AZARDI 23 Released

20 August 2013

AZARDI, Announcement, Audio, Video, Textbook

AZARDI 23 has been released and can now be downloaded from the AZARDI site. There are a number of significant new features.

AZARDI 23 has been released and can now be downloaded from the AZARDI site.

If you have AZARDI 21 installed it will be updated to AZARDI 23 automatically the next time it is opened.

If you don't have AZARDI you can download it from the AZARDI site here ►.

It is available for Windows, MacIntosh and Linux (32 and 64 bit DEB installers).

New Features

Video and Audio

AZARDI Desktop for Windows now supports MP3 and MP4 because Firefox for Windows does. Sorry Linux and Apple brothers but there is no story from Mozilla on this for you at present. 

AZARDI does of course still support WebM and OGG video and audio... magnificently.

Textbook Fixed Layout Spine Properties

We have included support in fixed-layout spine properties for the experimental ePub3 fixed-layout spine property:

rendition:layout-scrolling.

We have discovered this feature is essential for ePub3 textbooks where the content is designed and needs to scroll rather than be paginated. It acts like all other fixed-layout spine properties and instructs the reading system to present the content as scrollable and not paginated.

To demonstrate this our Year 5 VERY interactive math book will be available from the AZARDI resources page shortly. Stand-by for the announcement ( in just a day or two).

This means scrolling pages with widgets such as pop-up panels can be easily created when specific content needs to have the focus. This takes textbook production options forward significantly.

The Page Up and Page Down buttons work identically to side pagination and navigate down through the full scrolling page before changing to the next page.

Accessibility

We have refocused on accessibility with a keyboard shortcut review and extensions. We are now including the AZARDI help page in all demonstration ePub3 books. 

Beside the keyboard shortcuts, the NVDA text-to-speech module works beautifully with AZARDI Desktop for Windows. You can read about that and get more information on the AZARDI Accessibility blog post from January 2013 .

Bug Fixes

There are a number of irritating bug fixes that have been addressed, in particular fixed-layout page navigation behaviour.

AZARDI 21 Mac Installation Bug

We had issues with the Mozilla auto-updating with AZARDI 21 for MacIntosh and the recommendation was to uninstall any previous version and install it apple fresh. The bug has been fixed and from AZARDI 23 on updates will be automatic.

However we have the same recommendation to uninstall AZARDI 21 before installing AZARDI 23 as there is a file-size bloat problem.

Uninstalling and reinstalling the application only takes a few seconds. Just delete AZARDI from your application folder and replace it with the downloaded new version. This does not affect the AZARDI databases or stored files.

E0: Pushing Digital Content Forward

AZARDI continues to push the real-world requirements of digital content packaging and presentation forward. It remains the best available desktop ePub3 reader available.

It is also the testbed development environment for the proposed E-Book Zero (E0) format.

Under the skin AZARDI is supporting the latest development specification of the E-Book Zero (E0) specification. There have been significant changes since the last release.

The E0 Strawman specification has been published and AZARDI, the E0 test cases and the E0 demonstration books have been updated to reflect those substantial changes.

Absorb the simplicity and sophistication of the E0 Strawman Specification here ►

Access the E0 technical feature test books here

Access the E0 demonstration books here ►

If you have downloaded the previous set of demonstration and test books, the easy way to know they are the old versions is the covers will not show when they are loaded into the reading system (the first time). It is our recommendation you delete all E0 books and download the updated sets.

Remember E0 is also an instant WebApp package and Online Reading system. You can view the E0 test books Online here . This is a simple demonstration that shows how easy it is to reuse a fully HTML5 standards compliant package.

The E0 reading system is something publishers should keep in focus while the specification is discussed and settled.

One of the failures of the ePub3 specification was there were no test implementations of any of the features and the available test cases are very limited and ineffective. Another significant issue is that the format is inherently production un-friendly and expensive to produce. 

The purpose of AZARDI supporting the E0 specification as ideas are proposed and agreed to ensure the features and production issues are directly addressed and highlighted from a real-world implementation perspective. Infogrid Pacific maintain IGP:Digital Publisher and AZARDI to reflect the latest agreed E0 proposals on each AZARDI update.

ePub3 Samples and Demonstrations

The largest collection of ePub 3 demonstration and sample books is available from the AZARDI ePub 3 Resource page .

There is a collection of ePub 3 Fixed-Layout ePub 3 demonstration books and ePub 3 reflowing books with various interactivity and features.

In addition the E0 demonstration book download page has the same books available in ePub 3. This allows direct comparison between the core packaging methods.

Meanwhile enjoy your reading or interactive engagement with AZARDI. The most specification compliant ePub2/3 reading system in the world today.

And it costs... nothing.

Posted by Richard Pipe

 

Start a real digital content strategy with

IGP:Digital Publisher

The complete digital publishing content management and production solution.

Available as for Small and Medium publisher:

Subscription Portals

Production Service Portals

IGP:Digital Publisher is also available as a full site license purchase.

Contact us for more information...

Use one master XHTML file to instantly create multiple print, e-book and Internet formats.

comments powered by Disqus