February 2012 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

why did you put it like that?
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 08 Feb '12

08 Feb '12

don said: > BTW, if that's z-m-l, then you could have it > integrated into wordpress as > a fully functional input format, > with html one-button preview and everything, > with a couple hours' work. to address the point you make, my "aspirations" are far greater than being an input format for wordpress. (i put "aspirations" in quotes because i just _tinker_... so i don't care if any of my work goes anywhere or not. those people who tell you that i want to "rule the world" are simply crazy. i don't. no time. and i'm far too lazy. but to the extent that i recognize the scope of my work, it is far more valuable than being a mere "input format".) but i appreciate the good intent of your suggestion, i do. > If that's the extent of what's required for this project, > that much could be functional in half an hour. again recognizing that you're coming from a positive place, i respond that this is enough for a simple book, and there's thousands and thousands of them in the p.g. library, but no, what i'm doing requires more than what this book demanded. your important point is that this is elementary to implement. yes, it is, don, i agree. and i have been saying that for years. but even though it would be simple to be an input format for wordpress, and not take much time, i'm not interested in that. i have bigger fish to fry. and yes, it would probably be "a good investment", and would "spread the word" about .zml, and all of those good things, but like i said, i don't really have a lot of ambition to take it viral... *** but, to me, don, _this_ was the perplexing part of your post: > BTW, if that's z-m-l, then why did you put it like that, don? i mean, my response is "yes, that is .zml...", but it strikes me as extremely curious that you did not seem to _know_ that that is what .zml is... how is it that you felt a need to _specify_ that was z.m.l.? after all these years, all these posts and all the kerflooey, how is it possible that you don't know what .zml looks like? and how it morphs while traversing a publishing workflow? haven't you ever looked at any of the demos i've mounted? i'm confused, don. please explain. at any rate, if you want a much better idea of what .zml is, you should look at the test-suite that i mounted last month. *** don said: > Rather than inline style, you could also have just changed it to: except that i went over to inline styles as part of the experiment, which was to ditch the stylesheet completely. i might or might not retain that approach, but that decision doesn't exert much impact. > and you would have exactly the same appearance, with > greater granularity of control over all the chapter headings. my converter program has all the granularity of control it needs. > And if you change the css for whatever reason, > you run no risk of unintentionally messing up > all the other stuff someone has called "<h2>". except that my conversion-routine assigns all the tags itself, and for the sole purpose (as far as this .html is concerned) of being an intermediate format on the way to becoming a .mobi. i am showing y'all this .html solely so you can evaluate it, and tweak it if you think tweaking would improve it, but this won't ever be .html that i expect any users to be dealing with, at all, let alone "messing up" with their unwise application of tags... i might make it available to them, but they won't modify it, not under anything but the most unusual of circumstances. nor will any of 'em probably want to. nor will i want them to. if something needs to be changed, we'll change the converter, not any output. the output is merely a symptom of a problem. also, this is _not_ the .html which i will offer for use on a p.c. (it's far too primitive to use in a high-capability environment, where people will rightfully expect a little bit more eye-candy.) nor is this the .html i will use when i convert to .epub output. (especially as .epub3 is still vapor, and .epub2 requires xhtml.) or -- to say it another way -- i don't "chain" my conversions... i create all of them independently. i believe that works better. anyway, don, i hope i've addressed all of your points... -bowerbird

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spam
by Marc D'Hooghe 07 Feb '12

07 Feb '12

That level has been reached again for some days (BB) - I'm aware (for sometime already) that a number of people with valuable opinions) don't take the trouble anymore to view this mailing list - can't blame them... -- Marc FreeLiterature.org <http://www.freeliterature.org>

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and you don't even seem to know
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 07 Feb '12

