Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
jim said:
now you are using some kind of oversized, and over-light bizarro font
i believe it's simply calling the default serif font, which is whatever you specified in your browser. but if i'm wrong about that, do please let me know.
you are embedding page margins within HTML, which “everyone” knows is a no-no.
i copied that out of your style sheet for #29452...
Contents now includes Title and Contents itself, both of which is certainly wrong.
it did before, because that's how i do things. but i'll take it out, to give it to you your way.
Title poorly formatted. See the real book
no more evasion. you tell me how you want it.
Choice of asterisks as a fancy rule looks a bit strange.
tell me what you want instead.
Too small and too light for the intended use.
i have no idea what this means.
Missing vertical whitespace before poetry (when translated to MOBI)
i haven't done the .mobi conversion yet...
Gratuitous horizontal rule before “the end”
whatever. i'll delete it to make you happy.
“The End” capitalized wrong,
i don't use capitals, and i put that in. so i'll delete it.
Gratuitous “v?”
i explained that. but i forgot about your reading comprehension impairment. never mind. i'll delete it, so you're happy.
Now missing cover entirely (when translated to MOBI)
i do the mobi conversion, not you. -bowerbird
i copied that out of your style sheet for #29452...
Not “my” style sheet since the style of the download doesn’t match the style that I uploaded to PG. BUT, in this regard I agree with PG – choice of style should be primarily up to the publishing house (meaning PG), NOT the book transcriber. But for PG to be putting margins within HTML is a mistake IMHO, it is well-established that HTML users set the size of the width of their text by adjusting the width of the surrounding window of the HTML browser.
Choice of asterisks as a fancy rule looks a bit strange.
tell me what you want instead. Leave it out and use some extra vertical whitespace instead, or if you insist on horizontal rules use mdashes --- since EPUB doesn’t have proper support for horizontal rules (but MOBI does), or upsize your asterisks to give them more visual weight and put spaces between them.
Too small and too light for the intended use.
i have no idea what this means. It means that when I read this on my Kindle or in my web browser it is so small and leaves so little visual impact compared to the surrounding text that it looks like a mistake.
On 1/29/11, James Adcock <jimad@msn.com> wrote:
IMHO, it is well-established that HTML users set the size of the width of their text by adjusting the width of the surrounding window of the HTML browser.
Every browser on the market is offering tabs now, so obviously people are viewing multiple webpages in one window. And virtually every webpage, from Gmail to Wikipedia to PG's own site takes up a good part of the edges, effectively adding margins to the text. To have to play with my browser to reasonably read a HTML file annoys me, and I doubt I'm the only one. -- Kie ekzistas vivo, ekzistas espero.
On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 3:08 PM, David Starner <prosfilaes@gmail.com> wrote:
Every browser on the market is offering tabs now, so obviously people are viewing multiple webpages in one window. And virtually every webpage, from Gmail to Wikipedia to PG's own site takes up a good part of the edges, effectively adding margins to the text. To have to play with my browser to reasonably read a HTML file annoys me, and I doubt I'm the only one.
Having to fiddle with window sizes annoys me too. However, I do fiddle with the magnification, using Zoom Page with Firefox, all the time. The text on most pages is too small when displayed on a large, high-resolution monitor. -- Karen Lofstrom
Interesting: Am _I_ the only one who seems to have adjusted the parameters of my screen and browser so that I rarely adjust my browser screen at all? I can remember writing so many articles about ajusting resolution, colors, font and font size, etc., that everyone should have something exactly that matches their own preferences. . .is no one doing that? Even here? mh On Sat, 29 Jan 2011, Karen Lofstrom wrote:
On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 3:08 PM, David Starner <prosfilaes@gmail.com> wrote:
Every browser on the market is offering tabs now, so obviously people are viewing multiple webpages in one window. And virtually every webpage, from Gmail to Wikipedia to PG's own site takes up a good part of the edges, effectively adding margins to the text. To have to play with my browser to reasonably read a HTML file annoys me, and I doubt I'm the only one.
Having to fiddle with window sizes annoys me too.
However, I do fiddle with the magnification, using Zoom Page with Firefox, all the time. The text on most pages is too small when displayed on a large, high-resolution monitor.
-- Karen Lofstrom _______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d
On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 6:30 PM, Michael S. Hart <hart@pglaf.org> wrote:
I can remember writing so many articles about ajusting resolution, colors, font and font size, etc., that everyone should have something exactly that matches their own preferences. . .is no one doing that?
