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from the documents-definitely-need-javascript dept.
Daniel Glazman believes that EPUB has reached a technical dead end.
- It is impossible to aggregate a set of web pages into a EPUB book through a trivial zip, and it is impossible to unzip an EPUB book and make it readable inside a Web browser even with graceful degradation.
- Despite the International Digital Publishing Forum merging with W3C in January 2017, EPUB continues to diverge from web standards.
- The EPUB 3.1 specification has been rescinded because it is too costly and complex for the eBook industry to adopt.
Mr. Glazman's solution? The WebBook format. From the announcement:
I have then decided to work on a different format for electronic books, called WebBook. A format strictly based on Web technologies and when I say "Web technologies", I mean the most basic ones: html, CSS, JavaScript, SVG and friends; the class of specifications all Web authors use and master on a daily basis. Not all details are decided or even ironed, the proposal is still a work in progress at this point, but I know where I want to go to.
[...] I have started from a list of requirements, something that was never done that way in the EPUB world:
- one URL is enough to retrieve a remote WebBook instance, there is no need to download every resource composing that instance
- the contents of a WebBook instance can be placed inside a Web site's directory and are directly readable by a Web browser using the URL for that directory
- the contents of a WebBook instance can be placed inside a local directory and are directly readable by a Web browser opening its index.html or index.xhtml topmost file
- each individual resource in a WebBook instance, on a Web site or on a local disk, is directly readable by a Web browser
- any html document can be used as content document inside a WebBook instance, without restriction
- any stylesheet, replaced resource (images, audio, video, etc.) or additional resource useable by a html document (JavaScript, manifests, etc.) can be used inside the navigation document or the content documents of a WebBook instance, without restriction
- the navigation document and the content documents inside a WebBook instance can be created and edited by any html editor
- the metadata, table of contents contained in the navigation document of a WebBook instance can be created and edited by any html editor
- the WebBook specification is backwards-compatible
- the WebBook specification is forwards-compatible, at the potential cost of graceful degradation of some content
- WebBook instances can be recognized without having to detect their MIME type
- it's possible to deliver electronic books in a form that is compatible with both WebBook and EPUB 3.0.1
Compatibility with EPUB 3.0.1 is a good way to start adoption. Now to see if WebBook catches on. The GitHub repository is here.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Monday April 23 2018, @03:52AM (7 children)
Which page you are reading, type face. and font size.
Everything else will be use for advertising and spyware. Even if you suppose no internet connection during reading, there will be one there sooner or later.
This whole issue here is capability beyond what is needed for an e-reader.
They are thinking Newspaper replacement.
I am thinking get out of my face.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Monday April 23 2018, @06:38AM (3 children)
Still, if this goes ahead as proposed, I suspect there is going to a good deal of interest in ebook converters that strip this kind of crap out and ebook readers that make it click to play, no matter what the standard says. A growing number of people have had enough of the all pervasive use of ads and tracking on the web and will go to quite considerable lengths to block it, if they're expecting that group to feel any differently about the same stuff in ebooks then I suspect they're going to be disappointed.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 23 2018, @10:24AM (2 children)
Calibre can already convert from epub 3 to plain old text, or most any other non-interactive ebook format.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Monday April 23 2018, @11:12AM (1 child)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 23 2018, @11:21AM
Yup to calibre's built in reader. As far as I can tell, it's mostly there to make sure the conversion went off without a hitch. I don't read ebooks much on my desktop anyway though, so that's pretty much all I need it to do.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday April 23 2018, @11:45AM (1 child)
Should be set by the user, not the book.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @02:27PM
That's idiotic. Those should be set by the book with the reader being able to override it if need be.
Depending upon the content of the book, the font size shouldn't always be the same, if you're looking for more of a light breezy read, then something like Times New Roman 10, is a great choice, but if you're reading something where you need to read slower or you need a larger font, you'd want something else. Then there's computer manuals where they often times use multiple fonts to differentiate between book content and what you actually type at the prompt.
In short, the people making most of these books do spend time considering the needs of the readers when setting those defaults, if don't let them do it, then all sorts of weird things can happen. What's worse, is that you may not even be making the correct choices for an enjoyable read, but if it defaults to something from the publisher, you can easily go back and forth as appropriate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @05:19PM
they just need to put the ability/requirement for a webbook to include details in it's file format in the spec. kind of like exif in images.
'uses_js' -> '1',
'has_remote_resources' => '1',
you get the idea. then you could choose whether to use certain books based on their technical aspects.