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Gary Edwards

BOOK Offered Or Kept: Digital reading without Epub? | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home - 0 views

www.teleread.org/...t-digital-reading-without-epub

ajax book css ebook epub html-5

shared by Gary Edwards on 30 May 08 - Cached
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 30 May 08
       
      .wiki is the native wikiWORD language for MSOffice "editors". It's really AJAX for documents, with HTML+ handlign the "structure", and CSS+ handling the "presentation". We need javascript to perfect the full range of typographical options used by knowledge workers makign their way from MSOffice to the web. BOOK is a good place to start.
  • The structure of a BOOK would look like this: …BOOK/ ……index.html ……images/ ………cover.png ……css/ ………base.css ………skins/ …………modern.css …………classic.css …………nouveau.css ……scripts/ ………prototype.js ………base.js ………extensions.js
  • As for the Javascript, it’s based on the ECMAScript standard, which has evolved into a strongly-typed, object-oriented programming language and is one of the few web “standards” which really is a standard. BOOK authors will welcome the addition of a scripting language, as it is NOT currently supported in the IDPF specifications. In fact, it’s forbidden for .epub reading systems to execute scripts. It’s also forbidden for them to display a file called index.html without first loading and parsing several other files.
  • ...10 more annotations...
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 30 May 08
       
      Good point! The IDPF ePUB format does not support javascript! Which makes "BOOK" a better format to target.
  • For BOOKs, it offers true pagination, typesetting, skinnable and collapsible layouts, footers and headers, footnotes as popups, inline text, true footer notes, or endnotes . . . the list goes on. YUI, JQuery, dojo, MooTools, and Prototype are just a few of the frameworks available, and they’ve been addressing these issues for some time now.
  • Jon Noring Says:
  • EPub is an excellent, high-fidelity format for both direct rendering and for user-side conversion to other formats for particular platforms such as very limited resource handheld devices.
  • Javascript is useful mainly for rendering, not bells and whistles. Without Javascript, the non-normalized implementations of CSS out there become useless–you can’t rely on them to produce a consistent rendering of a document. Unfortunately, with CSS3 the rendering game is only going to get more complicated. I don’t advocate executing scripts from epubs, I advocate executing scripts in epub reading systems. Two very different things, as you’re aware.
  • Scripting is *essential* for many digital publishing projects and not understanding it is a major failure of IDPF. Saying that “we will reconsider scripting when adoption of epub grows” is also inadequate, because nobody will wait patiently, but will choose some another platform for their publishing needs, Adobe AIR for example.
  • My criticism of epub is not about details but about its fundamentals. It seems to me that while preparing the spec the most fundamental question was left out of view: what is the right model for digital publication: is it a physical book? Or is it something else? If something else, then what? From my point of view, not a physical book, but a website should be thought as the right model. Why website? - because of the well supported and ubiquitous mix of technologies (html, css, javascript) and because of the workflow (publishing early versions of the publication on the website for gathering feedback and then publishing as downloadable file). If a model for a digital publication is a website, then any format which does not allow to have everything which we have on websites and does not allow to take all website’s html, css and client-side scripts and publish them as downloadable file without much changing them, is doomed to failure in the long run. It seems that epub is now on this way to failure.
  • What I’d like to see is a sort of epub spinoff, another specification from the IDPF, if you will, with slightly different requirements. Instead of BOOK, we could call it epub-lite. The basis for this simplified, consumer-oriented version of .epub would be the same browser-centric building blocks under the IDPF specs. The difference would be in the file structure and in the way a browser deals with it.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 30 May 08
       
      What we really need are "webDOCS". Laisvunas is absolutely right. The web is the target, with print and device "flow" an auxillary offshoot. I think we can have it all, and Aaron's "BOOK" is a good place to start. My thinking though is that javascript has to come from standardized libraries such as jQuery or Yahoo's "BrowserPLUS". Yahoo BrowserPLUS does have a security model and off-line capability built in. It's nowhere near as robust and sweepign as the jQuery javascript library, but i don't see why the two can't be combined. Good thinking on the part of Laisvunas!
  • What I wish for is this: a simple ebook format which allows me to use all technologies there are on the web with exactly the same freedom as on web and imposing no additional limitations. Secondly, some browser-based reader (browser add-on or some program based on some quality browser engine). Thirdly, some program (editor/compiler) for producing publications from preexisting web-pages.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 30 May 08
       