You can specify exactly what you want if you turn off the site's CSS and display it in the text format you choose. In so doing, you break most of what makes the site interesting and usable. I usually do fine with Zoom Page. It remembers the last setting I chose for each site. So I'll jump from 133% to 150% to 170% as I browse, without having to fuss with settings. Different sites use different size fonts. The only problem is that some sites are set up so that when you magnify them, some columns start overlapping each other. If I knew more XHTML and CSS, I could explain what causes that. I'm guessing that it's a result of setting columns with pixel numbers rather than percentages, but I could be wrong. -- Karen Lofstrom
You may find this useful. http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 8:48 PM, Karen Lofstrom <klofstrom@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 6:30 PM, Michael S. Hart <hart@pglaf.org> wrote:
I can remember writing so many articles about ajusting resolution,
colors, > font and font size, etc., that everyone should have something exactly that > matches their own preferences. . .is no one doing that?
You can specify exactly what you want if you turn off the site's CSS and display it in the text format you choose.
In so doing, you break most of what makes the site interesting and usable.
I usually do fine with Zoom Page. It remembers the last setting I chose for each site. So I'll jump from 133% to 150% to 170% as I browse, without having to fuss with settings. Different sites use different size fonts.
The only problem is that some sites are set up so that when you magnify them, some columns start overlapping each other. If I knew more XHTML and CSS, I could explain what causes that. I'm guessing that it's a result of setting columns with pixel numbers rather than percentages, but I could be wrong.
-- Karen Lofstrom _______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d
On Sat, 29 Jan 2011, Karen Lofstrom wrote:
On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 6:30 PM, Michael S. Hart <hart@pglaf.org> wrote:
I can remember writing so many articles about ajusting resolution, colors, font and font size, etc., that everyone should have something exactly that matches their own preferences. . .is no one doing that?
You can specify exactly what you want if you turn off the site's CSS and display it in the text format you choose.
Me? I try to keep my own personal preferences just that, personal. I try very hard not to impose them on the rest of the world. That is why I don't like to choose the books, formats, etc, but to let more people have more of a say in that, whether they are part of PG or just do it on their own.
In so doing, you break most of what makes the site interesting and usable.
What makes a "site interesting and usable" is different to everyone.
I usually do fine with Zoom Page. It remembers the last setting I chose for each site. So I'll jump from 133% to 150% to 170% as I browse, without having to fuss with settings. Different sites use different size fonts.
Yes, I have Zoom, but I rarely use it, and when I do, I note that I always bring it back to 100% pretty quickly because I have that setting optimized with all my other features.
The only problem is that some sites are set up so that when you magnify them, some columns start overlapping each other. If I knew more XHTML and CSS, I could explain what causes that. I'm guessing that it's a result of setting columns with pixel numbers rather than percentages, but I could be wrong.
It can also be because they justify one column left and the other right so each one starts from its edge and pushes in as you zoom, and I would think there are other reasons that have similar results.
-- Karen Lofstrom
mh
To have to play with my browser to reasonably read a HTML file annoys me, and I doubt I'm the only one.
Most people who have used an HTML browser for a while, HAVE fiddled with their browser, for example by setting their preferred text size. When the author of a PG HTML in turn fiddles with these factors, those fiddles override the fiddles already fiddled with by the reader. Now, only about 30% of the HTML written for PG is read on HTML browsers, whereas another 30% of the HTML written for PG is translated into EPUB format and read on EPUB devices -- which typically have a much smaller screen size than HTML browsers. And another 30% of the HTML written for PG is translated into MOBI file format and read on MOBI devices [aka: Kindle] To generate these EPUB and MOBI formats requires the translator programs to try to understand the fiddles fiddled with by the HTML fiddler in order to unfiddle them in order to refiddle them into the expectation of the EPUB and/or MOBI device and their limitations, and their preferences -- which typically is that the end reader of the document is allowed to fiddle with these issues NOT the author of the PG HTML. In turn then the creator of a MOBI or EPUB hardware device has to try to change their device designs to understand these fiddling and unfiddlings to refiddle in their hardware designs in order to meet the reasonable expectations of their customers to actually be able to read an ebook. Thereby leading to yet-another round of an escalating war of fiddling, unfiddling, and re-fiddling. Suggestion: It is NOT the job of a person creating HTML for PG to do the fiddling in order to make some particular hypothetical PG user's life supposedly easier. The user community of PG HTML is extremely wide and diverse, and when you think you are helping one particular class of PG user, you are probably unwittingly hurting some other large class of PG HTML users that you are unaware of. If you don't believe this, acquire real EPUB and MOBI devices, (such as a Nook and a Sony eReader and a Kindle and an Android Tab) and the various cellphones and take a look at the kinds of messes these various kinds of HTML fiddlings cause.
