EPUB3 UNLEASHED Available

EPUB3 UNLEASHED will only play in AZARDI for the two good reasons that; AZARDI is the only ePub3 reader available, and the only one with a comprehensive interactive engine. EPUB3 UNLEASHED will display in any ePub3 reader, but wont do anything. It is highly unlikely to display anything but text in any ePub2 reader.

There is a lot of talk about Fixed-Layout and Interactive content on various forums and blogs, but very little to actually see other than under-whelming print book echos. The commentaries seem to be about copying print book layouts and not giving digital content the real attention it deserves.  

EPUB3 UNLEASHED is the first in a series of demonstration and test books we are producing to raise the expectations of publishers. The target audience is education, learning and training publishers or organizations.

Demo Books the Next

Flashcards are a great self-learning tool. Next off the demo-book blocks is an ePub3 Flashcard book, to demonstrate how easy it is to produce self-learning interactive ePubs. This one will be designed to work on any reasonably standardized ePub3 reader. This is based on the same FoundationXHTML we used to make a wide range of print flashcards a year or so ago. We are selecting these special vertical content genres because they are important, and highlight interactive engagement over passive reading.

Before flashcards hits the streets the Adaptive and Dynamic Layout book will probably be available. The objective is to demonstrate that print layout metaphors do not need to be followed to make compelling image heavy books. (We had several sections like this in EPUB3 UNLEASHED but decided the subject was worth its own book.)

The Desktop

While predictions of the demise of the desktop are everywhere, there is still life in the old fella yet. The sub-title "The Return of the Desktop" is a not too subtle reference to a Lord of the Rings movie, where the dark towers of Appledor and Androrth are beaten back by the Fellowship of the Desktops. There is no plan for an App version of AZARDI for the good reason what it does cannot be done on devices at present or even ever in the foreseeable future. 

Technical Notes

Because Infogrid Pacific creates both production tools and ePub reader software; and provides digital content production services to selected publishers;  we probably know more about ePub than any one group should or want to know. A major objective in producing a book of this nature is to push the problem domain learning boundaries while remaining in spec. This book validates on the latest build of the ePubCheck 3.0.beta 3 with just one silly small CSS error we are tracking down.

Needless to say the CSS in this book is massive. There are 53 font-faces in OTF, TTF and WOFF, nearly 50% of the total file size (all SIL Open Font Licenses). We use WebM audio and video, no MP3 or MP4 because of the underlying Mozilla framework.  The spec specifies MP3 as mandatory, and we could have included it with WebM fall back, but this book is for AZARDI only, so we kept the filesize down. We used images where needed, but maximum presentation is with CSS. Sprites and specialist images are wonderful SVG.

If you have any feedback about EPUB3 UNLEASHED in particular or interactive digital content in general, please make them on this blog. We would be interested to hear any ideas for more demostration books, but only for AZARDI. The app-tap stuff is fine and there are a million experts out there working out how to make a 6in x 9in page fit onto 768px x 1024px.

But please note copyright cleared content is always important for demonstrations, one of the biggest restrictions in making significant demonstration books. While an interactive version of the Oxford English Dictionary may be a great demo, OUP are unlikely to be amused!

Please enjoy the digital content interactive concepts in EPUB3 UNLEASHED. It is a concept demo product, it has a few furry edges but... you will get the idea.

Posted by Richard Pipe