      Once again Laisvunas nails it. I really like his "AIR" suggestion. It's also true that flowing content ready device browsers like the webKit "Safari" and SkyFire will be far more widespread than any ePUB reader!!!!! So why not write for both the web and the device at the same time?
  • The system I’m referring to is alive and well at bookglutton.com. It features an AJAX reader and Package Creation tool. The package tool is currently part of the upload feature which enables people to convert .doc, .rtf, and html documents to epub packages that can be viewed in the Reader. Once we have more epubs out there, direct epub upload will also be an option. We may also eventually enable epub download. Right now, we’re having some doubts about the value of that.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 30 May 08
       
      How about "eWEB" as a format name? Is it better than "webBOOK" or webDOC"?
  • Gary Edwards on 30 May 08
     
    Aaron Miller writes about the limitations and difficulties with ePUB. He suggests a new format, "BOOK" based on ePUB but web ready. BOOK is an AJAX format in that it includes (X)HTML, CSS and JavaScript! Excellent stuff! The discussion on this page is one of the best on the Web. ePUB gets thrashed, but with arguments very difficult to contest. The web is everything, and Aaron's friends fully understand this. Sadly, the ePUB crowd does not. I found this site looking to solve the problem of numbered lists in ePUB.
Gary Edwards

Independent study advises IT planners to go OOXML: The Bill Gates MSOffice "formats and Protocol" eMail - 0 views

talkback.zdnet.com/5206-12558-0.html

anti-trust browser-wars comes gates iowa msoffice netscape ooxml w3c

shared by Gary Edwards on 30 May 08 - Cached
  • 3.2.2.2. A pox on both your houses! gary.edwards - 01/22/08 Hi Robert, What you've posted are examples of MSOffice ”compatibility settings” used to establish backwards compatibility with older documents, and, for the conversion of alien file formats (such as various versions of WordPerfect .wpd). These compatibility settings are unspecified in that we know the syntax but have no idea of the semantics. And without the semantic description there is no way other developers can understand implementation. This of course guarantees an unacceptable breakdown of interoperability. But i would be hesitant to make my stand of rejecting OOXML based on this issue. It turns out that there are upwards of 150 unspecified compatibility settings used by OpenOffice/StarOffice. These settings are not specified in ODF, but will nevertheless show up in OpenOffice ODF documents – similarly defying interoperability efforts! Since the compatibility settings are not specified or even mentioned in the ODF 1.0 – ISO 26300 specification, we have to go to the OOo source code to discover where this stuff comes from. Check out lines 169-211. Here you will find interesting settings such as, “UseFormerLineSpacing, UseFormerObjectPositioning, and UseFormerTextWrapping”. So what's going on here?
  • From: Bill Gates Sent: Saturday, December 5 1998 To: Bob Muglia, Jon DeVann, Steven Sinofsky Subject : Office rendering "One thing we have got to change in our strategy - allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by other peoples browsers is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company. We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depends on PROPRIETARY IE capabilities. Anything else is suicide for our platform. This is a case where Office has to avoid doing something to destroy Windows. I would be glad to explain at a greater length. Likewise this love of DAV in Office/Exchange is a huge problem. I would also like to make sure people understand this as well." Tuesday, August 28, 2007
  • Gary Edwards on 30 May 08
     
    The IOWA Comes vs. Microsoft antitrust suit evidence is now publicly available. This ZDNet Talkback posts an extraordinary eMail from Bill Gates concerning the need to control MSOffice formats and protocols as Microsoft pushes onto the Web. The key point is that Chairman Bill understands that the real threat to Microsoft is that of Open Web formats and protocols outside of Microsoft's control. It's 1998, and the effort to "embrace and eXtend" W3C HTML, XHTML, SVG and CSS isn't working well. The good Chairman notifies the troops that MSOffice must come up with another plan. Interestingly, it's not until 2001, when OpenOffice releases an XML encoding of the OpenOffice/StarOffice imbr that Microsoft finally sees a solution! (imbr = in-memory-binary-representation) The MSOffice crew immediately sets to work creating a similar XML encoding of the MSOffice binary (imbr) dump. The first result is released in the MSOffice 2003 beta as "WordprocessingML and SpreadsheetML". XML was designed as a structured language for creating specific structured languages. OpenOffice saw the potential of using XML to create an OpenOffice specific XML language. MSOffice seized the innovation and the rest is history. Problem solved! So what was the "problem" the good Chairman identified in this secret eMail? It's that the Web is the future, and Microsoft needed to find a way of leveraging their existing desktop document "editor" monopoly share into owning and controlling the Web formats produced by Microsoft applications. MSOffice OOXML is the result. ISO approval of MSOffice OOXML is beyond important to Microsoft. It establishes MSOffice "editors" as standards compliant. It also establishes the application, platform and vendor specific MSOffice OOXML as an international "open" standard. Many will ask why this isn't a case of Microsoft actually opening up the MSOffice formats in compliance with government antitrust demands. It is "compliance", but not in the sense of what
Gary Edwards