07 Feb '12

gosh, so i check back in with him, once, to give him a chance to redeem himself, but i see jim is up to his usual disinformation... *** jim said: > But that is *not* what BB is *actually* talking about. anyone who is depending on _jim_ to tell them what i am "actually" talking about will have some serious problems. even after years of explanations, jim still can't grasp it... jim acts like i don't want .html. or .mobi. or .epub. silly. i was arguing for _all_ formats before jim ever came here. and i'm showing everyone the easiest way to generate them, and maintain a library with a large number of e-books in it. and i say this in extremely clear language, with simple words, which even an average kid in the fourth-grade can understand. but jim? not. > Rather, BB is talking about trying to > *force* all volunteers to do it his way well -- "actually" -- jim, it's more accurate to say that i'm not _allowing_ either p.g. or d.p. the _opportunity_ to do it my way, because i don't share code with them or leave my demo apps up so they can continue using them. i've refrained from releasing stuff, just so d.p. won't have it. what i _am_ sharing is the idea itself, so they can use it to create a working system, and better tools, for themselves. the idea is very straightforward. convert your plain-text into all of the various derivative formats that you require. and while you've all been telling me that "it can't be done", i've been busy doing it, and gradually rolling out the proof. while simultaneously puncturing your pride, so you grew too stubborn to do anything but ignore the proof i present. so now i've proven it beyond any kind of reasonable doubt, but since your heads are all in the sand, you still disbelieve, and we record it here, so the future will know you're stupid. and you don't even seem to know you've been duped. -bowerbird

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who hath ears to hear, let him hear
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 07 Feb '12

07 Feb '12

because it hurts extremely deeply to feel the pain of smashing defeat, my antagonists will continue with their wailing and gnashing of teeth, as i make them pay the karmic price for years of cruelty heaped upon me. because, you know, i was right all along. when a kid has the hair-pulling phase, you have to pull their hair in response, _sharply_, and every time, without fail, to show them exactly what it feels like, and to let them know they will not win. make 'em think before they do it again. does this mean i like pulling their hair? of course not. it uses time and energy, and detracts from the reason we're here. but it must be done, unfortunately, to make 'em think before they do it again. sadly, though, some kids learn "slow"... *** for the record, of 300+ posts this week, i made 21, which works out to under 7%. (my rank is 4th place; don's 21% is top.) plus i'll put the signal-to-noise ratio of my 7% in a comparison with anyone else. heck, i created more signal last week than some of my detractors have made in years. again, sad, but true. (and they kill-file me, so they don't know it, which makes delightful and delicious irony, so we have sad and funny, in one package.) *** anyway, back to work, folks... nothing to see here, move along... ;+) -bowerbird

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Re: [gutvol-d] RST/PGTEI/etc
by Lee Passey 07 Feb '12

07 Feb '12

On Mon, February 6, 2012 2:47 pm, don kretz wrote: > I would assume PG must be doing something like this now for html files for ereaders. If you know an html file is going to an ereader format, and you know the default css has, say, irrational margins, you adjust the css. It's what css is for. The last I had heard explicitly was that was that inline styles were forbidden, and external CSS stylesheets were likewise forbidden. Sometimes I have seen really ugly internal stylesheets created by the Tidy function that moves inline styles to internal stylesheets. I haven't examined Mr. Perathoner's epubmaker program, so I don't know if any of these internal stylesheets are rewritten during the conversion process, but based on the specifics of Mr. Adcock's complaints I suspect that they are not.

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APA: Feature Set
by Keith J. Schultz 07 Feb '12

07 Feb '12

Hi All, Lets discuss features. We need to describe the structures to be found in a book and those that need be addressed. A Note for the light weight or zero marker uppers this specification will tend to lean towards a middle weight mark up feature set. Why. Well, because it eases the handling of certain features. E.g quoting, more of that when we discuss it. It does not mean you have to do it as is discussed in this approach, but you will see the benefit as far as computational value is concerned. 1) Encoding and Character Sets 2) Fonts, Font Sizes and Character formating 3) Indentation 4) Margins 5) Page Numbers 6) Line Endings and Spacing 7) Table of Contents & other Tables of 8) Indices 9) Images 10) Chapters 11) Paragraphs 12) Quotes and quoting 13) Lists 14) Tabular Features (regular tables) 15) Page Headers 16) Page Footers 17) Footnotes 18) Multi-Column Layout Did I miss something important? regards Keith

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pride. and prejudice.
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 07 Feb '12

