January 2011 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Jan '11

29 Jan '11

oh gee, now jim wants me to paint the walls in the den! ok, jim, i'll do it, just to prove that i can, but you're gonna have to learn how to paint yourself, not just keep asking... *** jim said: > God help us all if PG were to implement BB’s > BB-centric view of the world where all of us > have to support BB, instead of BB writing tools that > actually help support the creation of good books for PG. you're looking at output generated by such tools, fool. > Learn how to use the “Shift” key on your keyboard BB, > it would helpful in emails, and in such places as in > your coding of book titles and author names, which > show up all lower case in your MOBI implementation. those are in the toc.ncx files, if you're watching at home. just change the casing if you like, and regenerate the file. these are test runs; the final version of the converter will use the titles exactly as they exist in the actual document. i had to give jim _something_ to complain about, right? i just wanted to see how low he would stoop for something. ends up he'll stoop as low as he can. that's good to know... > Which starts with a gratuitous horizontal rule, > following a gratuitous “v?” that "v" is a link to the wc3 validator. i put that in there once upon a time to make marcello happy. i'll take it out. (you'll find another one at the bottom of the file, which i will probably leave in, because it _is_ convenient if you do want to use the validator; it saves you a lot of hassle. but yes, the final version of the converter will delete it.) > Title page lacking in formatting you'll need to be more specific. what would you like? > Cover ugly but better than what PG currently provides. "ugly"? does this mean that you won't be hiring me to do the cover for your self-published novel, jim? how sad! > Start marker not implemented. you can start at the beginning. it won't hurt you. > Table of Contents not reasonably formatted, > and contains nonsense page numbers. again, show me how you want it formatted, and i will format it the way you show me. as for the page-numbers, they aren't "nonsense". they match the ones in the .pdf that was generated by this same input-file, which means you can meaningfully communicate locations to a person who happens to be using that .pdf. and if you don't need that capability, then you can just ignore the page-numbers. i've taken them out, because you requested the same thing in the .html version, but you need to rethink your position. > Gratuitous “Hot” before “Contents” in the Table of Contents you said that earlier. there's no need to repeat it here. if you gave feedback on the .html version, then i made the changes in the master-format, and those changes will be implemented in the .mobi when i re-generate the .mobi. you do understand that's how a master-format works, right? > Gratuitous double-rule before the TOC you said that earlier. there's no need to repeat it here. > I would think you would want to avoid the use of rules entirely. > Or fake them using mdashes, for example.) would anyone care to second jim's suggestion? because i'm not sure it's a good one, and i would be inclined to ignore it, unless it enjoys broad support... again, i took out the rules in the master-file, because that's what jim suggested, but i won't make it a general practice... > Gratuitous double-rule before dedication you said that earlier. there's no need to repeat it here. i repeat, i took out all of the rules. i know you _think_ that you're making your list of complaints look more substantial than it really is, by repeating this repeatedly, but it actually just shows the opposite, that you have _nothing_ substantial to say, so you're just blabbering. > which lacks sensible formatting show me how you want it formatted, and i'll do it that way. > and is written in a font which is too small. you said that earlier. there's no need to repeat it here. > Gratuitous double-rule before Chapter headings, > which lack sensible formatting. you said that earlier. there's no need to repeat it here. > Use of double-dash where mdash is intended, > and uses spaces around the double-dash > where PG house rules is no space around mdash. you said that earlier. there's no need to repeat it here. > Gratuitous “@@@” multiple places, left aligned. you said that earlier. there's no need to repeat it here. > Poetry implemented using gratuitously ugly “code” font, > and not properly formatting into lines of poetry. you said that earlier. there's no need to repeat it here. > “The End” formatted, capitalized, and styled poorly. you said that earlier. there's no need to repeat it here. > Front Cover repeated at the end of the book. call that the "back cover" if you want. it's an artifact of the silly requirements necessary to generate a .mobi file. > Gratuitous “v?” repeated at end of the book. you said that earlier. there's no need to repeat it here. > Table of contents repeated at end of the book. same silly mobi requirements. _but_ it's not a bad idea to have a table of contents at the end of a book as well, because that's a very convenient location to navigate to. > Front Cover repeated yet again at the end of the book. silly mobi. > Other than that, this very simple book > (from the point of view of formatting and style) > consists simply of words formatted into paragraphs, > with occasional italics, and > you get that aspect of the book correct, fortunately. well, yes, jim, and -- in that particular respect -- it's much like most of the books you do for p.g. take, for instance, that #29452 which you created... i find you used tags for breaks, headings, paragraphs, and italics... you also used the entity for an em-dash... and that's it! that's all the markup you used! so i guess that's why you recognize an easy book when you see one. so let's see you do all the .pdf variations i asked for on this simple book. then we can move on to harder ones. *** jim said: > I don’t need to give them such a tool because > they were given such a tool free with their computer. maybe they don't have a computer. they read on their phone. > Nonsense BB, I have already showed you > how customers can overcome this problem > you are making, but you choose to ignore my suggestion. no, it is _you_ who is ignoring the fact that your second recommendation contradicted the very essence of your first recommendation. > There now, we are getting to the real rub: > Apple made a device which they claim to be no jim, no way, you're not going to squirm out of this by taking this thread into an unproductive rant about apple. this is about _you_, and your suggestion that p.g. should use _html_ as their master-format. that is the topic now. i'm showing you all the problems with that suggestion, and why it is entirely unworkable, and why you should _never_ come back to this listserve and suggest it again. because that suggestion is a waste of time and energy, and only serves to distract people from better directions. -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Jan '11

