docbook-apps

Bob,

I just tried the epub3 beta 3 transform and was able to successfully process a 250+ page book with toc, index, figures, tables, etc.

I then fed the book to Calibre, converted it to mobi, and tried both mobi and epub on my iphone. While I haven't (yet) extensively tested the files, both look pretty good. I'll let you know what happens as i do some more testing.

I also ran kindlegen, but as reported by Jirka, it was unhappy with the handling of language, so I didn't test with it any further.

I ran epubcheck 3.0b2, which reported only one error, which I think is an epubcheck bug and not a problem with your file. Here's what happened:

- epubcheck didn't like the content of the dc:date element, saying it must be an ISO date or ISO date and time. However, the only occurrence of dc:date is in package.opf and is just a year (2009), which appears to have been taken from the <year> element in the copyright notice. Since 2009 is a valid ISO date, this looks like an epubcheck problem, and I have submitted a trouble report on the epubcheck sourceforge page.

Best Regards,
Dick
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Hi,

Thank you for providing clear testing results, Dick.

(Speaking only for myself...)

I feel *very* strongly that the DocBook-XSL EPUB 3 output that Bob is
working on (with support from O'Reilly Media) should not be limited by
either kindlegen or calibre. I do not feel that criticisms based on
kindlegen or calibre are constructive at this time. Both of these
tools will need to be updated to accept EPUB 3 documents, if their
authors have that as a goal. The EPUB 3 target is
deliberately-bleeding edge, so I'd encourage of a focus on the actual
EPUB 3 output rather than current-tool compatibility.

If there are completely transparent improvements that allow the EPUB 3
stylesheets to interoperate better with today's calibre and kindlegen,
those contributions should certainly be welcome.

> I ran  epubcheck 3.0b2, which reported only one error, which I think is an epubcheck bug and not a problem with your file. Here's what happened:

Yes, Markus (an epubcheck 3 developer) accepted a similar bug reported
by Bob: http://code.google.com/p/epubcheck/issues/detail?id=127


Regards,
Keith

Keith,

I agree with you that the output should not be tailored for an intermediate converter. The converters ought to be set up to work with clean epub.

Of course, at this point, it's unfair to expect these epub2 converters to do a good job on epub3, although, Calibre did a surprisingly good job (at least in the kindle emulator on the iphone; I still need to try it out on a real Kindle).

I mentioned what I used mostly so that Bob has the most detailed information I can give him, not to push him towards making changes that favor a particular converter.

As a side note, I missed seeing the issue Markus filed for Bob because a search for dc:date comes up empty on code.google.com. I guess the search engine tried to interpret the colon as a special character (like in site:xxx) and missed the literal interpretation I intended:-).

Dick

On Oct 4, 2011, at 4:27 PM, Keith Fahlgren wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Thank you for providing clear testing results, Dick.
>
> (Speaking only for myself...)
>
> I feel *very* strongly that the DocBook-XSL EPUB 3 output that Bob is
> working on (with support from O'Reilly Media) should not be limited by
> either kindlegen or calibre. I do not feel that criticisms based on
> kindlegen or calibre are constructive at this time. Both of these
> tools will need to be updated to accept EPUB 3 documents, if their
> authors have that as a goal. The EPUB 3 target is
> deliberately-bleeding edge, so I'd encourage of a focus on the actual
> EPUB 3 output rather than current-tool compatibility.
>
> If there are completely transparent improvements that allow the EPUB 3
> stylesheets to interoperate better with today's calibre and kindlegen,
> those contributions should certainly be welcome.
>
>> I ran epubcheck 3.0b2, which reported only one error, which I think is an epubcheck bug and not a problem with your file. Here's what happened:
>
> Yes, Markus (an epubcheck 3 developer) accepted a similar bug reported
> by Bob: http://code.google.com/p/epubcheck/issues/detail?id=127
>
>
> Regards,
> Keith
>
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On 5.10.2011 1:27, Keith Fahlgren wrote:

> I feel *very* strongly that the DocBook-XSL EPUB 3 output that Bob is
> working on (with support from O'Reilly Media) should not be limited by
> either kindlegen or calibre. I do not feel that criticisms based on
> kindlegen or calibre are constructive at this time.

I definitively wasn't criticizing effort, just sharing my observations
as an early adopter. I have also submitted some small patches which
allow easier customization (e.g. font embedding).

I think that Bob is doing excellent job and it is cool that O'Reilly is
supporting his work.

Jirka

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