(foot)note as popup

[Patrick V]

Hi,

I'd like to know if someone has ever succeeded in creating ebooks with popups. I would like to replace footnotes with popup's. Or maybe, you know an ebook with popup's.
The epub should be readable on Kobo Aura.

Thanks,

Patrick

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Patrick V

Hi,

I'd like to know if someone has ever succeeded in creating ebooks with popups. I would like to replace footnotes with popup's. Or maybe, you know an ebook with popup's.
The epub should be readable on Kobo Aura.

Thanks,

Patrick

In order to get popup footnotes, you need to convert your ePub to kepub.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Patrick V

Hi,

I'd like to know if someone has ever succeeded in creating ebooks with popups. I would like to replace footnotes with popup's. Or maybe, you know an ebook with popup's.
The epub should be readable on Kobo Aura.

Thanks,

Patrick

In short, Patrick--it's the devices, not the coding, by and large. For example, the iBooks reader and Kobos have popup footnotes; many others do not. It's the device or software doing the rendering, rather than magic in the coding.

Hitch

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by Hitch

In short, Patrick--it's the devices, not the coding, by and large. For example, the iBooks reader and Kobos have popup footnotes; many others do not. It's the device or software doing the rendering, rather than magic in the coding.

Hitch

But wasn't there a certain way footnotes have to be formatted to really make them pop up on the devices that can make them pop up?

I know I read posts about this on the forums here, quite a while back. If one does a search they might pop up.

*grabs coat and pops out*

[doubleshuffle]

Found something. I think this is the thread I remembered:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=271796

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Found something. I think this is the thread I remembered:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=271796

I think you're thinking about whether or not you need javascript or JSON to make them work, but by and large, you don't. You just have to make them as footnotes, for MOST devices and they'll either work--or they won't.

If you try to get all cute with js or JSON, you'll end up with books that more people cannot read than can. IMHO.

Hitch

[doubleshuffle]

I've never done anything fancy with notes. I just remembered that thread, and Doitsu posted a test epub there with all kinds of different formattings, but I don't think it involved any cute stuff.

But I'm not going to get into this; I just dug up that thread because I happened to remember it's there. Perhaps it'll help Patrick V.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hitch

In short, Patrick--it's the devices, not the coding, by and large. For example, the iBooks reader and Kobos have popup footnotes; many others do not. It's the device or software doing the rendering, rather than magic in the coding.

Hitch

Kobo's only do popup footnotes when reading kepub, not ePub.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Kobo's only do popup footnotes when reading kepub, not ePub.

Which, I think, makes my point even further--the files are effectively identical, an "ePUB" and a "kepub;" the latter has gone through Kobo's (utterly unnecessary) process and then the popup footnotes work, but AFAIK, the coding therefor is identical.

Hitch

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Which, I think, makes my point even further--the files are effectively identical, an "ePUB" and a "kepub;" the latter has gone through Kobo's (utterly unnecessary) process and then the popup footnotes work, but AFAIK, the coding therefor is identical.

Hitch

I agree 100%.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Which, I think, makes my point even further--the files are effectively identical, an "ePUB" and a "kepub;" the latter has gone through Kobo's (utterly unnecessary) process and then the popup footnotes work, but AFAIK, the coding therefor is identical.

The code may be identical but the renderer is different. Kobo uses two renderers, Adobe's RMSDK which allow for reading Adobe ADEPT DRMed epubs but which is pretty limited when it comes to epub3 and one based on the ACCESS Netfront Bookreader which does a pretty decent job of handling epub3 and uses Kobo's proprietary DRM. Back when Kobo was purchased by Rakuten and Kobo was moving into the Japanese market, a renderer that would handle Japanese typography with all it's quirks was a necessity.

As for whether the mass of spans tossed into a kepub are necessary? They do help with text selection/highlighting so an arguable point. The other changes such as identifying the cover image and adding the SVG property are pretty much just complying with the epub3 specification.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DNSB

The code may be identical but the renderer is different. Kobo uses two renderers, Adobe's RMSDK which allow for reading Adobe ADEPT DRMed epubs but which is pretty limited when it comes to epub3 and one based on the ACCESS Netfront Bookreader which does a pretty decent job of handling epub3 and uses Kobo's proprietary DRM. Back when Kobo was purchased by Rakuten and Kobo was moving into the Japanese market, a renderer that would handle Japanese typography with all it's quirks was a necessity.

As for whether the mass of spans tossed into a kepub are necessary? They do help with text selection/highlighting so an arguable point. The other changes such as identifying the cover image and adding the SVG property are pretty much just complying with the epub3 specification.

David:

Yes, which I think was my point. Identical code, different renderers, which is why pop-up footnotes in a K10 work--but not in a PPW of the first few generations. {shrug}.

Yes, I know the rationale for the KePUB. I just...don't like it. I realize that they had a unique circumstance.

Hitch

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by DNSB

As for whether the mass of spans tossed into a kepub are necessary? They do help with text selection/highlighting so an arguable point.

I don't think the thousands of koboSpans just "help" with text selection/highlighting, I think they're essential for it to work at all. Similarly I don't think remembering your book's progress is possible without them.

On the negative side, I do believe those same koboSpans are responsible (at least in part) for kepub full justified text alignment not looking as good as standard epub as regards smooth word and letter spacing.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I don't think the thousands of koboSpans just "help" with text selection/highlighting, I think they're essential for it to work at all. Similarly I don't think remembering your book's progress is possible without them.

If you simply rename an ebub to .kepub.epub, it will use the ACCESS renderer and you can highlight, etc. Book progress will be remembered depending on other glitches in Kobo's coding though those seem to have affected epubs recently. With the spans in place, it does make it easier to select text and more reliable when remembering the location.

Originally Posted by jackie_w

On the negative side, I do believe those same koboSpans are responsible (at least in part) for kepub full justified text alignment not looking as good as standard epub as regards smooth word and letter spacing.

That's more a difference between the two renderers. RMSDK seems to be more consistent in it's handling of justification especially when you have ligatures enabled. If you send a kepubified epub as an epub or send an epub simply renamed to .kepub.epub, you will notice the differences. This happens with either a kepubified epub or a non-DRMed kepub downloaded to your computer using the Kobo desktop app or copied from your ereader.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by DNSB

If you simply rename an ebub to .kepub.epub, it will use the ACCESS renderer and you can highlight, etc. Book progress will be remembered ...

The bold bits are not my experience. I don't want to argue, we'll have to agree to differ.

Originally Posted by DNSB

That's more a difference between the two renderers. RMSDK seems to be more consistent in it's handling of justification especially when you have ligatures enabled. If you send a kepubified epub as an epub or send an epub simply renamed to .kepub.epub, you will notice the differences. This happens with either a kepubified epub or a non-DRMed kepub downloaded to your computer using the Kobo desktop app or copied from your ereader.

Here is probably not the place to discuss it but all I can say is that extensive experiments with the koboSpan-adding algorithm (and a few other bizarre tweaks) tells me that full justified kepubs with ligatures can be made to look much smoother than Kobo's default algorithm allows. Possibly still not quite as good as epubs in Adobe, but perfectly acceptable (to me, that is).