epub3-samples VS web

With MathML epubs can look decent. For example take a look at the sample MathML epub "A First Course In Linear Algebra" [0] (in a reader that supports MathML of course). It looks pretty good. The problem is Amazon STILL doesn't support MathML, so publishers just churn out a gross version where all the equations are images and so then it doesn't scale properly with the text and the book becomes 300+ MB because of it. And they can't be bothered to make two versions for readers like Kobo that do support MathML.

[0]: https://github.com/IDPF/epub3-samples/releases/download/2017...

For example, if you want to open epub files like https://github.com/IDPF/epub3-samples/releases/download/20170606/accessible_epub_3.epub inside Brave, you will have to install an epub reader extension then instead of downloading it will open inside Brave, if you want to change that behavior you have to disable the extension or limit the extension's domain list, or you right click and "save link as file", but unless the extension has the settings, there is no way to tell Brave to use extension or download manager depending on extensions, unless the extension gets disabled. And if you have an external epub reader, well, you can automatically open the extension when you tell Brave to do it as well.

I've worked on a ePub parse and renderer and the issues you're describing sound pretty familiar.

The three main components of the ePub (aside from the actual pages) are the TOC, the spine and the manifest. The manifest basically tells you where everything is, the TOC is the table of contents which can link to various pages and the spine gives you the traversal order.

Some mistakes I've seen are using the TOC to traverse the book. Using the spine to traverse the book but not handling hidden pages properly. Not handling two page spread properly.

So yeah the spec is nuanced and it would be easy to make a reader that worked with a lot of books but then had weird issues on another set of books that aren't particularly different.

I recall using this repo (https://github.com/IDPF/epub3-samples) to test specific functionality to make sure it was in line with the spec.

Sure, at some point you're going to be relying on some 3rd party somewhere. We use a VPS and not a bare-metal hand-installed rack, and we rely on an electrical company and not a hand-turned crank to power our servers. As far as email goes, It's simply not possible to self-host transactional email in 2024 if you want it to arrive in an inbox and not a permanent spam blackhole; likewise it's not possible to accept money without involving a 3rd party service like Fractured Atlas or Stripe or PayPal. (Moving away from GitHub towards a self-hosted Git solution is actually on our long-term todo list[1]).

All those things doesn't mean you can't run your web app on a single tiny server, and that outsourcing the basic underpinnings of your web app, like the OS, runtime, and database to some cloud service, or that resorting to flavor-of-the-month frameworks or containers, will result in complexity and bloat.

[1] https://github.com/standardebooks/web/blob/master/README.md#...

Hey a little later to the party here but I'm really enjoying this. I started reading a book with it and while I agree with others it's not great for grammar it certainly shows me many new words without requiring me to read at a glacial pace.

PS: You should def try to include some books from https://standardebooks.org/ which are much nicer formatted than the ones you're using from Project Gutenberg.

Good luck and I hope you can keep building this out. Already the update to tap anywhere to close the word definition is a nice improvement :)

A number of e-book platforms are discussed on my blog, which dives deeply into the technical nuances of typesetting a few[1]. Ultimately, I typeset a classic from Standard EBooks[2], Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde[3].

[1]: https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2020/04/11/project-gutenberg-p...

[2]: https://standardebooks.org/

[3]: https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2020/04/28/typesetting-markdow...

As an aside, for anyone looking for free classic books to read on their various eReaders, these are very well done: https://standardebooks.org

It is the same when you download a kepub book from standardebooks.org. You will have the epub file with kepub features.

> https://standardebooks.org/

Standard Ebooks is seriously impressive. One of my favorite sources of books in the public domain.

I’d also add in addition to this excellent list of DRM-free ebooks, it’s always worth looking into borrowing a book from the library via Libby/Overdrive.