impmake: automated creation of IMP books via the command line

[GeneS]

Originally Posted by ashkulz

Can you post a zip of your HTML here (or PM me with a link), so that I can debug it?

And yes, both versions don't work in WINE (but eBook Publisher does). Apparently, it is something to do with the path-translation WINE does which causes the COM functions to return an E_FAIL (generic error) -- at least, that's what I think for now.

Thanks, ashkulz:
Here's a copy of the zip file.

Gene

[ashkulz]

Originally Posted by GeneS

Thanks, ashkulz:
Here's a copy of the zip file.

Hmm, this looks like a bug in eBook Publisher itself. If I manually add the file to the publisher, the images were missing in that case too. If there are any bugs in the automation code, impmake will inherit them too

Looks like it works if you put the images in the same directory, but not different directories. I'll do some more testing tomorrow, but if you are able to produce a OPF file which creates images which impmake doesn't please post just the project file here. (You can use the -s option to auto-create a project file when building the IMP).

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by GeneS

Thanks, ashkulz:
Here's a copy of the zip file.

Gene

OK I found your html problems, yes problems.

You need to change the lines around each <img src> tag to:
-eliminate the <a href> & </a> tags surrrounding each <img src> tag .
-delete the width=40% attributed within the <img src> tag.

Now it will convert properly with eBook Publisher. Haven't tried it yet with impmake, but there should be no html issues now.

[GeneS]

Originally Posted by nrapallo

OK I found your html problems, yes problems.

You need to change the lines around each <img src> tag to:
-eliminate the <a href> & </a> tags surrrounding each <img src> tag .
-delete the width=40% attributed within the <img src> tag.

Now it will convert properly with eBook Publisher. Haven't tried it yet with impmake, but there should be no html issues now.

Thanks. Making the changes worked like a charm. Now the question is: Why? since I was taught to surround internal image links with the <a href></a> tags.
Or is it just a peculiarity of eBook Publisher?

In any case, I (and I hope other EBookwise users) am very grateful that you and others continue to make the reader eminently useable.

Gene

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by GeneS

Thanks. Making the changes worked like a charm. Now the question is: Why? since I was taught to surround internal image links with the <a href></a> tags.
Or is it just a peculiarity of eBook Publisher?

In any case, I (and I hope other EBookwise users) am very grateful that you and others continue to make the reader eminently useable.

Gene

the href is for the case where you want the image to be clickable. That is the only reason to add it although it will place a border around the image this can be done with different methods.

Of course eBook Publisher does not support clickable images. There are lots of html constructs that are not intended for eBook use.

Dale

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by GeneS

Thanks. Making the changes worked like a charm. Now the question is: Why? since I was taught to surround internal image links with the <a href></a> tags.
Or is it just a peculiarity of eBook Publisher?

In any case, I (and I hope other EBookwise users) am very grateful that you and others continue to make the reader eminently useable.

Gene

Surrounding the <img> tag is often used to display a thumbnail picture inline and then once clicked, to display a full-size/larger picture. It has a purpose, but not for .imp ebooks.

As Dale mentioned, eBook Publisher is not so accommodating and chokes on those constructs, as you have subtly found out!

[GeneS]

Originally Posted by nrapallo

As Dale mentioned, eBook Publisher is not so accommodating and chokes on those constructs, as you have subtly found out!

My thanks to Ashkulz, Nick & Dale. My education continues.
Gene

[ashkulz]

NOTE: impmake has now been renamed to ebookutils, and is hosted at http://gitorious.org/projects/ebookutils using Git, which should easily allow other developers to make changes. I plan to merge impserve, impmake, 2 new python utilities which replace ebw1150+rebcomm and pdfread under this umbrella.

Changes in ebookutils-0.3:
- impmake: add an -f option to specify the files to be included, with one file per line
- impserve: handle paging of booklist requests
- impserve: handle downloading of IMP books which are sent as an attachment (direct download of IMP from mobileread works)
- impserve: implement a plugin system and provide 2 default plugins to change the URL/content before being sent to the device.
- impserve: refactored the code heavily, please run impserve/run.py from python.

[derrell]

After setting up wine to work with impmake, ie using winetricks to add vcrun6 and dcom98 does the gui preview of imp books quit working? I've tried every combination I can think of including which version of windows is being emulated and the best I've been able to get is that the eBook Publisher program will start and work but the preview application crashes. Thats the best case the worst is that eBook Publisher won't even start. Strangely using impmake still works and creates a valid imp format book.

For now I've just set up two different directories for wine. One with the wine version of dcom98 so eBook Publisher works and the other with the microsoft dcom98 so that impmake will work.

Seems like its an odd problem. I was just wondering if anyone else was having it as well?

[ashkulz]

Originally Posted by derrell

After setting up wine to work with impmake, ie using winetricks to add vcrun6 and dcom98 does the gui preview of imp books quit working? I've tried every combination I can think of including which version of windows is being emulated and the best I've been able to get is that the eBook Publisher program will start and work but the preview application crashes. Thats the best case the worst is that eBook Publisher won't even start. Strangely using impmake still works and creates a valid imp format book.

For now I've just set up two different directories for wine. One with the wine version of dcom98 so eBook Publisher works and the other with the microsoft dcom98 so that impmake will work.

Seems like its an odd problem. I was just wondering if anyone else was having it as well?

I too have the same problem, but I don't use the viewer application much so I manage without it. The real problem is, the ebook publisher links directly to the PubUtil22.dll *without* COM, but to use it via impmake I have to use COM (no direct interface provided to PubUtil22.dll) hence dcom98 needed. Also, you can't start impmake + ebook publisher at the same time -- it crashes, for some weird reason.

But the main thing for me, it works and in an automated manner without having to start a Windows VM or do lots of configuration. If I do ever get the time, I plan to investigate it further but that is rather unlikely since it works with the workarounds so I don't complain.

The problem is, eBook Publisher is quite buggy at times and chokes on invalid HTML and crashes or fails with some GomiIzer (?!) error. I may have to write a script which just sanitizes the input HTML for impmake later...

[derrell]

Thanks just wanted to make sure it wasn't just me. There are times when it seems that very odd things go wrong and no one else can replicate them.

It does work and I'll keep using it in the fashion I mentioned above. Thanks for all the effort that you are putting into the software for these readers.