October 2004 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Re: [gutvol-d] jeroen's even-handed analysis
by Joshua Hutchinson 21 Oct '04

21 Oct '04

----- Original Message ----- From: Brad Collins <brad(a)chenla.org> <snipped a wonderful essay> Thank you, Brad. That was probably the best essay I've read on WHY XML markup is such a good idea. I've got a good 40-50 years left in this lifetime. I want to get to the digital e-text nirvana by then. XML seems to be the best first step. Josh

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re: Re: [gutvol-d] Re: aspects of a well-done e-book
by Joshua Hutchinson 21 Oct '04

21 Oct '04

No, no, no. We NEVER expect you (as a consumer) to have to convert files from the master XML format to format du jour. However, if you want something non-standard (like a text file that *includes* source page numbers), *then* you may have to convert it yourself. If you want an HTML with pink backgrounds and purple text, you can convert a copy yourself (if you have the tools and the know-how) but we won't have such a version pre-made on the download page. Basically, we will never have LESS available than we do now. The XML initiative is about giving more options above and beyond the baseline we already have (as well as making like easier on the text preparers and maintainers). Josh ----- Original Message ----- From: Tony Baechler <tb(a)baechler.net> To: Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> Subject: re: Re: [gutvol-d] Re: aspects of a well-done e-book Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 06:46:03 -0700 > > At 01:02 AM 10/21/2004 -0700, you wrote: > >As you say, the information is in the source file, but currently inaccessible > >to you. One of the ways to solve this problem is to switch to a relatively > >standard master document format, such as TEI, combined with flexible tools > >that > >could convert the source to other editions such as HTML or text, while > >allowing > >us to choose how much of the preserved information, and to also choose how > >that > >information was encoded. You could then easily generate for yourself a 'with > >page numbers' text edition of the document you're interested in. > > > So, does this mean that I now not only have to download the master xml > file, the css, and a set of conversion tools? You must be kidding, > right? If it came to that, I would rather have the plain text and forget > the page numbers. It is already inconvenient to use "lynx -dump -nolist > filename.htm." Why in the world would I want to run it through a > conversion tool and still have to do that anyway? OK, so a plain text file > can be output directly from the xml. I still have to go through at least > one extra conversion step that I wouldn't have to otherwise. I had a look > at sgml just to see how hard it would be to get plain text. What a royal > pain! I gave up when it kept complaining about some file missing when I > was using their samples. > > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d >

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Re: [gutvol-d] re: coming to michael doorstep with hat in hand
by <name>XML Queen</name> 21 Oct '04

21 Oct '04

Marcello Perathoner wrote: > Maybe we could lure another troll onto this list and have the two of them fight each other until they've both had it. You rang, babycakes? I am XML Queen Letitia! Hear me ROAR!! You've been doing things all wrong for the last 30 years. :+?/> x/M/l is the Way, the Truth, and the Light. There's no point what-so-fricken-ever in giving people choice. FEED the Democratic citizens of Gutenbergia XmL and they will use it with my viewer PROGRAM which will dazzle them. I have written ROUTINES in LOGO which will transform your worthless TXT into XML, XSLT, XQML, and XBB38GGOBS. You cannot have these routines unless you bow down to me becuase otherwise YOU are not worthy. It will be fun for you to redo work already done ;+?/> I have an ally in this list I SEE. BOWERBIRD is very evanGELical, but she consistently mis-labels xML (I know z and x are very close on the keyboard). I am a competitive interpretive yogalates-funk artist AND I KNOW BETTER THAN YOU GEEKS. Fear me, Letita. -- twajs

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re: Re: [gutvol-d] Re: aspects of a well-done e-book
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 21 Oct '04

21 Oct '04

josh said: > Now Internet Explorer doesn't seem to have a way > to switch styles on the fly, which is a shame a big shame, since i.e. still has -- what -- 93% of all surfers? -bowerbird

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126 messages in one day
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 21 Oct '04

21 Oct '04

by my count, there were 126 messages yesterday. there were probably some _months_ in the last half year when this listserve did not total that many messages... there are a certain number of messages that i _will_ post before leaving here. if y'all like this intense level of traffic, then just keep on responding like you have been. we can turn each one of my topics into a long-drawn-out thread, if that's really what you want to do. we can. on the other hand, if you'd prefer a more sedate experience, i suggest you just let me post my messages and move on... whatever you want to do is quite alright with me... but let's look at my "aspects of a well-done e-book" thread; that generated 36 replies, and the only one that was really pursuing the topic was david starner's, and his message was... well, go and re-read it, if you want, and evaluate it yourself. suffice it to say that y'all still don't have a standard for that. it might be nice if we could have a _useful_ discussion. as for the let's-get-x.m.l.-going crowd, perhaps what you need is your own _separate_listserve_ to coordinate your efforts, one where i am not allowed, so you can really be "productive". good idea, eh? -bowerbird