29 Jan '11

michael said: > so we can try to figure out what devices are > being used the most to download and, presumably, > read our eBooks. . .so we can optimize for those readers. my goodness. no sooner do i issue my "i'm opting out" post than michael hart himself makes a bone-headed statement... you had the right answer _before_, michael. don't go now and let the people-of-wrong mess you up... you do _not_ want to "optimize" for any specific machine, i don't care how many downloads that machine generates. you want a master-format that can convert for any device. the people-of-wrong finally got that part of the equation, but they're still ass-backwards in that they want to _do_ the conversion _for_ your end-users. that's doing it wrong. you want your end-users to download the master-format and then do the conversion for themselves. big difference, because when they have the master-file, they have the power to convert to _any_ format that they might want in the future. it also gives them the ability to control certain variables, which -- believe it or not -- they cannot do in many of the viewer-programs that are out today. just as a "for instance", do you know that an end-user often cannot choose between having a justified rendering versus a ragged-right display? they're _stuck_ with the setting in place during file-creation. that's some major bull-crap, if you ask me. why shouldn't the end-users be able to specify that, to their preference? the answer is that they _can_, if _they_ do the conversion... so give them the ability to do those conversions themselves, using their own preferences on all the important dimensions, for _whatever_ machine they happen to be using at the time... you'll have empowered them by future-proofing them, which is what i'd expect the project gutenberg founded by michael hart would be holding up as its _goal_. or did i misunderstand you? *** jim said: > Namely, html OUGHT to be the default input submission format, > PG providing strong suggestions about how to write good HTML > to well-support EPUB and MOBI, and that pg txt70 files have > pretty much gone the way of the dodo, and ought to be supported > as a file format that is computer-generated -- like EPUB and MOBI > -- via a computer script from the submitted HTML. jim, you seriously need to take your head out of your butt and take a good look around at the scenery for a change... really... a breath of _fresh_air_ would do you a lot of good... seriously... using .html as a master-format would be ludicrous. ridiculous. i would love to see you try to come up with code to make it work. because you would waste a whole lotta time in the feeble attempt, plus it would keep you busy, and occupied, and hopefully quiet... simply, .html needs to be an _output_ format, not an _input_ format. > If BB or other want to muck around with pretty printers > let them do so as a way to help themselves generate > preliminary html which they can then finish cleaning up > before they submit it to PG. "pretty printers?" you display your ignorance so witlessly. using z.m.l. -- or r.s.t. for that matter -- i can churn out an .html file which knocks the socks off anything you do, and i can also churn out a .pdf that looks very _beautiful_ (or "pretty", if you prefer, both words apply fine, thanks.) i can also convert out .epub and .mobi (by using kindlegen). and not only can _i_ do this, but _any_ end-user can do it, if they're talented enough to run an app and click a button. so i see your condescension, and raise it back to you _double_. but, you know, have a nice day, and all that... :+) -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Jan '11