07 Feb '12

ok, greg, i made a .mobi for "pride and prejudice". just to remind you, here's the .zml plain-text file: > http://zenmagiclove.com/prapr/prapr.zml and here's the (newly reworked) .html file: > http://zenmagiclove.com/prapr/prapr.html and here's the .mobi file: > http://zenmagiclove.com/prapr/prapr.mobi and here are the auxiliary files for that .mobi: > http://zenmagiclove.com/prapr/prapr.ncx > http://zenmagiclove.com/prapr/prapr.opf > http://zenmagiclove.com/prapr/prapr.jpg copy these files where you like for the tournament. but i assume that place will _not_ be here: > http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1342 even though marcello's work for the tournament -- i.e., the files generated from his .rst master -- are sitting in that place, at 4pm pacific daylight... and while it is true that the original .html file -- by david widger -- still shows on that page, the "plain-text" file is _not_ the one from david. it's the one from marcello's .rst file, which has eliminated all mention of david widger's name, at least as far as i see, your "policy" be damned. *** as noted above, i reworked the .html file which i had obtained initially out of my converter, to customize the .html specifically for the kindle. but that treats the symptom, not the problem. so what i will do now is improve the converter, so when it outputs its .html file for the kindle, not just for this book, but other books as well, that file will include the modifications i made. that's how you do "incremental improvement." here's the .html file from earlier: > http://zenmagiclove.com/prapr/prapr-old.html and again, here's the reworked .html: > http://zenmagiclove.com/prapr/prapr.html if you want, you can compare those two files, to see what changes i had to make, although it probably will not be that interesting to you. but one note that you _might_ find interesting is that these .html files are _html5_, and they validate (if you remove the mobi pagebreaks). another interesting observation is that -- even though .mobi is a primitive format -- kindlegen swallows this entire 888k .html file in one gulp, unlike the .epub format, where you have to cut the meat up into bite-sized 300k pieces so the crippled viewer-apps can chew them properly... -bowerbird

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hit in the middle of the road, bloody and with broken bones
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 06 Feb '12