Live Mesh: Microsoft hews to open standards rule | John Carroll | ZDNet.com - 0 views

blogs.zdnet.com/carroll

live-mesh ms-cloud ms-web-stack xaml

shared by Gary Edwards on 24 Apr 08 - Cached
  • Live Mesh is supposed to be a common framework to enable cross-device interoperability. It also includes a bunch of shared services that can be used from any Mesh-compatible device, such as network storage space and photo-sharing services, among others (others likely include many of the “Live” properties) . This makes sense given the direction that the world is moving in, with an ever-growing proliferation of computing devices both on one’s person and within the home that, currently, are too much like islands of processing power. A true mesh platform that standardized cross-device communication and synchronization in the same way HTML / CSS / Javascript has standardized user interfaces on the web would surely be a step forward from an IT evolutionary standpoint. Perhaps it was a Freudian slip, but I think the use of the term “standard” was the essential part of the previous sentence. Microsoft won’t get anywhere if they tried to peddle a closed-protocol environment to developers in 2008.
  • Gary Edwards on 24 Apr 08
     
    I saw Live-Mesh today at the Web 2.0 Expo. It's still flashware, but very cool flashware. (Or is that "silverware" :) If they get this right the web will belong to Microsoft. I disagree with John that mesh will be standards base. Yes, mesh will work with HTML/CSS amd MAYBE JavaScript. But it will also work with the prorietary XAML, Silverlight, Smart Tags - LINQ. All of which are proprietary alternatives to what mesh won't support :: the advanced format standards from the W3C - XHTML, CSS3, SVG, XForms, CDF, RDF, RDFa and SPARQL. Live-Mesh will break the open web just s surely as the MSOffice SDK OOXML <> XAML conversion component will break the open web future into a Google consumer web, and a Microsoft business web.
Gary Edwards

How To make Web-Clean Documents in AbiWord - 0 views

www.abisource.com/...howtoweb.html

abiword cdf css html xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 May 08 - Cached
  • HTML Formatting Instructions - Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) By default, when you save your document as an HTML file, AbiWord places all formatting instructions into one block at the beginning. &nbsp;These formatting instructions use the Cascading Style Sheet language, and are in the &lt;style&gt; tag in the &lt;head&gt; of your document. &nbsp;From here it is easy to move the styles as a whole (copy and paste) into a new document which can then be externally linked or integrated with your web-site's style sheet.
  • Gary Edwards on 08 May 08
     
    Bonus points to Paul!
Gary Edwards

Analysis: Sun's Lively Kernel Threatens HTML, CSS Dominance - Software - IT Channel News by CRN and VARBusiness - 0 views

www.crn.com/207501301

ria svg

shared by Gary Edwards on 07 May 08 - Cached
  • A little-known project called Lively Kernel at Sun's research labs simplifies the way Web programming is created. Lively is a JavaScript engine that uses scalable vector graphics (SVG) to render images, animation and text on a Web browser. What's most exciting about the Lively stack is that eliminates the need for HTML, document object model (DOM) and style sheet (CSS) programming.
  • Gary Edwards on 07 May 08
     
    uh oh. JavaScript - SVG rendering engine relacing HTML - CSS with SVG drawn from a transform library.
  • Paul Merrell on 08 May 08
     
    Don't forget that SVG Tiny allows vendor-specific extensions, with some conditions.
Gary Edwards