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Re: [gutvol-d] Re: aspects of a well-done e-book
by Joshua Hutchinson 21 Oct '04

21 Oct '04

----- Original Message ----- From: "Curtis A. Weyant" <cweyant(a)twcny.rr.com> > > This is why I installed Firefox on my mom's computer for her. I then > deleted the IE icon and changed the Firefox icon to read "Internet" -- > and I have no doubt she has not noticed a single change. > Heh! I'm not the only one that does "stealth" fixes on relatives' computers! ;) Josh

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re: Re: [gutvol-d] Re: aspects of a well-done e-book
by Joshua Hutchinson 21 Oct '04

21 Oct '04

Well, the page numbers is something I looked into having in the non-CSS versions (LYNX). However, it ended up being unworkable. Basically, since you can't move them to the side in LYNX, they appear right in the middle of the text. And then, if you didn't know already what it was, it looked like it was part of the sentence you were reading and didn't make a whole lot of sense. This was the best compromise I could come up with. A minimum functionality (the functionality offered by the vast majority of HTML texts we offer) with a few added benefits for the browsers that can support them. And IE can show the page numbers, it just doesn't do it by default. Since IE doesn't have on the fly style switching, it requires modifying the HTML doc manually. Definitely something I wish I could avoid, but since I can't, I tried to default the layout to the least obtrusive. Josh ----- Original Message ----- From: Tony Baechler <tb(a)baechler.net> To: Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> Subject: re: Re: [gutvol-d] Re: aspects of a well-done e-book Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:13:59 -0700 > > At 01:41 PM 10/20/2004 -0500, you wrote: > >That is what the page numbers markup currently does. It hides the page > >numbers for those the minimum, default behavior, but if you have a browser > >that supports it, you can see those page numbers appear. Similarly with > >poetry. It has features that allow the browser to rewrap nicely if there > >is a long line, if the necessary CSS support is there ... but if not, it > >still displays the poem with its normal indents, it just doesn't rewrap > >nicely for you. > > > OK, but I have a question. I regularly use Lynx because of convenience. I > prefer plain text but I will sometimes use lynx to convert html when > necessary. Let's say that I do, in fact, want the page numbers. How am I > supposed to get them if my browser doesn't support it? Lynx doesn't do css > as far as I know, so what you're saying is that page numbers will always be > hidden from me unless I want to look at the raw html source. Because plain > text is, among other things, removing the markup from html, wouldn't that > also eliminate the page numbers? I can use IE and it is accessible to the > blind, but according to what you said IE hides different styles > anyway. So, unless I misunderstood the above completely, some information > will always be inaccessible to me. Right? Please don't tell me to use > Mozilla or some other browser. At some point they will probably be > accessible, but not for now. They are working on it but aren't there yet. > > I would like to repeat that I still prefer plain text and normally I > wouldn't even care about line indents or page numbers. However, it would be > nice to at least be able to access the information if I have a need for it. > > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d >

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Re: [gutvol-d] Re: jeroen's even-handed analysis
by Joshua Hutchinson 21 Oct '04

21 Oct '04

----- Original Message ----- From: Karl Eichwalder <ke(a)gnu.franken.de> > > "Joshua Hutchinson" <joshua(a)hutchinson.net> writes: > > > There will always be plain text files available. > > You do more harm than good with these "plain text files". At least, > please adjust your filename conventions: > > foo.zip -> foo-7.zip > foo-8.zip -> foo.zip > > Otherwise you can fool the innocent downloader easily. And stop wasting > bandwidth: delete all .txt files if a .zip file is available. > Personally, I lump 8-bit and 7-bit text files together when I say plain text files. I wouldn't shed a single tear if we did away with the 7-bit text files from here on out. Then again, I personally, wouldn't shed a tear if we did away with text files completely, but that is a personal preference. 7bit files aren't any easier to read than 8bit files and the lost information (accents, etc) can be significant. As far as the having everything .zip ... that's being a little anal, don'tcha think? Josh

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press releases and puke on a reporter's shoes
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 21 Oct '04

