin, whatever, you only need to change the stylesheet and it is done in all the (x)html files using the stylesheets without the need to change it manually to all the tags.
Using stylesheets really, really makes your life a lot easier and creates cleaner code.

I'm not sure,
You could link the hyperlink to the TOC, or Index file (even to an external http link).
Then again, you could do that in css as well, I guess... Any heading <H1> to <H4> reverts back to the index or some part of the book...
Different scenario, when every heading links to different places. Then individual links are necessary, in which the heading will be underlined.