Extended <head> chapter: NOT necessary? - Page 4

chaot · 02-21-2017, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Libre Office Writer is probably available for XUbuntu, it can read/write OOXML (DOCX), ...

Yes, of course available.

Quote:

As was previously mention by DiapDealer, the 'starter' mapping that his plugin ships has the wherewithal to turn it off, I wittingly chose to leave it as-is, viz:

Missing! Not only you have problems with my English, I also with yours. Now I got it. Thanks!

Quote:

The fact that some people here don't like em and strong tags matters to me not one jot. The epubs I create are read by a closed group who wouldn't know a 'b or strong tag' from the price tag on the clothes they bought yesterday

Main thing, they can read at all.

It can be nice to have to deal with uncomplicated people!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Also, there could potentially be differences in Text-to-Speech engines. might be spoken with more emphasis on the words, while could be spoken normally.

Possibly not new, but a good aspect.

@jackie_w & @BetterRed ''Maybe one day ...'' it will be more perfect!?

jackie_w · 02-21-2017, 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

The problem is that the intonation one might use on italicised text in an ironical statement would be different to that one might use in an adversarial challenge. TTS needs to do deep linguistic analysis (syntax + semantics + idiom, cant, figurative speech, metaphor etc) of the text and get the right base intonation, before it has any chance of using an appropriate tone for italics.

I can't argue with that - which is why I don't understand what the point is of debating whether or is the 'right' option. It looks more like a philosophical/religious debate than a practical one. Everything I read with the eyeballs displays both as italic. Everything I listen to ignores both equally.

chaot · 02-21-2017, 01:31 PM

That or & or etc. debate could be widely extended: e.g. to use class attributes to describe semantics:

Code:

<p>There is a certain <i class="foreignphrase" lang="fr">je ne sais quoi</i> in the air.</p>

Or using of dfn, cite, var, samp, kbd u.a.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Informative links!

JSWolf · 02-21-2017, 04:26 PM

Someone please show me a real world example where & and & are different. I've seen lots of eBooks that use & and they are used just the same as you would use & .

DaleDe · 02-21-2017, 05:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

chaot is in the right here. HTML5 has gone back from saying and is "purely presentational" to giving them semantic meanings.

The article below goes into more detail with some examples:

http://html5doctor.com/i-b-em-strong-element/

You may also want to read W3C's page, "Using and elements":

https://www.w3.org/International/que...a-b-and-i-tags

While + and + typically default to the same look (italics and bold), that doesn't mean they always do (think screen readers).

Also, there could potentially be differences in Text-to-Speech engines. might be spoken with more emphasis on the words, while could be spoken normally.

Very useful links into what is going on with HTML5 and by extension ePub 3. Particularly with regard to languages and other thematic uses.

BetterRed · 02-21-2017, 08:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I can't argue with that - which is why I don't understand what the point is of debating whether or is the 'right' option. It looks more like a philosophical/religious debate than a practical one. Everything I read with the eyeballs displays both as italic. Everything I listen to ignores both equally.

100% with you on the nature of the debate. But if you read say, Esmeralda's Barn, as a location reference at the start of a chapter or scene it would sound different, in your head, to something like this:

Quote:

Ashen faced, Jacob spun around saying, 'Griselda! For God's sake, Esmeralda's Barn… you were there last night? Don't you know what that place is—?'

For the first I would tend to use for the typographical effect, for the second I would use for the melodramatic effect – then TTS might one day be able to read them appropriately. Better finish what I started:

Quote:

Griselda interrupted with, 'Cousin Esmeralda may have her restaurant out in the sticks of Gloucestershire, but it's not in a converted barn in some farmer's muddy field. It's located in a rather nice Regency terrace in the middle of Cheltenham, and it's name is Le petit nuage blanc you nincompoop. Bah, brothers, why do we have to have them? So tell me about this barn of which you seem to know so much.'

BR

Tex2002ans · 02-21-2017, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I can't argue with that - which is why I don't understand what the point is of debating whether or is the 'right' option. It looks more like a philosophical/religious debate than a practical one. Everything I read with the eyeballs displays both as italic. Everything I listen to ignores both equally.