06 Feb '12

project gutenberg was hit in the middle of the road, bloody and bruised, and with a ton of broken bones. so what do you guys do? you make a circle-jerk, trying to create a dialog on how you should draw up plans to build a hospital... it's all very amusing. except, you know, for the guy in the middle of the road. *** marc d'hooghe said: > All those who are comma fucking and > mosquito sifting right now - what does > all that mean to the general public? fantastic question, marc. thanks for asking it. i answered you, and turned it into an e-book... you can access that book online, here: > http://z-m-l.com/go/ansmd/ansmdp001.html i'll also append the text of the book here, but since my approach was an examination of _screen-shots_ from a couple p.g. kindle files, it'll probably be better to view the thing online, so you see the screen-shots. if you want to review the screen-shots separately, they all can be found in that very same directory: > http://z-m-l.com/go/ansmd/ansmdp001.png > http://z-m-l.com/go/ansmd/ansmdp002.png ... > http://z-m-l.com/go/ansmd/ansmdp025.png once you actually _look_ at these derivative formats, like i do here, you realize that there are a few flaws in the converter that account for a large number of the goofy stuff that most users find so objectionable, meaning that it wouldn't be hard to fix the problems, and thereby increase end-user-satisfaction immensely. which is the right way to _start_ treating this patient who is bloody and bruised in the middle of the road. -bowerbird {{ansmdp001.png}} watching alice by bowerbird [[1]] {{ansmdp002.png}} table of contents watching alice ......... 1 table of contents ......... 2 the object of this drill ......... 3 so what do we see right away? ......... 4 the title-page screen ......... 5 divorce is not good for the children ......... 6 and now the corpse... i mean the body ......... 7 a tail of woe ......... 8 paragraphs set adrift in the sea ......... 9 shall we dance? ......... 10 maybe we need an update of the input ......... 11 did you ever do collage in school? ......... 12 i majored in collage at college ......... 13 blue plate special coming right up ......... 14 more paragraphs set adrift at sea ......... 15 this screen hit an iceberg and is now sinking ......... 16 use extreme caution due to wide load ahead ......... 17 another tail of woe ......... 18 getting a head of your self ......... 21 a much nicer dance ......... 22 followed by vomit on the dance-floor ......... 23 left to die all alone by yourself ......... 24 so that does it for the kindle versions ......... 25 [[2]] {{ansmdp003.png}} the object of this drill marc d'hooghe said: > All those who are comma fucking > and mosquito sifting right now - > what does all that mean to the > general public? please enlighten? excellent questions, marc! i'm not too sure i know what the other people here have in mind... but my intentions with these issues are _to_root_out_the_huge_failure._ the .epubs and .mobis generated by project gutenberg are _flawed._ they often do not work right, and even when they "do", they're ugly. so i'll point out some of the flaws, so you see what i'm talking about. i'm gonna work with a classic text: alice's adventures in wonderland... many e-book aficionados consider "alice" to be the flagship e-book... michael hart, for instance, loved it. so let's take a look at this trophy... as befitting the legendary status of this book, its p.g. e-text # is 11... > http://gutenberg.org/ebooks/11 so let's take a look at the .mobi and the .epub which p.g. auto-generates, shall we? today we'll do the .mobi version... this is not an _exhaustive_ review -- i won't point to all the flaws -- but rather just an illustrative one. so let's get right to it, shall we? [[3]] {{ansmdp004.png}} so what do we see right away? this is what we see right away... legalese is ugly. make it go away. [[4]] {{ansmdp005.png}} the title-page screen here's the "title-page" screen. it has the title, but that's all. there's room for more stuff -- like the author's name -- but nothing more is here... [[5]] {{ansmdp006.png}} divorce is not good for the children we have to wait for the second screen to learn the author. and then, again, that's all we get. a big screen, with nothing but the author's name on it and a line informing us of the edition. [[6]] {{ansmdp007.png}} and now the corpse... i mean the body now we get to the actual text. good. except that's not a very nice header. the word "chapter" is all-uppercase, which gives it unnecessary gravitas, compared to the title of the chapter, which is entirely more informative... and the way the chapter-number and the chapter-title run together is ugly. the original p-book had the number on one line, and the title beneath it; that's a much better way to display it. also, we see that this book still has the all-uppercase version of _italics,_ so we sigh at the antiquated practice. [[7]] {{ansmdp008.png}} a tail of woe one of the famous things in "alice" is the formatting of "the mouse's tale". it plays off the "tail/tale" homonym, as the type was set in the shape of the curled tail of a mouse, complete with the nice touch that the type got _smaller_ toward the end of the tail. e-book viewer-programs can't manage small type as nicely as the printed page, but we should at least get the _shape_ of the tail right. but alas, the formatting here simply pulls all the lines to the left. that has to be regarded as a _total_fail._ you cannot mangle something so iconic... (and if you _are_ gonna mangle it, then at least show the people a _picture_ of what you _should_ have done for 'em.) [[8]] {{ansmdp009.png}} paragraphs set adrift in the sea another problem with this file is that the paragraphs have been set adrift... the spacing between paragraphs is too large. it's as if there are _two_ blank lines between each paragraph. one would be sufficient. indeed, since these paragraphs are also _indented,_ some people would "inform" you that there should be _no_ blank space between the paragraphs. they'll tell you that you have to use _either_ block-style or indent-style. i don't know about that. i kinda like the hybrid style, especially with only half a blank line between paragraphs. but two blank lines between paragraphs? that's clearly too much, and it's a big flaw on pages like this, with many paragraphs. (pages with a lot of dialog are the worst.) also note that the last few paragraphs on this page are not tagged correctly... they're in a different font, monospaced, and with the formatting being improper. [[9]] {{ansmdp010.png}} shall we dance? this page contains "the lobster dance", yet another famous piece in the book. as you see, it's not formatted very nicely. the monospaced font is particularly ugly... but even in a regular font, it wouldn't work. the long-line/short-line pacing is faulty... [[10]] {{ansmdp011.png}} maybe we need an update of the input ok, so we see that venerable #11 is _not_ looking all that good when p.g. updates it with generated formats for the modern age. but maybe a more-recent rendering will? especially one which started life with .html, rather than as a .txt file like good old #11? so let's look at #28885, dated may of 2009, done by -- among others -- jana, who just posted here recently, so might provide input. the first thing to notice, again, is