29 Jan '11

jim said: > The problem with doing PDF "once" and "right" as I see it, > is that there are more than one kind of customer for PDF files, > each of which has very different idea of what doing it "right" means. oh, look! jim has decided to show up again. welcome back, jim! and how astute of you, jim, to come to the conclusion to which i have been carefully leading you. that's a very clever strategy... you said "users just want to download a file and have it work". you said that they wouldn't want to do conversions themselves. and you said having .html as "master format" would enable that. but now you are admitting that, for .pdf users anyway, there is virtually no way you're going to be able to make good on your "download a file and have it work" philosophy, so you have _no_alternative_ but to have them do conversions themselves. the problem is that you haven't given them a tool to do that... so your advocacy of .html as a "master format" has _already_ run into some very big obstacles, which you cannot overcome. except you ain't big enough, jim, to actually say "i was wrong". instead, you couch it in terms of the flaws of the .pdf format. but we can see through that ruse, jim. thus i will continue to rub your nose in this little puddle of pee you have made here, until you learn that you need to do that kind of stuff _outside_. > And why are we even talking about say "8.5 x 11" ? > Because PDF *IS* a paper descriptor format, > it IS NOT an eBook Format. don't keep saying idiotic things, jim, or i'll have to call you an idiot... nobody here is really talking about printing things out. even when carlo mentioned it in passing, it was only to say that people _can_ print out a half-sheet format to a full-size sheet of paper by just printing out the pages in a 2-up format, which is not a big deal... (you even twisted _that_, by trying to change it to a discussion of how someone would take 8.5*11 and _reduce_ it for 2-up printing.) but we are talking about people who _choose_ to read an e-book in the .pdf format. it's one of the most common choices out there. check at manybooks.com... or oreilly.com... or feedbooks.com... so even if _you_ want to sweep it under the rug, we won't _let_ you. besides, look at the very _topic_ of this thread -- ipads, and the huge number of them that were sold in just 9 months last year... it just so happens that, if you create a .pdf correctly, it will work _quite_nicely_ on an ipad. maybe better than any other format... > The next issue is should the PDF have margins > or not and if so how wide. blah blah blah. i've already made the point crystal-clear. it's impractical to create enough .pdf to cover all possibilities. so you're gonna have to give users a tool to do it themselves... just admit that _you_ cannot make good on your own suggestion to create a model where users just "download a book and read", so we can move on to the _next_ phase of your education, jim... because i'm not gonna let you wiggle out of this issue _again_, and have you show up here in another 15 months still spouting this same old nonsense. we're gonna end the issue _right_now_. -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Jan '11

29 Jan '11

i'm still waiting on jim to show up, so i cranked out the .mobi version of the file, 'cause he has a kindle, so i assume he'd like to see what my stuff looks like. > http://z-m-l.com/go/jjngl/jjngl.mobi i don't have a kindle, so i would be very happy to receive any feedback on how the file works. the kindlegen program requires a few other files, in addition to the .html, so i put 'em up there too. > http://z-m-l.com/go/jjngl/ the .html doesn't validate now, because there are 33 errors (or, to be more precise, one "error" that is repeated 33 times), namely the kindle command for a pagebreak, which i threw before each chapter. no, i don't care how much marcello whines about it. -bowerbird p.s. i am available for hire to create book covers...

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Jan '11

29 Jan '11

jim said:: > Would that it be so simple BB. actually, jim, there isn't anything difficult about any of the suggestions you've made. some of them are just fluff, but tell you what... i will make them, just to show that i can, and then i'll expect you to make all of the changes that i've asked for in the samples you've shown. now, jim, first, you _do_ know, do you not?, that most all of the things you asked for are obtained via simple changes to the stylesheet? i mean, you _know_ that, right? i would assume so, but i have to ask, because -- just as one "for instance" -- here is the stylesheet for one book you created for p.g., with only the angle-brackets stripped out: > STYLE TYPE="text/css" > BODY { color: Black; > background: White; > margin-right: 10%; > margin-left: 10%; > font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; > text-align: justify } > /STYLE that's it! the full totality of your stylesheet! since i am a big fan of simplicity, jim, i must say that what you've done is really something! but it makes me feel a need to ask whether you understand that these stylesheets determine the way that your book _looks_, and therefore make it very simple to _control_ how it looks... because, frankly, you sure do shriek a lot, and throw around ugly words like "ugly"... (which is doubly ironic, because then you turn around and try to use "pretty printer" as an insult; make up your mind already.) but when you get to specifics that'd be useful, you reveal that it's all surface, zero substance. you criticize the _house,_ but it ends up that -- once you are forced to reveal specifics -- you seem to know little about problems with the foundation, or the flaws in the plumbing, or the danger posed by the balloon-payment in the mortgage, whereas your main issues are you don't like the color of the bathroom walls, and you'd rather keep the peanut-butter in the cupboard instead of the fridge, and you wish that the garage shelves wouldn't be so messy. and the funny thing is that you seem to think that moving to a new house will _solve_ all of the problems you have with the present one... *** anyway, i'll go off and make those changes that you asked for, jim, and you go off and make the ones that i asked _you_ to make, and we will meet back here tomorrow and exchange samples. don't try to slip away, jim, because, as i said, i'll hunt you down... -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Jan '11