The Accessibility topic is so large and could be tackled from a billion different angles. If you want to be boring, you could read the Wikipedia or W3C page on it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_accessibility
https://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility.php

or there are plenty of more friendly articles (but broad and nowhere near as detailed, or only focus on tackling one small portion [blind]):

https://transitscreen.com/blog/acces...-vision-users/

I definitely know I have written about this stuff in various places over the years... I would just have to go hunt down those posts/emails. :P

Side Note: I personally point back to this video, "Ron McCallum: How technology allowed me to read":

https://www.ted.com/talks/ron_mccall..._read#t-608240

I would say that is probably one of the videos that gave myself a kick in the butt to focus on Web Accessibility. :P

- - - - -

Let me just bring up a few of the latest related ebook topics off the top of my head, and you may be able to draw some parallels:

1. "Stupid Amazon Read Inside is making my book look hideous. Let me just change my <h1-6> to . I mean... it LOOKS the same and ACTS the same. What's the problem?"

If you properly have your document marked up using headings, someone on a Screen Reader could use easily jump around the document... not so with tags.

Side Note: I am also surprised that BetterRed hasn't said anything about reading books with keyboard shortcuts... he is CONSTANTLY pointing out programs that don't fit his "never-let-my-fingers-get-off-the-keyboard" mentality.

There are also several benefits which may not be immediately apparent:

For example, Sigil's TOC Generation, Toxaris's Tools to import the EPUB->DOCX and automatically have a navigable DOCX, Calibre (and who knows what other future converters/tools there might be), [...]. That is one of my personal motivations for properly marked up documents, the tools/programs help me speed up my workflow.

2. That age-old "debate" of HTML Tables or images of tables (here is just one of the threads):

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=223062

I am all for HTML Tables... one of the reasons is better accessibility.

3. Marking up HTML with proper lang attributes (here is one of the latest threads where an author brought up an example):

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...57#post3465457

JSWolf thought it was absolute hogwash... but there are also benefits to using it NOW.

For example, very recently Calibre added Multi-Language Spellchecking (VERY HELPFUL). Or a word processor (Microsoft Word) might also take it into account so you don't get all those red squigglies!

In the now -> near-future, support of CSS hyphens will become better:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/...eb/CSS/hyphens

(For example, for decades LaTeX has already had actual proper Hyphenation for most popular languages. Web Browsers are WAY behind on this topic.)

In probably the far future, Text-to-Speech might take into speaking in different languages, so you can have a book mixed with English/Spanish and be read with the proper voices. (I am not too sure of any current ereader that does this.)

There is also the new EPUB+CSS3 speech stuff too:

https://www.w3.org/TR/css3-speech/
https://idpf.github.io/a11y-guidelin...ts/speech.html

And in the here-and-now, there are Search Engines which use lang information (Google.fr prioritizes French websites, while Google.de prioritizes German websites). I don't see why this couldn't be expanded to enhance search inside EPUBs.

Side Note: I would probably say the <-> is very nuanced and may not be as high a priority as some of those other things... but that doesn't mean you could toss it to the side. I would say the more popular CSS3 speech becomes, the more this distinction will become important (and more people thinking about it when creating documents). :P

Side Note #2: As a semi-related example, I was also recently complaining about many websites becoming WAY too Javascript-heavy (I personally use Firefox+NoScript).

Many web designers would just design the site to look pretty, and never take into account, "Hmmm, what if someone visits without all my fancy Javascript?"

Many news websites which refuse to load because they use Javascript to load the entire articles... or they cut the article and force you to push on a button to "See More" (Javascript). Or simple websites that just completely explode when there is no Javascript. Or forums where you can't advance throughout the next page in a topic.

I want to smash these websites in the face with a hammer!

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Someone please show me a real world example where & and & are different. I've seen lots of eBooks that use & and they are used just the same as you would use & .

1. Just look at examples where there can be overlap.

Let me just commandeer the example of "alternate voice" from the HTML5Doctor link, with one minor tweak:

Quote:

Deckard: The report would be routine retirement of a replicant which didn't make me feel any better about shooting a woman in the back. There it was again. Feeling, in myself. For her, for Rachael.

The can be used to mark the "alternate voice" (character's thoughts, etc. etc.)... but there was an actual emphasis on the word "woman".

