>according to its website, ibisreader can:
>1) fetch an .epub from any website, and
>2) download it so it can be read offline...
>jim claims neither of these things is true.

Well you said I could try it from my desktop and I did and it didn’t have that capabilities claimed.  Rather on an “experimental” basis it says if you own a website and have a database set up the way they expect that database to be set up THEN you can add that website to their list of supported websites – which currently is just Feedbooks.  And I’m guessing when they say “download” they mean that  if the source is in ePub then THEY will scarf it to THEIR computer and then re-present it to you as HTML live to your attached HTML browser for as long as you have an internet connection – because that’s what they do – they scarf and store the books on THEIR computere “for you,” re-present it as HTML and then they claim this as a “feature.”

> anyone who makes a claim that a p.g. .txt file
is "not an e-book file" is a full-on bloomin' idiot.

I can never resist having BB call me an idiot (and more recently Michael) so here goes:

PG txt file is NOT AN E-BOOK FILE because it does not meet at least one criterion that is universally accepted as being required of ebook file formats: namely reflow.  Txt format can reflow, but PG txt format cannot reflow because it has hardwired linebreaks at around 70 chars.  Yes I know that *in theory* if Apple say (LOL) wanted to they could write a PGTXT70 file format reader that would unwrap those line breaks more or less successfully most of the time but since the rest of the computer world sans PG decided circa 1970 than hardwired linebreaks is A BAD IDEA it seems highly unlikely that Apple or anyone else is going back to the future to fix PG’s txt problems now.

If you like PG TXT format is a “teletype file” because its capabilities are designed around the capabilities of teletypes circa 1970 which used ASCII and had 72 chars per line. I for one thank god when I got rid of my teletype after it burned out the third time trying to do microprocessor development circa 1976!  Technician couldn’t understand why all the grease in there kept getting baked into bricks – said AP never uses their machines this hard!

One good introductory read about what an eBook File IS can be found at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPub

Other characteristics uniformly expected of eBook files include:

Encapsulation: Download one file and you have all you need to read the book in the future without wireless connection. AKA “airplane mode”

Book Metadata:  Author, Title, TOC, Index, etc. at defined locations in a defined manner such that any reader app or bookshelf app can display these easily – without having to open and read the whole book.

Sure, one could define how one or more of these things are suppose to work, and you could put it all in a zip file to encapsulate it, and then you can just change the txt extensions to .html on these “txt” files and change the .zip package extension to .epub and then one would have, well, then  I guess then one would have an epub not a PG txt file anymore…