iBooks 1.1 kills ePub Font Settings?

[Yoshi 1080]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Sigh, I'm not a windows developer. I use linux.

Well then talk about niche markets ... frankly, I think that the sentiment to disregard the usability completely in favor of features is even more problematic in the Linux world. I just guessed Windows developer since it has a greater market share. To clarify, I think this is a general problem and not specifically yours.

I’m really sorry you feel personally attacked, I didn’t mean that (although I’m not sure when or how I am supposed to have done that). I was criticizing your development decisions and your attitude as a developer. It just sounds like selling something you don’t believe in and even publicly emphasizing this dislike. I thought by advertising your application in this forum you would present yourself primarily as this software’s developer and not as a private person. Still, when I look back the only personal attacks came from you calling me all kinds of things for being a Mac user. So I’m not sure you are being fair here.


@Topic: What I want from iBooks is simple: It has a popover menu which let’s me choose a font of my taste. It shouldn’t be to difficult for Apple to just add the option ”use publisher settings”. I would also like to choose from any font available on the system and to be able to add new fonts myself (system-wide of course) ...

But again, as far as I understand the situation, this problem was only introduced in the latest iBooks update, so I still believe it’s a bug. I’ll start complaining if it’s still in the next update.

BTW I think iBooks doesn’t make any breaks after paragraphs. The first sentence of a (should-be) new paragraph is indented, but not separated in height. I’m not sure if this is the fault of iBooks or of the specific eBooks (I’m not sure if it happens with all eBooks), though.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by Yoshi 1080

Well then talk about niche markets ... frankly, I think that the sentiment to disregard the usability completely in favor of features is even more problematic in the Linux world. I just guessed Windows developer since it has a greater market share. To clarify, I think this is a general problem and not specifically yours.

You need to realize that usability is

a) Subjective
b) 90% familiarity

I happen to think calibre's interface is extremely usable and lots of calibre users agree with me, and I have emails from various 90 year olds who were delighted to find software they could use intuitively. I will agree that it looks ugly on OS X, but I have already explained the reasons for that, and it has nothing to do with my feelings about Apple.

Now because calibre does not look like other programs on OS X, its usability on OS X suffers. But I have explained my reasons for not writing platform dependent UIs. Hopefully, Qt's OS X support will improve with time.

I’m really sorry you feel personally attacked, I didn’t mean that (although I’m not sure when or how I am supposed to have done that). I was criticizing your development decisions and your attitude as a developer. It just sounds like selling something you don’t believe in and even publicly emphasizing this dislike. I thought by advertising your application in this forum you would present yourself primarily as this software’s developer and not as a private person. Still, when I look back the only personal attacks came from you calling me all kinds of things for being a Mac user. So I’m not sure you are being fair here.

I am not "selling" calibre. calibre is provided as a service to this community. I did not ask for calibre to have its own forum at mobileread, that was requested by calibre users. When you post attacks about my software in an unrelated thread simply as a way to deflect attention from the topic at hand, you will get attacked in return.

If you don't like calibre, don't use it and don't post random attacks about it in threads where its developers hang out, that is just not polite. If you like it and use it and want to help, make concrete suggestions, offer patches/graphics to improve it. Do not say the UI you made sucks, say instead, this part of the UI could be improved in so and so way. And say it in a thread/ticket dedicated to the purpose. And remember that calibre is developed by volunteers, so dont expect people to jump to follow your suggestions. And also remember that UI and usability are subjective and that calibre is a cross platform app and what looks good usable on one platform may not be so on another.

If you feel something should be different, make a case for it. And that case should not read as, this sucks it would be so much better like that instead. For an example of such positive feeedback that actually leads to UI change, see this ticket http://bugs.calibre-ebook.com/ticket/5756

[HarryT]

Yoshi,

Calibre is open source. If you feel that you can do better than Kovid when it comes to an OS/X version, you are entirely at liberty to do so.

[Kolenka]

Originally Posted by Bremen Cole

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

The only thing holding back Calibre is the size of the development team, IMO.

Expecting one guy who develops it seemingly in his spare time to write platform specific code is unreasonable IMO. Now that may mean it doesn't fit your needs, but so be it. Adding a half-dozen devs, and making it a full-time endeavor... maybe you would have a point then, but it certainly wouldn't be the free/donationware app it is now either.

[Yoshi 1080]

Originally Posted by Kolenka

The only thing holding back Calibre is the size of the development team, IMO.

Expecting one guy who develops it seemingly in his spare time to write platform specific code is unreasonable IMO. Now that may mean it doesn't fit your needs, but so be it. Adding a half-dozen devs, and making it a full-time endeavor... maybe you would have a point then, but it certainly wouldn't be the free/donationware app it is now either.

That sounds like a reasonable argument. I just don’t like the attitude of the developer towards the Mac ecosystem, hence the debate on principles.

[GRiker]

As one of calibre's volunteer contributors who uses and develops on a Mac, I'd like to chime in.

When I discovered calibre I was looking for something, anything that would let me create content for my Kindle other than Mobigen. When I first discovered calibre my reaction was that the functionality and extensibility was just what I was looking for, but the UI left something to be desired. Finding nothing else in the cybersphere even remotely close in capabilities, I started peppering Kovid with feature requests.

Some of the requests were implemented, others were not, but he invited me to try my hand at submitting revisions. He helped me come up to speed at every step of the way, generously answering stupid newbie questions offline.

A year later, I've contributed several chunks of functionality to the calibre code base, each one of them carefully reviewed and improved by Kovid, all in the interest of creating a more usable tool. And a year later he still answers my stupid questions.