2. In Non-Fiction, let us say you are citing a book. The Book Title may be italics:

Quote:

Tanaka, Shelly. On Board the Titanic: What It Was Like When the Great Liner Sank. New York, NY: Hyperion/Madison Press, 1998.

... that is not emphasis, and if you used there, you would be completely wrong.

3. Let us say you were discussing a great author:

Quote:

As Tex2002ans said in his 2017 book, 100 Greatest Examples:

<blockquote>I am amazing.</blockquote>

4. In Mathematics, Bold and Italics is used heavily.

Take for example, the constant e. It would make zero sense to have the code for the constant be: e. There are also plenty of variables that are bold, for example, vectors in Physics.

(There are also examples of Text-to-Speech Math... that is a whole other complicated can of worms though and requires properly marked material.)

Side Note: On a semi-related note to this, there was also massive discussion when adding all of the different variants of maths symbols to Unicode + OpenType Math:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathem..._Symbols_block

There are ~15 different variants of Maths symbols (Mixes of Serif/Sans/Typewriter/Double-struck/Script/Fraktur + Upright/Italic + Normal/Bold).

Why was it introduced into Unicode itself? Text-to-Speech was one of the large motivations (amongst many others).

A = 𝐀 = 𝐴 = 𝑨 = 𝒜 = 𝓐 = 𝔄 = 𝔸 = 𝕬 = 𝖠 = 𝗔 = 𝘈 = 𝘼 = 𝙰?

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Very useful links into what is going on with HTML5 and by extension ePub 3. Particularly with regard to languages and other thematic uses.

BetterRed · 02-21-2017, 09:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Side Note: I am also surprised that BetterRed hasn't said anything about that... he is CONSTANTLY using Keyboard Shortcuts in everything. :P

There's no point is writing 'the icon that looks like a Pencil' when the the next version of the software might change it, or users are provided with the means to install different icon themes, or define their own etc. Nor is there any point in referring refer to 'the third icon from the right' if the software allows the user to arrange the buttons according to their whim. When there's no classic fixed menu structure, the only alternative is to refer to the standard kb shorts and hope the user didn't change them too

BTW : I avoid the mouse due to injury. Inflicted by one of the combatant militia in the Balkan wars (and not the one you probably first thought of), I was documenting war crimes - unarmed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

In probably the far future, Text-to-Speech might take into speaking in different languages, so you can have a book mixed with English/Spanish and be read with the proper voices.

But what is the proper Spanish voice, if the Spanish text is in dialogue spoken by someone from Brooklyn it would sound mightily strange if they enunciated the words like a Castilian newsreader.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Let me just commandeer the example of "alternate voice" from the HTML5Doctor link, with one minor tweak:

The can be used to mark the "alternate voice" (character's thoughts, etc. etc.)... but there was an actual emphasis on the word "woman".

2. In Non-Fiction, let us say you are citing a book. The Book Title may be italics: ... that is not emphasis, and if you used there, you would be completely wrong.

On this we are in complete agreement - see prior post.

I would have course have the name of Cousin Esmeralda's restaurant tagged as French, but I wouldn't want Griselda pronouncing it like a Parisian, instead I would expect her to say it as a 1960's Sloane Ranger would have done. Time is another factor to be considered...

BR

Tex2002ans · 02-21-2017, 09:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

But what is the proper Spanish voice, if the Spanish text is in dialogue spoken by someone from Brooklyn it would sound mightily strange if they enunciated the words like a Castilian newsreader.

All the more reason you get as specific as needed with your markup. Here is the basic list of currently accepted languages:

https://www.iana.org/assignments/lan...ubtag-registry

And here is the rule for subtags:

language-extlang-script-region-variant-extension-privateuse

https://www.w3.org/International/art...-tags/index.en

I suspect you COULD go down the rabbit hole, but I doubt many tools currently support anything beyond the first main language. (Although Search Engines would definitely benefit.)

Side Note: Or take LaTeX English Hyphenation as an example, there are the two major ones (US/UK), but there are also very minor hyphenation variations you can specify: Canadian, Australian, New Zealand. The differences between these variants are extremely minor (maybe a handful of words), but that doesn't mean the gap won't grow in the future.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I would have course have the name of Cousin Esmeralda's restaurant tagged as French, but I wouldn't want Griselda pronouncing like a Parisian, instead I would expect her to say it as a 1960's Sloane Ranger would have done. Time is another factor to be considered...