What's up at the OpenDocument Foundation? Linux.com - Wikipedia Link - 0 views

www.linux.com/121034

foundation ms-web-stack msoffice odf ooxml wikipedia xaml

shared by Gary Edwards on 03 May 08 - Cached
  • Re: Finally, the beef... Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 76.14.48.79] on November 12, 2007 11:32 PM XHTML + CSS is the base. Add XForms, SVG and SMiL where needed. Study the work being done on microformats. Like most modern portable XML file formats, the basic packages are those of content and presentation. In CDF speak, this is XHTML content and CSS as the portable presentation package. ODF and MS-OOXML both struggle with the legacy tradition of the presentation package being application specific. Meaning, the portability is limited to other applications that are either of the same version, or, share the same layout and rendering model so that the exchange of the presentation package is lossless.
    • Paul Merrell
      Paul Merrell on 04 May 08
       
      See also "Putting Andy Updegrove to Bed (without his supper)," http://www.universal-interop-council.org/node/4 for a thorough rebuttal of claims that the W3C Compound Document Formats and framework are not suitable for use in the office productivity software sector.
  • Gary Edwards on 03 May 08
     
    The Wikipedia "OpenDocument Foundation" page is continually re edited, changing the factual truth to portray the Foundation in the worst light possible. Every time we try to repair the page to reflect the truth, the liars jump right back in. Is there a Wikipedia resolution for liies? Our facts can be verified by the five year history of the OASIS membership and ODF TC records that are public information. This anonymous post to Joe Barr's Linux.com article is perhaps the best explanation on the Web of why the Foundation choose CDF, and could not use ODF.Good explanation of MSOffice-OOXML and the MS Web-Stack :: MS Cloud.No mention of the December 2007 MSOffice SDK beta that provided us with that first all important glimpse of the MSOffice-OOXML <> XAML converter component. I take it the article comment was written before that most important discovery. XAML "fixed/flow" is an alternative to W3C/ISO XHTML-CSS and ISO PDF.
Gary Edwards

The Mesh lives but the cloud Office is vaporous | Outside the Lines - CNET News.com - 0 views

www.news.com/8301-13953_3-9926440-80.html

live-mesh ms-cloud msoffice ooxml soa xaml

shared by Gary Edwards on 24 Apr 08 - Cached
  • Office Live will bring Office to the web, and the web to Office. We will deliver new and expanded productivity experiences that build upon the device mesh vision to extend productivity scenarios seamlessly across the PC, the web, and mobile devices. Individuals will seamlessly enjoy the benefits of each - the rich, dynamic editing of the PC, the mobility of the phone, and the work-anywhere ubiquity of the web. Office Live will also extend the PC-based Office into the social mesh, expanding the classic notion of "personal productivity" into the realm of the "inter-personal" through the linking, sharing and tagging of documents. Individuals will have a productivity centric web presence where they can work and productively interact with others. This broadly extended vision of Office is being realized today through Office Mobile and Office Live Workspace on the web, augmented by SharePoint, Exchange, and OCS for the connected enterprise.
  • Gary Edwards on 24 Apr 08
     
    I don't think Dan Farber gets it. ISO approval of MSOffice-OOXML establishes MSOffice as a standards compliant web/cloud/WOA "editor" for client/Web-Stack/server systems. No need to try to squeeze all tha tcomplexity into a browser. Just use the MSOffice SDK OOXML <> XAML conversion component to convert rich, business process loaded, documents to a web ready format. OH my, XAML is proprietary and IE-8 does not support XHTML2, CSS3, SVG, XForms, RDF, SPARQL, SWF, PDF or JavaScript. Bummer. ISO has done the unthinkable and Microsoft can now break the web without worry of anti trust retribution. They are after all, simply implementing an open standard.
Gary Edwards

OOXML/ODF: Just One Battlefield in a Much Bigger War | Brian Proffitt Linux Today - 0 views

www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3

cloud-computing ooxml soa xaml

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Apr 08 - Cached
  • Once in a while, a confluence of random events (or not so random, depending on your belief system) can create the ideal aha! moment. The moment of clarity when all the pieces just fall into place and you realize "that's what's going on!" I believe I have had one of those moments. And if this thought has any basis in reality, it could mean that everything we have seen in IT is about to make a huge change.
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Apr 08
     
