Javascript in Fixed Layout epubs

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by nabsltd

Here's a "new or interesting" thing I have never seen anybody ask how to do, and it's something that has actual application to eBooks:

There has been a lot of discussion about the editing of older books to meet current political correctness, and many readers want to know which version of the book they are getting. How about a system where both versions of the book are in the EPUB, and you choose which you want to read. This is easy to do by having both versions in the file and just picking from a table of contents. The "new and interesting" part would be to have a way to have a single copy of the book, with only the differences being a "duplicate". A button click at the beginning would hide/show the text based on the version chosen. That would be a "new and interesting" use of interactivity, and has real utility for readers, since it keeps the file size much smaller.

An even cooler addition to this would be to optionally highlight the changed text in either version, and allow a click on that specific text to toggle the view of only that change.

Loads of good points.

Such a space-saving "difference" format could have been in epub2 and should have been in epub3. We could campaign for it in epub4.
Currently you'd need to have both versions, though they could probably share any identical chapters in epub3, not sure about epub2 or Kindle.

The "cooler" addition could maybe be done with links, but also might need a new spec.

Even old mobi had a "no next page" directive so you could do a very basic "plot your own adventure", which I did, but ideally you'd also want inventory and scoring and interaction between inventory and objects. Even a simple client side image map (needs no script as such, it's just links vs image location) so what you click on an image goes to new page... You can of course tile separate images in a table (yuck!). As far as I can see epub2 and epub3 don't have client side image map (I coded it), but if they did it wouldn't survive KDP upload to Amazon.

So I decided nearly 10 years ago that interactive and clever needed either a real web page or an app (using an off the shelf framework), that epub was a tool to make ebooks, with no more "feature" than internal links and system ToC built in compare to paper. PDFs seem better than fixed layout ebooks, which only seem to exist for Amazon's Print Replica not-actually-kindle ebooks.

I could do epub3 with javascript yesterday if there was a point to it.

Similarly you can buy a Raspberry Pi and make a tablet or laptop. But it's missing the point of what a Pi is good for. There are far better ways of having a tablet or laptop. Of course you might use a Pi to power a "proof-of-concept" lab model.

So in that sense you could hand tinker with javascript, epub3, text and images as a proof of concept and then do it as an app for actual mass market distribution as the "prototype" would have very niche distribution.

[DiapDealer]

Give it a rest already! It's perfectly fine for people people to code epubs in ways that you do not approve of. Stop pushing your agenda and preferences down others throats. If you don't want to help the OP do what they're looking to do, then fine. Don't. But stop discouraging others from experimenting with possibilities. Stop being the self-appointed arbiter of how everyone else should do things.

[Quoth]

My only aim, and it's not an agenda, on this and similar threads is two fold:
1) That people should understand what they want to achieve and part of that is understanding the retail platforms if they are distributing / publishing.

2) That people should use the best tools for the job. Their own background might make a once good tool that's now stupid be best, like G. R. R. Martin allegedly using Wordstar.

I have no agenda against epub 3, or javascript, or javascript + epub3 (though some have an agenda to push it simple because it's newer and more flexible), or Fixed layout (sometimes it's the best solution). Just because something exists and is a newer spec doesn't make it the best tool.

I have a broad experience and viewpoint, not a narrow blinkered agenda.

The best help is to help people see what they want to achieve and the consequences of their choice of tools.

People can easily ignore my advice, which is based on experience and qualifications, not an agenda.

[KevinH]

Statistically, if you look at the sheer number of times you have pushed people away from epub3 and javascript, it certainly appears to be an agenda. Again, when the op wants to talk to people interested in using javascript and get help, your immediate negative response is always provided and repeated. When asked nicely to stop you just continue. Even when you are off topic to the initial question posed in the thread!