I mean, we don't even have many Text-to-Speeches that can do Male/Female at the same time, or give you access to 2 variants of English (Male)... and you want to jump right into Brooklyn-Spanish <-> Castilian-Spanish, 1960s Parisians...

On Android they currently do have a few variants of English though (and a few have Male/Female):

English (Australia)
English (India)
English (United Kingdom)
English (United States)

or Spanish:

Spanish (Spain)
Spanish (United States)

Maybe the linguists will get around to creating those algorithms some time in the future, and then our 5 layer deep langs can be spoken properly!

GrannyGrump · 02-21-2017, 10:59 PM

@jswolfe --- not a real-world example in the sense you mean, but I have created experimental projects where I set the to be Large Red font, instead of *italic, and to Large BLUE font instead of *bold*.

As chaot and BetterRed noted about semantics earlier in the thread, I have started using and for things such as foreign language, book titles, and such. Then I want the and when showing, for example, someone shouting their dialog. This is really more for ease of editing the code, rather than concern about TTS, although that does enter into it a bit (can't hurt, might help).

BetterRed · 02-21-2017, 11:01 PM

@Tex2002ans - A properly trained voice can project as a male, female, old, young, or foreign whether it be a male or female. I saw three young women do Copenhagen a couple of years ago, just as good maybe better than first time I saw it, and certainly better than the Cumberbatch, Scacchi, and I forget who TV movie. Many years ago I saw two women do an excellent Godot - one might have been Judy Davis, or maybe it was Scaachi, but not Blanchette - too long ago.

TTS Book reading should sound like its being read by a single person, one with the ability to adopt subtly different voices both in the narrative and dialogue. If you were to start using entirely different voices you would end up with a play with lot's of narration - it won't work.

BR

Tex2002ans · 02-22-2017, 12:51 AM

Here is another one of the Accessibility articles I enjoyed:

http://webaim.org/articles/visual/

I forgot to link it in a previous post. :P My favorite part is right in the beginning:

Quote:

You mean I have a visual disability? Whenever I ask a large group of people whether or not they have a visual disability, very few of them answer that they do. Then I ask whether or not anyone uses any assistive technology to overcome their visual disability. Most people are unsure what I mean. Invariably, though, as I look out across the group, I see many of them, often a majority, using an assistive technology for their vision at that very moment.

"How many of you have perfect vision?" I ask. At this point, at least a couple of people catch on to what I am about to say. A voice in the audience says, "I wear glasses," "Yes," I say. "You wear glasses, and glasses are...?" "An assistive technology!" says someone in the audience, and that is exactly what they are.

We are all so accustomed to seeing people wear glasses or contact lenses that we do not think of poor vision as a disability. Scientists and inventors have developed corrective lenses to compensate for the deformities in the shape of our eyes, affording us the possibility of seeing with perfect, though somewhat artificial, vision. Many of us have natural vision so flawed that there is no question we would have a disability were it not for our glasses. Bad eyesight is so common, and it is so easy to correct with glasses, that we often forget how different our lives would be without this incredible technological device.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

@jswolfe --- not a real-world example in the sense you mean, but I have created experimental projects where I set the to be Large Red font, instead of *italic, and to Large BLUE font instead of *bold*.

Hmmm, I could also see Syntax Highlighting as being a semi-related issue. It easily allows you to skim through a work and spot oddities.

For example, if you are typing LaTeX using emacs+AUCTeX, it could look very colorful:

https://i.stack.imgur.com/YcNY2.png
http://www.blackhats.es/wordpress/wp...le.pdf_002.png

or even allow you to render Math inline:

https://www.gnu.org/software/auctex/...h-rendered.png

LyX is a WYSIWYM editor for LaTeX, and it can do similar:

http://www.lyx.org/images/about/main_window.png

Calibre's Editor currently displays words between + as an italic font and + as a bold font... I see no reason why there couldn't be more colors/fonts/font-sizes/highlights or more complex differentiation at a future date.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

TTS Book reading should sound like its being read by a single person, one with the ability to adopt subtly different voices both in the narrative and dialogue. If you were to start using entirely different voices you would end up with a play with lot's of narration - it won't work.

