iBooks 1.1 kills ePub Font Settings?

[Yoshi 1080]

Your choice is to not optimize calibre for specific platforms because you don’t want to waste any time on them. You make it sound like it’s a feature not to use any platform specific code, but it’s not. Cross-platform UI toolkits lead to bad UIs, it’s that simple. Fortunately, calibre has the advantage of not really having any competition.

[kovidgoyal]

Only on OS X. Qt looks perfectly fine on windows and linux.

And using platform specific code means triple the effort for the UI, which in turn means less time to write code that actually does things, as opposed to looking pretty, which in turn means underpowered applications with few features. Something I suppose you like since you use Apple products.

[charleski]

On the UI front, it's pretty ironic that someone can criticise Calibre and yet defend iBooks in the same breath...

[Yoshi 1080]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

OAnd using platform specific code means triple the effort for the UI, which in turn means less time to write code that actually does things, as opposed to looking pretty, which in turn means underpowered applications with few features. Something I suppose you like since you use Apple products.

I like usability and consistent UI patterns, thank you very much. It’s sad that so many Windows developers think of usability as something bad or useless, but again, after reading your posts I understand why calibre lacks so much in that department.

I guess we should get back to topic since this isn’t leading anywhere anyway.

[kovidgoyal]

Sigh, I'm not a windows developer. I use linux. I realize that most OSX users are reflexively defensive about their OS choice, some sort of inferiority complex at work? This is why I never post in Apple threads, serves me right for violating my principles.

[Bremen Cole]

When I had a Sony reader I used Calibre, and recommended it to many people. Now with the iPad I don't need it anymore...... And now that I see how negative and insulting the developer is, I'm glad I don't need it......

I'm a Win 7 user, but I have learned that I like "underpowered applications with few features", and must have "some sort of inferiority complex" since I enjoy owning and using an iPad. Great way to win friends.....sigh.......

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by Bremen Cole

When I had a Sony reader I used Calibre, and recommended it to many people. Now with the iPad I don't need it anymore...... And now that I see how negative and insulting the developer is, I'm glad I don't need it......

I'm a Win 7 user, but I have learned that I like "underpowered applications with few features", and must have "some sort of inferiority complex" since I enjoy owning and using an iPad. Great way to win friends.....sigh.......

Hey, when you've contributed 1% of what Kovid has to this community, then come back and throw your petty criticisms around!

[kovidgoyal]

I came back to this thread because people felt that it provided a golden opportunity to make personal criticisms. I felt I needed to respond. My mistake. No more feeding the trolls.

[Bremen Cole]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Hey, when you've contributed 1% of what Kovid has to this community, then come back and throw your petty criticisms around!

No one is criticizing his programing skills. But as one who gave seminars to corporations for years in customer service and representing your product in the media.... trust me, he does his product no favors. His donation ware product is held back from being so much more, by his attitude. Pure and simple.

But, no difference to me, so I move on

I'll be the bad guy here, I know you folks are defensive...... It's all good

[kjk]

I'm an iOS, OSX, and Windows user, and Calibre has been indispensable to me-I love it. And Kovid has always been very friendly and helpful to me, even though he knows I use a Mac


To bring the topic back on topic:
http://www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com/20...-worse-in.html

Meanwhile, the real damage is that with iBooks 1.1 Apple took away the book designer's power to choose left-justification for their books. Designers can choose centered text, and even right-aligned text, but left alignment is totally ignored (even with !important) It makes absolutely no sense at all. It's bad enough for a paragraph of text, but short lines (poetry or lists) look particularly awful.

[kovidgoyal]

Indeed I have nothing against people that use Macs, just Apple. That is why I take the trouble to make an OS X version of calibre available (and believe me, it was a lot of trouble thanks to Apple's policy of not allowing you to run OS X on anything but Apple hardware) - so that those who use OS X can use calibre on their OS of choice. Unlike Apple, I believe in giving users choice and freedom.

Maybe we should start a wiki page documenting iBooks quirks. And just to show that I'm not targeting iBooks, I have had for a long time a similar wiki page describing quirks in Adobe Digital Editions

http://bugs.calibre-ebook.com/wiki/ADEQuirks

[kjk]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

I
Maybe we should start a wiki page documenting iBooks quirks. And just to show that I'm not targeting iBooks, I have had for a long time a similar wiki page describing quirks in Adobe Digital Editions

http://bugs.calibre-ebook.com/wiki/ADEQuirks

Great idea! I'm not that familiar with wikis. You start a topic and people can add to it? So:

iBooks Quirks:
left justification settings are ignored
margin settings are ignored
font:family doesn't support p, div or span
em, strong, blockquote, li, font settings override user settings

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by kjk

em, strong, blockquote, li, font settings override user settings

Not sure I understand what this means?

[kovidgoyal]

Here's the wiki page

http://bugs.calibre-ebook.com/wiki/ReaderQuirks

[kjk]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Not sure I understand what this means?

Maybe override is the wrong word. My understanding is these settings in CSS persist even if a user changes the global font settings in iBooks.