29 Jan '11

ok, while i was waiting for jim to show up, i did the .html conversion for "the jungle", since that's the one from me that jim will want to look at first, for our competition... you can find it here: > http://z-m-l.com/go/jjngl/jjngl.html if anyone -- especially you, jim -- has any changes they'd like me to make to the file, let me know. this .html will serve as the building-block for the .mobi and .epub versions... voila! -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Jan '11

29 Jan '11

jim said: > Someone may say they want PDF, > and you may generate it for them, > but it still won’t work unless you > correctly guess what device and > format they want the PDF for. jim, no you may not squirm out of your lesson here by changing to my side in the middle of the lesson... you will have to say -- out loud -- you were wrong. > if you looked at the statistics of > what it is that PG users actually download. i will be making the very exact same arguments against .mobi and .epub, so no, jim, this is not a way for you to squirm out of the lesson either. > Write to a KISS subset of HTML that will "correctly" > render to the widest possible number > of HTML, EPUB, and MOBI readers. more obfuscation to avoid admitting the obvious... now it's a "kiss subset" of .html and not .html itself. only of course the subset has not been defined, nor has it proven itself, nor are any of the tools in place. address all those obstacles to _prove_ that it works, jim, and then come back with your miracle solution. some of us have enough experience to know that what you're talking about might _sound_ good to someone who doesn't have that same experience, but it falls apart quickly if you examine it closely. go over to the d.p. boards, and you will already see that people are complaining about having to adopt a restricted subset of .html. "why can't we use it all?" "why should be accept a dumbed-down version of it?" and there are many versions of .html floating around, from 4.01-transitional to html5 to the xml variants, to the retarded version of stuff that works on a kindle. people who know one of these versions will think they "already know" your version, and you'll have to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy "correcting" the work that they do, which will only piss them off... > The way “feedbooks.com does it” is to dumb-down gawd, i forgot how frustrating it is to "argue" with you, thanks to your lack of any reading comprehension skills. when i said "look at how feedbooks.com does it", it was with respect to user-customization of their .pdf output. it had nothing to do with the way they code their books. but of course, you don't read well enough to grasp that. unless, that is, you are _deliberately_ confusing matters, as yet another maneuver in your attempt to squirm out... which reminds me... no, jim, it's also not going to work for you to try to use a "flood the listserve with inane comments and posts so that everyone gets fed up and stops reading the thread". because i am going to come back, on a regular basis, and point out that you _failed_ to demonstrate a model where .html files could be used as the "master-format". i'm gonna keep pointing it out until it is drilled into the brains of everyone here that that is what you failed to do. so the next time you come here and try to pitch that crap, everyone will remember that you never did prove it to work. > I already did this BB no, you didn't do this. you didn't do anything even close. you just flapped your trap. you showed us _zero_ proof. you say there is big demand for .html, .mobi, and .epub. yes, i agree. and we should meet that demand. agreed! but that gets us nowhere. the point is that the .html files currently in the library often create crappy .mobi and crappy .epub, and they give users very little capability to create useful .pdf... most e-books in the library already have an .html version, so all you have to do is to _make_those_versions_work_... show marcello how to convert 'em into .mobis and .epubs that will make _all_ of the .mobi and .epub users happy... i know you're never going to be able to do that, because even if reflowable formats solve (some) viewport issues, they don't solve other issues like curly-quotes-vs-straight, or block-paragraphs-vs-indented, or justified-vs-ragged. so people are still going to want to _customize_ their .mobis and .epubs to their own preferences, if they can. but even aside from that, given all the wrinkles in the .html versions that currently exist, you cannot ensure quality conversions of those .html files to _any_ format. even a "plain-vanilla" .mobi or .epub. which, by the way, might work quite differently in all the viewers out there. are you going to be tweaking them for different viewers? before you know it, you'll have 32 versions of each .mobi, and 32 of each .epub, exactly like you have 32 for .pdf... yet you still want to argue that .html should be exalted as _the_master_format_ for all of project gutenberg... and you seem not to realize how ludicrous that sounds. here's what you need to do if you want us to be believers. you need to show people how to make .html that will convert into excellent .mobi and excellent .epub, and you need to show people you can have the volunteers adopt your particular brand of .html as their own, and you need to show that they can then actually bring in files that utilize your particular brand of .html, and you need to show the whitewashers can _maintain_ it, and finally, that the end-result makes end-users happy. that's what you need to do, jim. and you cannot do it. did you hear me, jim? i said that _you_cannot_do_it_... prove me wrong, jim. go ahead. prove it. i dare you. because if you don't, i'm going to drill it in to everyone that you have failed to make good on your suggestion... i promise you i will, jim. so your choices are very clear. -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 29 Jan '11