the legalese -- an awful way to present a book to a person. like a good dish, the presentation _matters..._ and yet another thing to notice here is that the table of contents -- in the left panel -- is defective. none of the chapters are listed. oops. and ok, yes, if you click on "contents", you are taken to the table of contents, where the individual chapters _are_ listed and linked. the purpose of the contents in the left-panel, however, is precisely so you see the contents _without_ having to jump to the contents page, so you don't have to leave the page you are on. so right off the bat, we have a major flaw here, with the fact of that missing table-of-contents. [[11]] {{ansmdp012.png}} did you ever do collage in school? this next screenshot is the "title-page" screen. it's "interesting", that's for sure, kind of a collage, with the title-type rendered at the screen-bottom. i'm not sure it's too impressive as a "title-page", but i give it credit for being artsy and creative... [[12]] {{ansmdp013.png}} i majored in collage at college more creativity via collage on the next screen... [[13]] {{ansmdp014.png}} blue plate special coming right up next up, we have a "list of the plates", hotlinked. this is really nice. people like to look at pictures, and this gives them a fairly easy way to do that... so bonus points here for convenience for the user. unfortunately, before i can even add in the bonus, i will have to subtract points for some major flaws. first up, we have the chapter starting mid-screen. this is very bad, and serves as a frightening omen. moreover, the chapter-title isn't made prominent. it's not in bigger type. it's not bold. not centered. none of the trappings that would mark it as a title have been included here. again, this is a big flaw. meanwhile, as before, "chapter" is all-caps. ugly. but then, these problems are compounded further. we see the postprocessor tried to "get fancy" here, and installed a drop-cap. yes, it's very "decorative", but .mobi doesn't handle images very well right now, so the drop-cap -- the letter "a" -- goes on one line, and the rest of the word/sentence continues _below._ so instead of starting with "alice was beginning to", the line now says "lice was beginning to", and i don't think _lice_ is something the reader should conjure at this point in time, right at the start of this story... alice has quite beautiful hair, and we don't want to have to wonder if she's been infested with head-lice. that's not what the "wonder" in wonderland is about. [[14]] {{ansmdp015.png}} more paragraphs set adrift at sea this screen reveals this version, too, has the glitch of too much space between paragraphs. plus, in addition, there is a _ton_ of space on top of "down, down, down". i don't know what the problem is, but this is a problem. [[15]] {{ansmdp016.png}} this screen hit an iceberg and is now sinking on the next screenshot, we see we have some troubles with orphans. many reader-programs have this flaw, and there isn't a whole lot we can do to _avoid_ it, but what we see here is that bad omen i mentioned earlier. chapter 2 starts right beneath it, and thus _exacerbates_ the orphan. a new chapter should start on a new screen, to wash away any memory of an orphan right before it. and, of course, we have the chapter-title which doesn't _look_ like it's a title, the overbearing all-caps "chapter", and the embarrassing drop-cap too. not to mention the spacey paragraphs. in addition, we have an _invitation_ which is not formatted nicely, as it was in the p-book... so all in all, this screen is pretty much a disaster. [[16]] {{ansmdp017.png}} use extreme caution due to wide load ahead the next screenshot shows us a page containing a picture. the postprocessor floated the picture to the right and put the caption to the left of it. which works very nicely here, because i have a large monitor. but it should be obvious that such a design won't work as well on a smaller screen. there, it works better to put a caption _below_ its image... also, given that the picture takes up so much of the screen, the spacey paragraphs below seem even more isolated and the screen ends up having far too much white-space on it... [[17]] {{ansmdp018.png}} another tail of woe here we have the mouse-tail. once again, a total failure... [[18]] {{ansmdp019.png}} ...complete utter failure... [[19]] {{ansmdp020.png}} ...all the way to the end... also, here's yet another page with lots of dialog, which causes our spacey paragraphing to grow discomforting to what is an unbearable extreme. [[20]] {{ansmdp021.png}} getting a head of your self and now that bad omen morphs into a bad dream, what with a chapter-head separated from its body. when you start each chapter on a new screen, you avoid the possibility of decapitations like this one. [[21]] {{ansmdp022.png}} a much nicer dance the lobster dance got formatted better in this version than it was formatted in the .mobi for the earlier one. seems a bit weird that the last line of each verse is separated, but maybe that's how the p-book had it. i don't remember it that way, but, uh... alzheimer's. i'd also wanna check indentation against the p-book, but that's also an issue of postprocessor prerogative, and i don't have any objections to how it looks now. [[22]] {{ansmdp023.png}} followed by vomit on the dance-floor the verse on this page, however, is done very badly... [[23]] {{ansmdp024.png}} left to die all alone by yourself it's really embarrassing when your whole book ends on an orphan. embarrassing for you, and the company who programmed the app that did such a stupid thing. (i'm looking at you, amazon. looking squarely at you.) and yeah, the transcriber's note, which instructs you to hover the mouse over a correction (with its dotted line) in order to get the original text, will be quite amusing to people reading on their iphones and tablets and all the other form-factors which don't happen to have a mouse. it just goes to show the mindset of the post-processor... they think they're making e-books for the ages, and they seem to have no idea how limited their vision actually is... if there's anything we should have learned by now, it's that whatever our idea of the future, the future will be not-that. oh yeah, and now we have the legalese at the book's end... it assaulted us on the way in, and now again on the way out. please just make it go away. put it in an "about" box that end-users can totally and completely and utterly _ignore._ i'll accept one line -- a link to the legalese on the p.g. site. anything more than that is _too_much._ make it go away... [[24]] {{ansmdp025.png}} ok, so that does it for the kindle versions so, we've looked at two versions of "alice in wonderland", and found that the kindle edition which is generated is, to put it mildly, flawed. many of the problems _could_ be solved by simple improvements to the converter routine, having the appeal of fixing other auto-generated versions. some of the other problems might require some easy edits to the input-files, so that they will be converted correctly... but there appears to be no reason that this book cannot display nicely on the kindle, befitting its status as legend. sometime later this week, we'll take a look at the .epubs which are generated by the project gutenberg converter. -bowerbird [[25]]