    Brian figures out that the document wars are really about Cloud Computing. Big vendors IBM, Sun, Google and Microsoft are jockeyign for position in our cloud computing future. And this is why Microsoft MUSt get ISO approval of MSOffice-OOXML! What Brian misses is the key to a Microsoft Cloud that can be found int he MSOffice SDK; the OOXML<>XAML conversion component. XAML, Silverlight and Smart Tags replace W3C XHTML-CSS, SVG-Flash, and RDF. Makign the MS Cloud one where Microsoft owned protocols, formats and .NET components dominate all processes. ISO approval of MSOffice-OOXML establishes MSOffice as a standards "editor", thus masking the cloud computing shift to XAML. A shift that will lock out all other Web 2.0 - Cloud providers dependent on Open Web - W3C protocols and formats!
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Apr 08
     
    Note that Brian posted this article in February, on the eve of the Geneva BRM. Since then ISO has gone on to approve MSOffice-OOXML. Note also that, a week prior to this publication, i had sent Brian a lengthy discussion entitled "Windows can't do Cloud Computing", where all of these issues were discussed except for the IBM motivations. Not wanting to interfere with the upcoming Geneva BRM and vote, I had declined Brian's request to publish.
Gary Edwards

Is HTML in a Race to the Bottom? A Large-Scale Survey of Open Web Formats - 0 views

dsonline.computer.org/...index.jsp

cdf css html ooxml xaml xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Apr 08 - Cached
  • The "race to the bottom" is a familiar phenomenon that occurs when multiple standards compete for acceptance. In this environment, the most lenient standard usually attracts the greatest support (acceptance, usage, and so on), leading to a competition among standards to be less stringent. This also tends to drive competing standards toward the minimum possible level of quality. One key prerequisite for a race to the bottom is an unregulated market because regulators mandate a minimum acceptable quality for standards and sanction those who don't comply.1,2 In examining current HTML standards, we've come to suspect that a race to the bottom could, in fact, be occurring because so many competing versions of HTML exist. At this time, some nine different versions of HTML (including its successor, XHTML) are supported as W3C standards, with the most up-to-date being XHTML 1.1. Although some versions are very old and lack some of the newer versions' capabilities, others are reasonably contemporaneous. In particular, HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 both have "transitional" and "strict" versions. Clearly, the W3C's intent is to provide a pathway to move from HTML 4.01 to XHTML 1.1, and the transitional versions are steps on that path. It also aims to develop XHTML standards that support device independence (everything from desktops to cell phones), accessibility, and internationalization. As part of this effort, HTML 4.01's presentational elements (used to adjust the appearance of a page for older browsers that don't support style sheets) are eliminated in XHTML 1.1. Our concern is that Web site designers might decline to follow the newer versions' more stringent formatting requirements and will instead keep using transitional versions. To determine if this is likely, we surveyed the top 100,000 most popular Web sites to discover what versions of HTML are in widespread use.
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Apr 08
     
    What makes the Internet so extraordinary is the interoperability of web ready data, content, media and the incredible sprawl of web applications servicing the volumes of information. The network of networks has become the information system connecting and converging all information systems. The Web is the universal platform of access, exchange and now, collaborative computing. This survey exammines the key issue of future interoperability; Web Document Formats.
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Apr 08
     
    Excellent link from marbux.
Gary Edwards

Yahoo BrowserPlus™: Web 3.0 - 0 views

browserplus.yahoo.com

css html-5 javascript jquery

shared by Gary Edwards on 30 May 08 - Cached
  • BrowserPlus™ is a technology for web browsers that allows developers to create rich web applications with desktop capabilities.
  • Gary Edwards on 30 May 08
     
    Another JavaSript library concept, but this time secure. Not as robust as jQuery, but Yahoo is off to a great start. wikiWORD could use this for dynamic page generation.
Gary Edwards

ECIS Accuses Microsoft of Plotting HTML Hijack | BetaNews Jan 2007 - 0 views

www.betanews.com/...1169824569

css html ooxml open-web wpf xaml xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Apr 08 - Cached
  • An industry coalition that has represented competitors of Microsoft in European markets before the European Commission stepped up its public relations offensive this morning, this time accusing Microsoft of scheming to upset HTML's place in the fabric of the Internet with XAML, an XML-based layout lexicon for network applications.
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Apr 08
     
    Look at the date on this! A full year has passed and we now can clearly see the importance to Microsoft of ISO approval for MSOffice-OOXML. The MSOffice SDK provides an easy to implement OOXML <> XAML conversion component, pavign the way for billions of complex, business process rich MSOffice documents to be used by IE-8 and the emerging MS Web-Stack. XAML is proprietary and exclusive to the Microsoft Web.
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