29 Jan '11

michael said: > Was there a suggestion that > Project Gutenberg should not host .epubs? um... just go back and read the messages, michael. don't jump in at the middle and misconstrue it all... > Or is bowerbird just phishing for > donations of books to him that were > not forthcoming FROM him when requested. . . ? what in the world are you talking about? first, do you know what "phishing" means? if so, then explain yourself... if not, then perhaps you should not throw it around... bob asked if p.g. would host his custom .epubs. hearing no response, _i_ offered to do him the favor. so if you want to try and twist _that_ around, be my guest... but at least take the time to actually figure out what you are really doing... -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Jan '11

28 Jan '11

bob said: > and spent a little time looking at them on my Sony Reader: fantastic! thank you for a very close and observant analysis... these are the kind of reviews that we need more of! *** jim, where are you? don't flake on me now, buddy; i will roam the wide countryside to hunt you down... so, that .pdf you pointed us to is pretty good, really. i might have a few qualms, like, for instance, i would suggest that you not put the chapter-headings at the very top of a page, they need some breathing-room, but for the most part, the .pdf is pretty good, and you can trust me when i say that, because i wouldn't say it if it wasn't true (right?), and also because i know how to analyze the functionality of a .pdf closely, including minutia about which i do not yet care to educate you... but the .pdf still leaves a few things to be desired... for instance, you don't give people a way to skip to the hotlinked table of contents from any place in the book, which i would suggest, since its location on page 5 is not exactly all that convenient. page 2, right behind the title-page, would be better. (which reminds me, can you get rid of the p.g. legalese? we don't need it.) this exacerbates the rather serious problem that this .pdf lacks the normal table-of-contents that you will traditionally find in the sidebar, a very useful feature. (and no, those little page-icons are not a substitute.) while i'm on this topic of the linked table of contents, i'm sorry to say that i must report that the links do not work correctly, beginning with the one for chapter two. they consistently jump to a page which is one page shy. you will want to fix that bug. finally, we should all acknowledge that this .pdf reports it was produced by microsoft office 2007, which is _not_ something that will work in the p.g. production pipeline. so, jim, can you give us something that will support your contention that p.g. should use .html as its master format? -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Jan '11

28 Jan '11

> But which PDF should it be? > > PDF letter for U.S.? > PDF A4 for the rest of us? > PDF for Kindle? > Kindle DX? no matter which one you choose, someone will be unhappy with it... some of these devices do _not_ let you zoom in or zoom out, so the .pdf has to be right-sized from the get-go, or it's a no-go. so you have to let the user specify; see how feedbooks.com does it... of course, there is the alternative of giving 'em a tool that lets _them_ generate the output .pdf according to the dimensions that they've specified, which can entail more than pagesize. including things like block-paragraph vs. indented, curly quotes vs. straight, choice of font, choice of font-size, choice of leading, background color, and any number of other variables... or, you know, you can try to put _all_ of the options in your web-converter. -bowerbird

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