Hmmm, I see what you mean. I was thinking more along the lines of a play:

Code:

Juliet. Good even to my ghostly confessor.

  Friar. Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.

  Juliet. As much to him, else is his thanks too much.

  Romeo. Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy
    Be heap'd like mine, and that thy skill be more
    To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath
    This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue
    Unfold the imagin'd happiness that both
    Receive in either by this dear encounter.

Juliet (Female 1), Friar (Male 1), Romeo (Male 2).

I didn't really consider your typical Fiction with narrative interspersed between dialog. I could see how the TTS might be very strange flipping between:

Code:

[Female Voice] "Oh no,"
[Narrator] she said,
[Female Voice] "what happened to your face?"
[Narrator] Joe put his hand up to his cheek.
[Male Voice] "I... I-I fell."
[Narrator] He chuckled as he stared at the ground.

I personally don't listen to any audiobooks to know how/if they would handle multiple readers.

But different TTS voices could be used if you had entire chapters written by different POV characters (like in A Song of Ice and Fire [italics

], each chapter is written by a different main character). You could then have Chapter 1 (Male), Chapter 2 (Female), [...].

BetterRed · 02-22-2017, 05:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

But different TTS voices could be used if you had entire chapters written by different POV characters (like in A Song of Ice and Fire [italics

], each chapter is written by a different main character). You could then have Chapter 1 (Male), Chapter 2 (Female), [...].

That's too easy - I want Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, in the original ME dialects

BR

JSWolf · 02-22-2017, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

@jswolfe --- not a real-world example in the sense you mean, but I have created experimental projects where I set the to be Large Red font, instead of *italic, and to Large BLUE font instead of *bold*.

As chaot and BetterRed noted about semantics earlier in the thread, I have started using and for things such as foreign language, book titles, and such. Then I want the and when showing, for example, someone shouting their dialog. This is really more for ease of editing the code, rather than concern about TTS, although that does enter into it a bit (can't hurt, might help).

But you do know that you can swap how & work via CSS. So technically there is no difference. & also are not different.

chaot · 02-22-2017, 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But you do know that you can swap how & work via CSS. So technically there is no difference. & also are not different.

Isn't that dogmatic!? & works/result visual the same: as italic. The differences are of semantic kind.

There is no question about what we can do. What we should do, that's the question.

To get to the heart of the issue: To create a total mess we could make looking bold and looking italic - via CSS.

Plus - there is oblique. Depending the font it can look different to italic.

02-21-2017, 04:26 PM	#49
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 73,897 Karma: 128597114 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	Someone please show me a real world example where<i> & <em> and <b> & <strong> are different. I've seen lots of eBooks that use <em> & <strong> and they are used just the same as you would use <i> & <b>.

02-21-2017, 10:59 PM	#55
GrannyGrump Obsessively Dedicated... Posts: 3,200 Karma: 34977896 Join Date: May 2011 Location: JAPAN (US expatriate) Device: Sony PRS-T2, ADE on PC	@jswolfe --- not a real-world example in the sense you mean, but I have created experimental projects where I set the <em> to be Large Red font, instead of italic, and <strong> to Large BLUE font instead of bold. As chaot and BetterRed noted about semantics earlier in the thread, I have started using <i> and <b> for things such as foreign language, book titles, and such. Then I want the <em> and <strong> when showing, for example, someone shouting their dialog. This is really more for ease of editing the code, rather than concern about TTS, although that does enter into it a bit (can't hurt, might help). Last edited by GrannyGrump; 02-21-2017 at 11:03 PM.*

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02-21-2017, 11:01 PM	#56
BetterRed null operator (he/him) Posts: 20,553 Karma: 26954694 Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Sydney Australia Device: none	@Tex2002ans - A properly trained voice can project as a male, female, old, young, or foreign whether it be a male or female. I saw three young women do Copenhagen a couple of years ago, just as good maybe better than first time I saw it, and certainly better than the Cumberbatch, Scacchi, and I forget who TV movie. Many years ago I saw two women do an excellent Godot - one might have been Judy Davis, or maybe it was Scaachi, but not Blanchette - too long ago. TTS Book reading should sound like its being read by a single person, one with the ability to adopt *subtly* different voices both in the narrative and dialogue. If you were to start using entirely different voices you would end up with a play with lot's of narration - it won't work. BR

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