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Your ePub Is fine

andreklein.net

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Re: Your ePub Is fine

#51

Post by fdgfikgfv »

drtz wrote: post #37
echelon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flash is still unsurpassed as the easiest publishing medium. JavaScript build system layer cake and "web standards" are a million times harder than just drawing some stuff, maybe writing a simple function, then building a static file that can be embedded anywhere and even downloaded. You have to spend so much time setting up any flash alternative, and the "standards" are worse. I hate Steve Jobs for killing Flash and…

> Websites are still inferior to Flash of the early 2000s. It's taken decades and they can only mimic a fraction of its power. Is this a troll? What could an application do with Flash in 2005 that we can't do with a modern web application today (excluding the obvious answer of runtime vulnerabilities that allowed apps to escape the sandbox)?

Flash had its problems but as a user, it looked sharper and smoother than even current websites. And its editor gave non-tech users ability to create amazing animations, interfaces, and even games.

Re: Your ePub Is fine

#52

Post by criddell »

WolfeReader wrote: post #27

Every Kobo reader is capable of running KoReader ( http://koreader.rocks/ ). That's the first, and probably last, step I'd take to render a book that the default reader takes issue with.

As I understand it, KoReader doesn’t work with drm protected books which means I can’t use it with most books I buy.

Ebook producers really should be forced to either drop drm or adopt a cross-platform standard.

Re: Your ePub Is fine

#53

Post by fnord77 »

acdha wrote: post #20

Adobe has always been like this, too. They squandered an enormous marketshare with Flash because the alternative would've been spending a couple million on QA and they managed to unite all of the browser manufacturers in agreement that the web was better off without such an unreliable partner. I shipped a couple of things on Flash back in the day but it was staggeringly bad software — random crashes, various heisenbu…

> heisenbugs

gold

Re: Your ePub Is fine

#54

Post by hardwaresofton »

BTW for those who are looking for a device, the PineNote exists:

https://pine64.org/devices/pinenote/

More expensive and less out-of-the-box software, but straight to the point on device ownership/what kind of software you can run, fewer strings attached.

[EDIT]

Great experience blogs on the PineNote

https://shom.dev/posts/20250308_pinenote-day-one/

https://shom.dev/posts/20250406_a-pinenote-only-5-day-weeken...

Re: Your ePub Is fine

#56

Post by anenefan »

gsnedders wrote: post #10
anenefan wrote: post #2

The TLDR version is Abode supports backward compatibility ... and epub - * International Digital Publishing Forum* - is playing with a sprawling mess opting for the race to the top newest standards ... that always works so well and ensures the user base is always upgrading. I'm very grateful for this information and it explains why I've avoided epub opting for pdf over epub as my reader software is old. I'm am very m…

To be clear, ADE’s behaviour is not conforming to any version of the standards it claims to implement. If it had been, it would reject that specific max-width property declaration as having an invalid value and ignore it, not reject the entire document: every single version of CSS has required that forwards-compatible behaviour. PDF is not somehow immune to this either — a non-conforming implementation could similarl…

So if I understand correctly a struggling epub viewer or ADE should skip css that it considers malformed - which means the reason my viewers have considered a epub to be not able to be viewed / corrupt / whatever it is for some other reason than more recent / current css implementation.

PDFs certainly can suck, more often those that will only work with abode's software and other viewers I've tried can not.

Re: Your ePub Is fine

#57

Post by rcxdude »

ablob wrote: post #7
MrLeap wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An epub is just a plain html webpage compressed into a zip and its extension changed from .zip to ".epub". Assuming you have a web browser, you have something that will almost certainly render your epubs contents. PDF is not nearly as pleasant under the hood. It's down right lovecraftian.

The lovecraftian horror of pdf mostly comes into play through the sheer amount of software that supply almost correct pdf. It's not enough to be able to read pdf anymore, you also have to be able to deal with software that emits subtly wrong documents.

That's part of it, but the design of PDF really doesn't help

Re: Your ePub Is fine

#58

Post by dlcarrier »

badsectoracula wrote: post #23

Be happy your readers use an ePub reader that supports (or at least, ignores) something like `max-width` in the first place :-P. TBH i've being using an ePub reader that i occasionally had to edit ePub files so i get rid of the superfluous styling that made it either not work or show things weirdly/wrong and i've heard comments from others that a bunch of files i had no issues with personally were unreadable for them…

It's already bad enough that HTML/CSS barely works in the target web browser environment, I don't see why anyone decided it was a good idea to use it for books.

I've often thought about figuring out a subset that operates fast on any computer and sticking to that for any web pages I make. If someone figured that out for epub, it would make it much, much more useful.

Re: Your ePub Is fine

#59

Post by Kaliboy »

drtz wrote: post #37
echelon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flash is still unsurpassed as the easiest publishing medium. JavaScript build system layer cake and "web standards" are a million times harder than just drawing some stuff, maybe writing a simple function, then building a static file that can be embedded anywhere and even downloaded. You have to spend so much time setting up any flash alternative, and the "standards" are worse. I hate Steve Jobs for killing Flash and…

> Websites are still inferior to Flash of the early 2000s. It's taken decades and they can only mimic a fraction of its power. Is this a troll? What could an application do with Flash in 2005 that we can't do with a modern web application today (excluding the obvious answer of runtime vulnerabilities that allowed apps to escape the sandbox)?

There was more unique content/UI in the Flash era.

Re: Your ePub Is fine

#60

Post by dredmorbius »

fdgfikgfv wrote: post #51
drtz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Websites are still inferior to Flash of the early 2000s. It's taken decades and they can only mimic a fraction of its power. Is this a troll? What could an application do with Flash in 2005 that we can't do with a modern web application today (excluding the obvious answer of runtime vulnerabilities that allowed apps to escape the sandbox)?

Flash had its problems but as a user, it looked sharper and smoother than even current websites. And its editor gave non-tech users ability to create amazing animations, interfaces, and even games.

Image-wise, SVGA + JS probably gets you the clarity. Standard gif / image animations not so much, if that's what you're referencing.

This isn't my baliwick, so I've absolutely nothing to say about the ease with which these options can be created.

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