This is amazing. Very good idea. On 11 March 2020 03:33:57 GMT-07:00, Xavier Cazin <xca...@immateriel.fr> wrote: > > >Hi everyone, > >TL;DR: Go to >https://www.7switch.com/fr/ebook/9783962558772/great-expectations-serapis-classics, > >click on "Read an extract" and play with it. Then come back if you'd >like >to know more. > >I have been working in the publishing industry for the past 25 years, >including the last 10 years as the co-founder of a French ebook >distribution company, *immatériel.fr*. Among many things that got me >frustrated in the course of selling ebooks is the fact that ebook >formats >have never been in phase with how we have linked ourselves to knowledge >in >the two last decades. > > >The main reason for this particular failure is because ePub and >Mobipocket >were initially (around 2010) imposed to publishers by Apple and Amazon >respectively, and became soon the only digital formats that publishers >could sell to the main vendors (actually, Google Play Books also sells >PDF >books). > >While there are other reasons to rant about the current state of the >ebook >market, I gave some thought about what could be a likeable modern >format >for eBooks, and as you guessed, TiddlyWiki checked all the boxes: > > 1. the book should be easy to open: the reading app could be the same >browser that you used to buy the book, whether you are on your mobile >or at > your desktop; > 2. it should be readable both offline or online; >3. it should open at the same place where you stopped reading last >time; > 4. typesetting should be as beautiful and complex as a website can be; > 5. content should be truly multimedia, including live content from >anywhere on the network. Audio books should be a mere byproduct of this > > feature; > 6. authors should be allowed to multiply standpoints on its content; > 7. readers should be able to reorganise the initial content, and also > write above and around it; >8. for the paranoids out there or those who missed Tim O'Reilly's >famous > piece on piracy ><https://www.oreilly.com/content/piracy-is-progressive-taxation-and-other-thoughts-on-the-evolution-of-online-distribution/> > >back in the days, book content should be easy to encrypt. Ebooks >lending to > libraries might actually be a good use case. > >So we at *immatériel.fr* considered that this territory was worth >exploring >and we dedicated our 2019 R&D efforts into building a TW5 alternative >format for customers who were regularly buying ePubs at our >experimental >bookstore *7switch.com*. We had to move forward on two fronts in >parallel: > >- Converting our full catalog of 80K ePubs from more than 1000 (mostly > French) publishers into TW5 > - Figuring a way to display books in an homogeneous way, yet familiar >enough for both people reading content on the Web and people used to >ePub > reading apps, while showing off their new TiddlyWiki nature. > >So I asked *Jeremy* if he'd welcome a sponsoring for such a project >through >his company *Federatial* and, to my awe, he said yes of course! >Parallely, >since I wasn't sure of how we should render the typical book elements >nor >the typical features of an ebook reading app in a TW5 interface, I >asked >*JD*, one of our gifted community contributors to TW5 user interfaces, >for >ideas and preliminary tests. > > >Soon enough, the three of us had regular meetings, that eventually led >to a *preliminary >release* of several great open source products that are now embedded >into >every non-DRM books and extracts that you'll find at the *7switch* >ebookstore: > >1. The first one is already included in the current prerelease of TW5: > the dynaview plugin ><https://tiddlywiki.com/prerelease/#%24%3A%2Fplugins%2Ftiddlywiki%2Fdynaview> > > allows content to come into view dynamically in response to familiar > gestures like scrolling. >2. Next comes the *dynannotate* plugin, which will soon make its way to > >5.1.22, and is already included in books and extracts that you can find >on >*7switch*. With it, you can annotate content in a various number of >ways. >3. Then you'll find the *ePub-slicer* plugin, a tool to convert any >ePub >file into a plugin that essentially contains a list of small content >chunks >(aka tiddlers!) which can be revealed during the scroll as you read the > > book in the browser. Thanks to their plugin nature, not only multiple > converted books can be hosted in a single TW5 file, but also one can >override book content without fear, since the original shadow tiddlers > could be retrieved at any time. Note that the HTML parsing is not yet >complete, as we'd like to be able to parse any ePub, whether their >content > has been well semantised or not. So if you see spurious </li> or ></blockquote> every once in a while, don't be surprised: *you're >looking > at a work in progress*. > 4. Finally, you'll also find JD's *TW Book Wrapper* plugin, which is >responsible for most specific UI elements, from annotations management >to >the automatic language switching, based on your browser default >language. > By the way, we started with French and English as built-in interface > languages. If you'd like to submit more translations, you're welcome! > >Please have a try with any non-DRM books (or their extracts) that >you'll >find on 7switch ><https://www.7switch.com/en/list/drmfree/lang-eng/new/page/1/sales>. >Also >try to drag and drop your own ePubs (in so-called *Author Mode*) to add > >books in these TW5 containers. And tell us what you think! > > >Cheers, Xavier. > >-- >You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. >To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >an email to tiddlywiki+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >To view this discussion on the web visit >https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/cd52b470-4742-40a2-80d1-1d3a7dcf2d43%40googlegroups.com.
-- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tiddlywiki+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/1CC67AA1-5845-4CA7-8104-8A3326A7BCF6%40gmail.com.
