Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by chromas on Sunday April 22 2018, @11:39PM   Printer-friendly
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  • The EPUB 3.1 specification has been rescinded because it is too costly and complex for the eBook industry to adopt.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:

  1. one URL is enough to retrieve a remote WebBook instance, there is no need to download every resource composing that instance
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. each individual resource in a WebBook instance, on a Web site or on a local disk, is directly readable by a Web browser
  5. any html document can be used as content document inside a WebBook instance, without restriction
  6. 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
  7. the navigation document and the content documents inside a WebBook instance can be created and edited by any html editor
  8. the metadata, table of contents contained in the navigation document of a WebBook instance can be created and edited by any html editor
  9. the WebBook specification is backwards-compatible
  10. the WebBook specification is forwards-compatible, at the potential cost of graceful degradation of some content
  11. WebBook instances can be recognized without having to detect their MIME type
  12. 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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday April 23 2018, @11:45AM (1 child)

    by Arik (4543) on Monday April 23 2018, @11:45AM (#670692) Journal
    "type face. and font size."

    Should be set by the user, not the book.
    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @02:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @02:27PM (#670746)

    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.