Have Apple deprecated the display-options.xml file in ePub2?

[Oxford-eBooks]

Hey all,
I've been dutifully putting in the META-INF\\com.apple.ibooks.display-options.xml in my ePub files to allow me to embed fonts and generally satisfy Apple's need to be in control.

I understand that they're now reading the data that's in there from the metadata in ePub3 (and fixed format?) but I had an error from a client that tried to upload an ePub2 that says of this file "The manifenst should not include items in META-INF"

Anyone know what the deal is here?

[Jellby]

Can you just delete the file from the OPF manifest (not from the ePub content)?

[Oxford-eBooks]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Can you just delete the file from the OPF manifest (not from the ePub content)?

Sounds a little black-hat to me. I can remove the thing no problem, I just put an option in my build tool to not put it in the archive or manifest, but I wonder what they're up to and where can I define whether the eBook has embedded fonts now... or don't I need to now they're doing things 'properly'?

[mrmikel]

This is why some of us have suggested not counting too much on any feature that currently exists and just works. Apple controls their ecosystem and they do whatever they do whenever they decide to do it.

[Oxford-eBooks]

Originally Posted by mrmikel

This is why some of us have suggested not counting too much on any feature that currently exists and just works. Apple controls their ecosystem and they do whatever they do whenever they decide to do it.

ooooh, don't get me started on that. Apple seem to have their own idea about what goes into an ePub and ride roughshod over all the good work the lovely IDPF people are doing (and ourselves for upholding that). Trouble is some of my clients quite rightly want to sell their eBooks on iTunes.

[Jellby]

First of all, the ePub2 spec says, regarding the META-INF directory:

This directory contains the files specified below [...] All other files found at the “META-INF/” level MUST be ignored by conformant OCF Reading Systems.

It goes without saying that "com.apple.ibooks.display-options.xml" is not listed as one of the allowed files, so obviously iBooks is not a "conformant OCF Reading System".

Then it says:

Any extra files in the ZIP archive (i.e., files within the ZIP archive that are not listed within the package files’ <manifest> element, such as META-INF files or alternate derived renditions of the publication) MUST NOT be used in the processing of the OPS publication.

which first implies that META-INF files should not be included in the <manifest>, but then says that if it is not manifested, it must not be used for processing. If iBooks is using this file for processing, as it does, it should be manifested, and that implies it should not be in the META-INF directory (where it is not allowed anyway, as we saw above).

[Oxford-eBooks]

Originally Posted by Jellby

First of all, the ePub2 spec says, regarding the META-INF directory:



It goes without saying that "com.apple.ibooks.display-options.xml" is not listed as one of the allowed files, so obviously iBooks is not a "conformant OCF Reading System".

Then it says:



which first implies that META-INF files should not be included in the <manifest>, but then says that if it is not manifested, it must not be used for processing. If iBooks is using this file for processing, as it does, it should be manifested, and that implies it should not be in the META-INF directory (where it is not allowed anyway, as we saw above).

Yep! You got it. They were failing eBooks for a while if the file wasn't there but seems that they've thought better of it and have quietly decided to toe the line and fall in with everyone else on the planet.

Oh, and for the record: I just rebuit an older eBook that uses embedded fonts and iBooks now seems to embed fonts properly without need for the ...

<option name="specified-fonts">true</option> <!-- must be set to "true" for embedded fonts -->

...line in their xml file - so hooray!

I guess it'll just continue to fail gracefully on older versions of iBooks like it used to.