On 10/19/2012 6:17 AM, James Adcock wrote:
This is stupid.
Ahh, I see you are a graduate of the BowerBird/Perathoner school of rhetoric. Do go on...
The job of the typesetter is to make intelligent typographical decisions -- including understanding how the limitations of the media he is targeting is going to affect those choices.
Perhaps, but it begs the question, "who is the typesetter?" Back in ancient times, books were read from flimsy sheets of processed wood pulp, mass-produced by applying dyes from large machines called "printing presses." Back in those days, a quasi-priesthood developed called "typesetters." Like their forerunners, the masons, this society spent years developing the arcane knowledge of how best to represent words on pages. These "typesetters" existed because setting up a printing press was an expensive proposition, and once the presses started rolling you would have thousands of copies before they would stop again. If you were going to successfully sell the book, it was important that the layout and typography would appeal, if not to the majority of readers, at least to the plurality. Printing a book to appeal to the tastes of a single reader was the ultimate vanity publishing, and simply impractical. I have noticed a tendency among human beings--certainly not universal, but common--to become dogmatic about their beliefs. Eventually, the practical, empirical lessons about typesetting best practices, learned from observation and empirical evidence, became articles of faith: "There is but one way to layout a book, and it is /my/ way! If you, lowly reader, don't like the way your book looks you are a sinner, and need to return to values of the masses, which /I/, of course, represent!" This is, of course, a bit of an exaggeration (but only a bit). Most professional typesetters have a practical understanding of the competing needs of media and audience (and business) and on the whole produce generally acceptable products. It's typically only the wannabe typesetters who are dogmatic about the rules. The advent of the transformative power of computers truly upset that applecart. And in a triumph of close-mindedness, it is amazing that so many people have not only failed to grasp the extent of the upset, they deny that the apple cart as tilted at all. Suddenly, the ultimate vanity publishing was no longer impractical, it became common (see, e.g. the much discussed Huck Finn, and just about any other work produced by David Widger). Yet these vanity publishers still clung to the 19th century typesetting dogma: "If it looks good to me, it will look good to everyone! and anyone who does not agree is just an outlier and of no consequence!" These vanity publishers quickly learned that computers have lowered the cost of entry which had previously barred them from publishing, but they still don't understand the algorithmic power of the computer, which would allow them to segregate the layout of a book from the structure of a book (or perhaps they are simply to committed to their own layout dogma to care).
The idea that the end customer is going to edit your file simply doesn't work.
True. Thankfully, I don't believe in that idea. I believe that it is possible to create an e-book file which has embedded within it all the hooks necessary to allow it to be /programmatically/ typeset according to a wide range of needs and tastes. I clearly don't have all the answers yet, indeed I may have very few of them, but I'm relying on certain clear-headed individuals like Don Kretz, Carlo Traverso, Jeroen Hellingman and even Joshua Hutchinson, all of whose opinions I respect even when I disagree, to help me find those answers. I am not an adherent of the typesetters sect. I don't pretend to be, I don't want to be, and I'm probably not even qualified to be. I'm simply trying to build a framework where a real typesetter can come along an say, "add this style here, this style there, and this style over there, and you will have an e-book that satisfies your personal esthetic. Whether an end user is going to edit a file depends, I guess, on just how sophisticated an end user he his. I don't expect, or even want, an end user to edit the framework file. Tweaking a standard CSS file is fine for the sophisticated user. What I really would hope for is for computer literate members of the Society of Typesetters to come along and build a significant number of CSS files all of which apply layout to the same elements, but in different ways. The end user's job is then to simply say, "I like Adcock formatting, or Widger formatting, or some other, better formatting, so I will get one of the corresponding CSS files and put it next to the downloaded file; I will then see things how I like." A default CSS file can be provided for people who aren't picky, and those who like the current VT-52 format can skip the formatting altogether. The ePub format is a bit challenging in this regard as most ePub user agents do not let you replace a CSS file included in the zip file (although many, not including ADE, let you disable internal styles; Cool Reader lets you not only disable the pubisher's CSS it also allows you to specify a user CSS file that overrides the internal CSS). I currently have a prototype web-based ePub creator running at readingroo.ms. That plain-jane user interface allows you to specify a Gutenberg e-text number, and then to upload your own preferred CSS file. The resulting ePub will then conform to your own preferences as expressed in /your/ CSS file. /That/ is what my idea is.
If you want to get people to buy into your view of how the world ought to be coded -- at least make something that looks half attractive and is readable.
You forgot to add the words "to me" at the end of your sentence. Fortunately, I created something that looks attractive /to me/ and which /I/ find highly readable. And because everyone in the world likes what I like, the current state of the file is obviously in its highest and best state. I see no reason to create a file that appeals to /you/, because my values represent the world at large, and if you don't find them appealing, then you are obviously living in a state of sin, and you should repent and accept my dogma. (Is there an emoticon for "tongue-in-cheek"?) You know those references above to "vanity publishers" who are blindly committed to their own dogma? Just so we're clear, I want you to know that I include you, Mr. Adcock, in that group.