Small books: was KOMAscript book workaround?

[Steve Litt]

On Fri, 22 Jul 2016 22:39:38 +0530
Swami Atmarupananda  wrote:

> The book I'm doing (2nd ed) is meant to be pocket-sized, so it is
> A6-formatted, about 100 pages long, which means I have to maximize the
> usage of space, beyond what is - from a purely aesthetic standpoint -
> ideal.


Hi Swami,

We gotta talk!

I'm putting the finishing touches and indexing on the second edition of
"Manager's Guide to Technical Troubleshooting." The first edition was
8.5x11 print book, created before mobile devices were a thing. Because
the second edition is composed about 80% of the first edition, the
first edition was in LyX, and LyX has no realistic way to make high
quality ePubs, I changed the paper size of the second edition to custom
3"x5" (3 wide, 5 high), with 12 point Tex Guire Schula print. My
margins are maybe 1/20 inch. For people with 20/20 vision or slightly
worse, this can be read on a fairly small device. For those with worse
vision, it can be read on a computer and blown up, read on a larger
device and blown up, or, if the device and the PDF reader support
rotation, the device can be rotated to landscape with the book still
portrait, so the letters are larger but you need to scroll down once to
get to the bottom of each page.

I've put this thing on my Kindle, which is about 3.5x5. I have nowhere
near as good as 20/20 vision, but I can read it on my Kindle, although
not for long (eye strain). Most people could read it on my Kindle all
day long.

In some ways, when sold to readers with 20/20 vision, this "mini-pdf"
format is actually better than ePub. I can retain things like
footnotes, numerical references, etc. My index can list a page range,
and that actually makes sense. I can continue to watermark my books.

Of course, I haven't sold any yet. People might turn out to hate
viewing PDFs on mobile devices. But so far, things seem auspicious.

When you mention that, to make a small book, you need to use your screen
real estate in ways that might not be aesthetically ideal, I completely
understand and came to the same conclusion. I'll be interested to hear
how your small book progresses.

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt 
July 2016 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques
 of the Successful Technologist
http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques

Re: feedback on middle-clicking tab behavior

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Fri, Jul 22, 2016 at 07:52:59PM +0200, racoon wrote:

> How about a "full screen" option that is still windowed, i.e. a windowed
> mode that gets rid of selected elements, like toolbars and tabs?
> 
> - To begin with it could use the same settings of hidden elements as full
> screen.
> 
> - Keyboard shortcut: Some modifier+F11?
> 
> I am just brainstorming...

I'm sure there are improvements to be made. If you have something you
think makes sense make a ticket so we don't forget about it.

Scott


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Re: feedback on middle-clicking tab behavior

[racoon]

On 22.07.2016 11:17, Scott Kostyshak wrote:

On Fri, Jul 22, 2016 at 10:41:08AM +0200, racoon wrote:

On 21.07.2016 02:04, Scott Kostyshak wrote:

On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 07:32:01PM -0400, Scott Kostyshak wrote:


Interesting idea. I guess we do not show it to use the extra space, but
I'm not sure which is best.


I doubt we are going to change this by default [...]


(Sorry for being slightly off-topic.)

I am not sure I understand why though.

If the reason is that the extra space is important to have then something
should be done about the spaces in LyX in general. Because I guess often
people work with several tabs anyway and if space is a problem there, then
it is a more general problem.


Yes it would be nice to improve vertical space in other ways.


How about a "full screen" option that is still windowed, i.e. a windowed 
mode that gets rid of selected elements, like toolbars and tabs?


- To begin with it could use the same settings of hidden elements as 
full screen.


- Keyboard shortcut: Some modifier+F11?

I am just brainstorming...

Daniel

Re: KOMAscript book workaround?

[Swami Atmarupananda]

 Thanks to el and to SteveT for their comments. I will certainly look into
the standard book class for future needs. I've always gone for the
specialized classes, thinking them to be more polished, as of course they
are; but I hadn't thought of the downside.

Just to bring the topic to a close from my side, Marcus Kohm was very
helpful, as el had said promised.

The book I'm doing (2nd ed) is meant to be pocket-sized, so it is
A6-formatted, about 100 pages long, which means I have to maximize the
usage of space, beyond what is - from a purely aesthetic standpoint -
ideal. The 1st problem Marcus K. discovered from my MWE was the unusually
long subtitle (six lines, in Sanskrit, mandated by the publisher). When I
shortened it to 3, the publication matter popped onto the backside of the
title page without problem. (Even with the 6 lines there was physically
enough room, respecting margins, which is why I didn't see it as a source
of the problem, but Komascript didn't like it.) Secondly, he showed me how
to keep the 6-line subtitle and still get the publication matter on the
reverse side, by pushing the publisher info further down on the title page
thus:

\publishers{%
  \enlargethispage{2\baselineskip}%
   संस्कृताध्ययनविभागः\\
   रामकृष्णमिशन्-विवेकानन्द-विश्वविद्यालयः}

Then \uppertitleback{xyz...} comes after that, with several paragraphs of
formatted publication info. Thus the problem was solved without telling the
publisher that I had to reduce the subtitle.