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gee
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 06 Feb '12

06 Feb '12

greg said: > What tournament? > You're the one who imagined it gee... somehow i got the impression that -- under the rubric of "crowdsourcing" -- you were _soliciting_ "improved" versions of p.g. books, versions that were "fixed" and "tweaked" such that they gave people "better" experiences, either because they had had their typos and errors "corrected", or because they were "more friendly" with some hardware/software, or a combination of both those factors. i _also_ thought that you proposed to "host" these "new" versions, _and_ that the "best" one -- out of many that were "submitted", thanks to dedicated efforts by volunteers -- might get "folded back into" the p.g. library (nudging the present files to the "old" folder) subject to careful "evaluation" and "approval" by the whitewashers who would "analyze" 'em closely, _and_ that the workflows and tools that created these "superior" versions could well be considered for "adoption" by p.g. but i dunno... i guess i got all of that wrong... i just can't tell where i got all those silly ideas. oh, yeah, right, i "imagined" it. hey, no wonder people always tell me i have a good imagination. because heck no, we don't "compete" here -- we get along and be agreeable with each other. *** > you are competing by yourself oh please, greg. i already _won_ this horse-race. i won when you and marcello and p.g. officially adopted light-markup -- which was _my_ horse! your tei/xml horse went down on the backstretch. plus, with the charismatic marcello now doing his famous ram-it-down-their-throats schtick, i'm winning again, because you're _botching_ it. even with a better horse, your jockey can't win. even better horse _and_ he cheats, he can't win. you're more right than you seem to know, greg: yes, quite indeed, i _am_ competing by myself... *** but... ya know... we're all one big happy family, pulling together, living in peace and harmony... *** the doublespeak and lack of integrity here is starting to become seriously troubling... not to mention the _noise_, now overwhelming... signal, anyone? is anybody picking up any signal? -bowerbird

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doxie -- could be a game-changer
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 06 Feb '12

06 Feb '12

portable scanner. looks like a 3-hole punch. take a look, and set a price, in your head, that is the maximum price that you'd pay. then look at the prices. see what you say. good -- just the scanner: > http://www.getdoxie.com/product/doxie/index.html better -- scanner plus abbyy, so it does o.c.r. itself: > http://www.getdoxie.com/product/doxie-go/index.html best -- scanner plus abbyy plus wi-fi, syncs to the cloud: > http://www.getdoxie.com/product/doxie-go-wifi/index.html could be a game-changer for some of you... -bowerbird

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