I didn't know anything about Python when I started, and didn't believe that cross-platform development was a realistic goal until I dove in. If it were up to me, sure, I'd love to see the OSX UI spiffed up, but absolutely not at the cost of the development time that would be necessary. My code runs in OSX, Windows and Linux. I have never touched a Linux box, and yet Kovid's design makes it possible for my code to run there. I am always amazed when I try my code in Windows and It Just Works.

I find it astounding that folks could feel compelled to make negative remarks about a FREE product that's maintained and updated far more frequently than any paid product I've ever used, with an open-door policy to suggestions and code contributions. Really.

When I proposed an iTunes interface so I could use calibre with my iPad, Kovid was absolutely supportive, regardless of his feelings about Apple. He has helped me improve and polish the iTunes functionality, in spite of the fact that I'm quite certain he will never use it.

As someone aptly put it, "Lead, follow, or get out of the way."

G

[markbond1007]

I would like to add my two penneths here as well. I've used Calibre on Mac OSX, Linux and Windows and so far havent really seen the difference between any of them (ie they all look the same cross-platform). While it's not currently in vogue for applications to do anything "different" to the operating system "norm" this is really a recent fad (progression?) and can take up quite a bit of development time. As far as Im concerned the Calibre UI doesnt follow any of the "standard" patterns that modern interfaces use to interact with (menus across the top of the window/screen etc), it takes a while to get used to, but once you do there is nothing wrong with it. It may not be the most pretty application (no aero/glass/fading etc.) but these effects just sap computing resources better spent on the application itself IMNSHO.

Sure there are cross-platform libraries that could be used, that may even provide a more OS integrated feel, but it would take a huge amount of work at this stage - time better spent on improving the real features of the application.

Mark

[sjfwhite]

For a development team that is presumably unpaid, depending on donations, I think that they are doing a hell of a job and I have found Kovid to be incredibly responsive (regardless of platform) based on my observations. Perhaps donations and gratitude will get better results than hyper-sensitivity about the developer's well-earned frustration over developing for multiple platforms, particularly those that are decidedly closed by design.

Good work, Kovid and GRiker! Your efforts are much appreciated!

[Fabe]

Back to the original post issue:

Here is what Apple says in its FAQs about fonts:
Fonts:

• To properly allow the user to change the body font of content, an explicit font-family CSS property must be used sparingly. Explicit font families should only be used to achieve an intended effect, such as conveying that a note is handwritten.
• Do not include embedded (downloaded) fonts.
• Do not use fixed font sizes.

https://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebO....0.0.5.1.7.1.1
I don't know if this link will get you to the actual page or just the sign-in page of iTunes Connect.

I am a writer first, a computer user next, an ebook developer a distant third, and a computer programmer not at all. I struggle to transform my print books for the electronic world. I find doing so an interesting challenge, but the 200 hours I've spent in the challenge has taken 200 hours away from writing. I am no JK Rawlings or Stephen King. No publisher is knocking down my door to do all the work fore me. Calibre has been useful to me, so has Sigil, and TextWrangler. I make only one request to the Gods of the HTML / CSS / ePub dominion, please add this tag to make everything work: <anythinggoes> </anythinggoes>.

[kjk]

A couple fixes from Liz Castro's awesome blog:
http://www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com/20...ooks-bugs.html

There are two parts to the problem. For some reason, iBooks ignores the text-align property when that Full Justification setting is ON. It is also known that iBooks ignores any font information set with the span tag.

The solution, discovered by Anthony Levings, is curious. Just by inserting empty span elements (no class necessary) within each and every p element, and without assigning a single CSS declaration to the span itself, iBooks suddenly pays attention to the text alignment settings in the CSS of the p element.

Rick Gordon, meanwhile, reminded us of The Span Bug: iBooks ignores font information applied through a span element. Rick suggests using some other element besides span, like the otherwise little-used cite, so that you also maintain a given font for the body of the ebook. And while it is true that using an element in this way is a hack, it is also true that the resulting ePub will validate, will have the font the designer intended, and will not break in other ereaders. It is also true that if Apple would follow the EPUB standard, these hacks would be unnecessary.

Never even heard of "cite" as an element..but if it works...

[Yoshi 1080]

cite is an HTML element intended for quotes. I’m not sure if it a good idea to use that because I believe it has a special formatting in some browsers. Besides, this is a hack, there is no guarantee it will still work in the next version of iBooks or in other readers.

If Apple really forbids embedded fonts then I think this truly sucks! In terms of typography, the iPad currently performs pretty poorly. Rumor has it though that the iPad will gain a font management system with iOS4 in fall, maybe then we will see changes to how typography is treated in iBooks as well?

[GRiker]

@lizcastro reports a solution via Twitter in her latest blog posting.

G

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Yoshi 1080

cite is an HTML element intended for quotes. I’m not sure if it a good idea to use that because I believe it has a special formatting in some browsers. Besides, this is a hack, there is no guarantee it will still work in the next version of iBooks or in other readers.

If Apple really forbids embedded fonts then I think this truly sucks! In terms of typography, the iPad currently performs pretty poorly. Rumor has it though that the iPad will gain a font management system with iOS4 in fall, maybe then we will see changes to how typography is treated in iBooks as well?

Just update your iPhone to iOS 4 and play with iBooks and see what happens.

[Yoshi 1080]

I don't have an iPhone 3G/3GS.
Also, I was talking about iOS4 for the iPad, which is a completely different thing from iOS4 for the iPhone.

[murraypaul]

There are two parts to the problem. For some reason, iBooks ignores the text-align property when that Full Justification setting is ON.

For some reason?
The reason is obvious, the user has chosen to override text alignment and force full justification.