Swami, from a remote corner of the Himalayas.

On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 9:48 PM, Swami Atmarupananda <
atmarupana...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Many thanks. I have contacted him, got a reply, and sent him an MWE.
> Swami
>
> On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 5:11 PM, Dr Eberhard Lisse 
> wrote:
>
>> Komascript issue.
>>
>> Contact the author of the package, who is very helpful.
>>
>> el
>>
>> On 2016-07-19 12:18, Swami Atmarupananda wrote:
>> > Greetings.
>> > I'm redoing through lyx a book whose 1st edition I wrote in latex. All
>> > has worked excellently well -- much quicker than the original latex --
>> > except one problem. I'm using KOMA scrbook, which forces a blank page
>> > after the title page. (The first edition used memoir which doesn't have
>> > the problem.) But I need to put publication info on the backside (verso)
>> > of the title page, and can't figure out how to override the forced blank
>> > page. (Other forced blank pages after part and chapter headings are not
>> > an issue.)
>> >
>> > I see provision for the environments "uppertitleback" and
>> > "lowertitleback" under scrbook, which promise to do most of what I want
>> > (maybe all), but I can't get them to work. The manual says that the
>> > matter within the environment must be put before the \maketitle command.
>> > I'm not sure where LyX puts that command, but in latex it comes just
>> > after the titlepage information (title, author, date, publisher) is
>> > entered. So I put the matter with environment just after \frontmatter
>> > (i.e. immediately above the titlepage matter), but it still appears on
>> > the next righthand (recto) page after the titlepage; and I also tried
>> > putting it in the middle of the titlepage matter, and at the end, but it
>> > still comes on the next recto page. Same with matter in the
>> > lowertitleback environment. I've tried it by typing in the matter in lyx
>> > and selecting the environment from the dropdown menu, and I've tried it
>> > by entering latex code. Same thing.
>> >
>> > So, to state it simply, I want to put a page-worth of material on the
>> > backside of the title page, where scrbook forces a blank page. Anything
>> > that works is fine -- the simpler the better. The one workaround
>> > mentioned above may not be sufficient even if I could get it to work,
>> > which I can't, because uppertitleback and lowertitleback seem to be
>> > designed for a single paragraph each, and I have several worth of
>> > publication data.
>> >
>> > Using LyX 2.1.4 under Ubuntu 16.04.
>> >
>> > Many thanks for any help.
>> > Swami
>>
>>
>

Re: feedback on middle-clicking tab behavior

[PhilipPirrip]

On 07/21/2016 04:20 PM, Scott Kostyshak wrote:

or
www.lyx.org/trac/ticket/10289


Thanks Scott, it was 10289.
I added a comment to the discussion there.

Re: feedback on middle-clicking tab behavior

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Fri, Jul 22, 2016 at 10:41:08AM +0200, racoon wrote:
> On 21.07.2016 02:04, Scott Kostyshak wrote:
> > On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 07:32:01PM -0400, Scott Kostyshak wrote:
> > > 
> > > Interesting idea. I guess we do not show it to use the extra space, but
> > > I'm not sure which is best.
> > 
> > I doubt we are going to change this by default [...]
> 
> (Sorry for being slightly off-topic.)
> 
> I am not sure I understand why though.
> 
> If the reason is that the extra space is important to have then something
> should be done about the spaces in LyX in general. Because I guess often
> people work with several tabs anyway and if space is a problem there, then
> it is a more general problem.

Yes it would be nice to improve vertical space in other ways.

> Always showing tabs seems also like pretty much the standard in other
> applications (e.g. browsers).

Good point. I wonder if it makes a difference that LyX has some toolbars
that take up a lot of space up top, and Chromium and Firefox do not.

> My guess is, as I suggested, that this is
> because there are certain functionalities when tabs are shown that users get
> used to which are lost when they are hidden.

I'm not sure what the reason is, but what you put makes sense.

> 
> I guess tabs could be shown by default but there could be a switch in
> 
> Tools > Preferences... > Look & Feel > Document Handling.

Could be.

Scott


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Re: feedback on middle-clicking tab behavior

[racoon]

On 21.07.2016 02:04, Scott Kostyshak wrote:

On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 07:32:01PM -0400, Scott Kostyshak wrote:


Interesting idea. I guess we do not show it to use the extra space, but
I'm not sure which is best.


I doubt we are going to change this by default [...]


(Sorry for being slightly off-topic.)

I am not sure I understand why though.

If the reason is that the extra space is important to have then 
something should be done about the spaces in LyX in general. Because I 
guess often people work with several tabs anyway and if space is a 
problem there, then it is a more general problem.


Always showing tabs seems also like pretty much the standard in other 
applications (e.g. browsers). My guess is, as I suggested, that this is 
because there are certain functionalities when tabs are shown that users 
get used to which are lost when they are hidden.


I guess tabs could be shown by default but there could be a switch in

Tools > Preferences... > Look & Feel > Document Handling.

Daniel