On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 9:07 AM, Jim Adcock <jimad@msn.com> wrote:
Most people who have used an HTML browser for a while, HAVE fiddled with their browser, for example by setting their preferred text size. When the author of a PG HTML in turn fiddles with these factors, those fiddles override the fiddles already fiddled with by the reader.
Not if it's handled well. I'm asking for nothing more than every other webpage has. Given that every other page on the web actually does have margins, and that pages without margins are unreadable in the modern webbrowsing environment, that doesn't strike me as an argument against PG documents having margins.
whereas another 30% of the HTML written for PG is translated into EPUB format and read on EPUB devices ... And another 30% of the HTML written for PG is translated into MOBI file format and read on MOBI devices [aka: Kindle]
And perhaps that means that we need to start making different formats for different needs, or do this in a standard way so it can be removed for non-HTML devices. Stop sacrificing my needs for theirs; make a way they all can be satisfied.
Suggestion: It is NOT the job of a person creating HTML for PG to do the fiddling in order to make some particular hypothetical PG user's life supposedly easier.
Then why are we creating HTML anyway? They can learn to interpret our cryptic symbols; it's not easy, but making them do the hard work is what PG is all about, isn't it? It's all about getting our books read; and that means making them easy to read. -- Kie ekzistas vivo, ekzistas espero.
Then why are we creating HTML anyway?
Who "we" are and "why *we* are creating HTML" is something which PG volunteers and the PG community in general do not agree-upon which in turn leads to PG HTML *NOT* being universally a pleasant and readable experience in our user community. Here's why *I* write HTML -- as opposed to say txt70: Because it allows me to much better preserve and represent what I believe to be the original intent of the author and/or publisher. It allows images to be included. It allows decorative rules to be included -- in those cases where I decide that decorative rules really were an important part of the original book design. It allows me to choose from the approx. 60,000 glyphs of the Unicode set -- where truly needed. It allow me -- with great caution -- to use a few of the many 1000s of tools written to support the creation of HTML. It allows me to target approx. 90% of the PG user base with ONE file format -- *IF* I know what I am doing when I write to that file format. It allows me to properly represent italic and bold. It allows me to properly represent footnotes. It allows my work to be read on a variety of machines, from tiny to huge displays, in either portrait or landscape or even in HDTV widescreen mode. It allows me to create invocative title pages that accurately document where this work is derived from. It allows me to create usable Tables of Contents with hotlinks. It allows me to create invocative Chapter Titles, and subtitles. It allows me to create usable indented quotation blocks. It allows me (with some difficulty) to create readable poetry. It allows me to read PG books on my personal eBook Reader with enough invocative details of "real paper books" that I become immersed in my reading and forget that I am "just" seeing little bits of bicolored plastic floating in a liquid electrostatically charged by a CPU to create a paper-like display -- and I feel just like I really am reading a paper document -- at least until I am jerked back into reality by some bit of random ugliness created by a PG HTML "author" who didn't know what they were doing! (heavy sigh) It allows me, and other PG users, to frequently just download an HTML, EPUB, or MOBI file to our personal machine, often without even having to go through an intermediary PC or other gate-keeper device, maybe even while sitting in an airline terminal, open that file, and start reading, and EVERYTHING JUST MAGICALLY WORKS WITHOUT HAVING TO MUCK WITH IT! I don't HAVE to run an unwrapper program on each file. I don't HAVE to run a customize-to-my-machine program on each file, etc. IT JUST WORKS! [tm] and IT WORKS *MY* WAY! [tm] And *that* is about ALL the reasons *I* use HTML. One common problem I believe is that some people try to accomplish *way too much* using HTML -- and in the process muck things up for many PG users. One other "good" reason why "we" use HTML, I believe, is that many PG volunteers think [for better of for worse] that learning HTML is a good thing to add to their personal resume, because that knowledge set, for better or worse, once learned, can be applied other places to other jobs. As opposed, for example, to having to learn some PG-proprietary file format which would be simply time and energy flushed down the drain. Now having said that, "PG HTML" is actually something quite different than "Website HTML" so "beware, there be dragons" ....
participants (7)
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Bowerbird＠aol.com -
David Starner -
don kretz -
James Adcock -
Jim Adcock
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Karen Lofstrom -
Michael S. Hart