21 Oct '04

marcello said: > 1. 14 Feb 2003: You announce you will > code an open source ebook reader. yes. that was a big joke. :+) i was pulling jon noring's leg. read posts on that listserve. everyone knew i am anti-xml. everyone knew i am anti-oeb. anyone who's stupid enough to think _i_ would be _serious_ in announcing an effort to write an oeb viewer is _really_ stupid. nonetheless, i _would_ have gone ahead with the project if anyone would have responded. as long as _some_ programmers were willing to puzzle through the difficulty of figuring out o.e.b., i'd happily advise them on the u.i. but no one showed up, so it died. that's not unusual. there are many open-source projects on sourceforge that have died with one contributor. heck, there are more than a couple _directly_ for project gutenberg -- creating viewer-programs -- that have died early on the vine... my guess is that jon noring still has less than 3 programmers involved -- jon, care to comment on that? -- in his open-source openreader thing, and david rothman has been flogging openreader _incessantly_ on his blog, even relaying a specific request for mac programmers to join in and help. nonetheless, i would _still_ go ahead with _my_ open-source o.e.b. project, if any programmers were to turn up. do you know any? let's go to work! the more viewers we have, the better. on second thought, have 'em join jon's effort. the fewer open-source projects that _fail_, the better off we will be, in the long run... see, i've prodded jon noring for _years_ to get a viewer-program for his beloved o.e.b. it's _silly_ to propose a "standard format" and then not have any tools that support it! (you need a viewer _and_ an authoring-tool!) i don't know if this joke was the thing that actually got jon to get to work on the task, but if it was, then i am sure glad i did it. (he's a hard worker. if he directed his energy in a productive way, he might do a good job.) actually, it was probably the full-on review i wrote in response to jon's o.e.b. puff piece on ebookweb.com that was the real motivation, if there was anything specific that _i_ did. but whatever got him to pay some attention to the point i'd been making for many years, it was "a good thing", as jon would put it. > 2. 19 Oct 2004: You have nothing to show. _that_ project has "nothing to show". my own viewer-program, which has _never_ been open-source, and probably never will be, not until the open-source community can match it, is ready for beta-testing. have i given the address that people can use to join that beta-test listserve? yes, i do believe i have. > 3. You retroactively declare the announcement to be a joke. it was a joke from the time the post was a gleam in my eye. :+) anyone who knows me knows that i do not do press releases. the mere _thought_ is funny. i puke on the shoes of the press. > 4. You think that did save your face. > Think again. i'm thinking all the time, marcello, all the time... > So you admit you were lying to the press how outrageous! it's _their_ job to lie to _me_! :+) what was i thinking? oh yeah, i know. that "press release" never got any farther than the listserve where i "released" it, which -- if i remember correctly -- was populated by about two posters at the time, jon noring and me. hence, the joke... -bowerbird

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Re: [gutvol-d] Re: aspects of a well-done e-book
by Joshua Hutchinson 21 Oct '04

21 Oct '04

Well, I use CSS to allow the user to switch between showing page numbers and not showing page numbers on the fly. In fact, both CSS style sheets are embedded within the main HTML file so that extra files are unnecessary. Here is a link to a Bay State Monthly issue that uses this feature... http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/7/6/13761/13761-h/13761-h.htm In Mozilla-based browsers, you can switch between the style sheets very easily by clicking the icon in the lower left corner of the browser window. The default setting is NOT to show the page numbers, since the majority of people could care less how the original paper version was numbered. But for those that WANT to know, clicking the Original Page Numbers style will have all the original page numbers appear in the margin. Now Internet Explorer doesn't seem to have a way to switch styles on the fly, which is a shame, but it just defaults to not showing the page numbers. The page numbers are still in the HTML source, though, so someone that needs it can still get to the information is they absolutely had to. I am *hoping* that when the switch to XML/TEI happens in the future, this markup will transition fairly easily, too. Josh ----- Original Message ----- From: "D. Starner" <shalesller(a)writeme.com> To: "Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion" <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] Re: aspects of a well-done e-book Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 18:58:44 -0800 > > Karl Eichwalder writes: > > It is easy to solve this issue using different CSS stylesheets. > > I have three problems with using CSS. First, and most fundamental, > if you want to turn page numbers and line numbers on and off, and > offer a choice of 5 different background colors, you need 20 different > CSS options. Another feature will at least double the number of files. > > Secondly, it doesn't work on many web browsers, and I don't think > that lynx and friends have any intent of ever supporting CSS. > > Lastly, it's never struck me as particularly user-friendly. If you > can point me to a place where it's actually used and it's easy to > change without being a computer science major, I'd appreciate it. > -- > ___________________________________________________________ > Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com > http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm > > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d >

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