----- Original Message ----- From: Bowerbird@aol.com
the next questions involve long-standing and often-repeated requests that i have made for other changes to p.g. policy. having received no satisfaction, in spite of the reasonableness of these requests, i will pursue a strategy of lobbying for them to a wider audience, but i make them again here for the record.
1. could you _please_ strive for consistency in your e-books?
We do. We don't always succeed, but we do strive for it.
2. could you please ensure the policy on styled text is upheld?
The whitewashers most definitely do. As far as the style goes (beyond _ and *, we don't specify much).
3. could you please start including graphic-file-names in your plain-text versions, so my viewer-app knows what to display where?
Nope. Plain-text means ... plain text, nothing more.
4. could you please start including page-break information in your plain-text versions, so my viewer-app can use original page-breaks for those end-users that might desire that capability?
Once again, nope. Text doesn't provide a way to have this information in the file without it being jarringly placed in the middle of the flow of the text. Other formats can provide this, but plain text cannot.
5. could you please start including line-break information in your plain-text versions, for the same reason?
Nope (see answer for the above). This would be even more invasive to the reading experience, because you'd have a character or markup of some kind all over the place. And plain text has to be able to be fully used in any old text editor/reader. We can't assume the reader program will hide the line break information.
my documentation on zen markup language (z.m.l.) will demonstrate how you can incorporate these requests into your plain-text files...
Sigh. And once they are marked up, they are no longer plain text files. They are z.m.l. files. If you want to convert the entire catalog to z.m.l, feel free. No one will use them, but feel free. Josh