On 16/08/2011 2.42, Michael Richter wrote:
Isn't the EPUB format basically just zipped-up HTML files with XML
metadata?
Basically yes, but in practice the format is underspecified: there are
many grey areas. What's worse, reading devices often enforce arbitrary
limitations and introduce extra styling, overriding some of the author's
css. You never know what surprises a new reading device will bring.
I had the dubious pleasure to wrestle with so-called ebook 'standards'
for a crazy project of mine [1] and I too, as a reader, consider PDF
both more portable and more useful than any ebook format: the latter are
basically designed for sequential reading.
[1] Just as curiosity, my work is a sort of hybrid between a novel and
an adventure game; what can be relevant on this list and topic is the
production toolchain that uses Lua in three distinct roles: as embedded
language in the 'source' story, as metaprogramming compiler (i.e. that
executes embedded functions while producing the 'printed' pages needed
for the actual book) and, lastly, for most of the conversion and packing
tools:
http://www.erix.it/medusa/medusa_toolchain.pdf
(I hope this is not considered advertisement: the book is in Italian and
the above link contains no references to it; I post it as an example of
Lua's usefulness and versatility... and as a warning against targeting
ebooks for complex projects with nonlinear structure and a very large
number of links)
P.S. I hope to publish the Medusa compiler sooner or later, but that
would require documenting it for non-crazy users :-)
