Hi Joshua, Thank you, your appreciation is very valuable! As of today, *immatériel* would be able to distribute worldwide the catalog of any publishing house that would include books in TiddlyWiki format. I'd be glad to pursue this discussion further: don't hesitate to contact me directly.
For anyone out there who is willing to publish such a book independently, it may be more difficult. I'm not sure, but maybe we can create a dedicated imprint to gather such efforts... Best regards, -- Xavier Cazin On Fri, Mar 13, 2020 at 8:28 AM Joshua Fontany <[email protected]> wrote: > Xavier, Jeremy, JD, > > WOW. This is very impressive. I have been considering how I would > "re-present" a PDF/ebook as a Tiddlywiki and this exceeds most of what I > came up with! > > To springboard from Morgaine's comment about choose-you-own-adventure > books, I specifically was thinking about how to present RPG Source Books > (Adventure-Modules, Monser-Manuals, etc) as Tiddlywiki plugins. > > I noticed the Dynannotate plugin while updating my fork of the TW5 > repository, but didn't have the context for the project. > > I would love to discuss this more, as I think it would eventually be worth > approaching the couple of RPG publishing companies I have friends at (one > of which is a brand new french-language brand). Synchronicities abound. ;) > > Best, > Joshua Fontany > > On Thursday, March 12, 2020 at 12:18:42 PM UTC-7, Morgaine O'Herne wrote: >> >> Tiddlywiki would be perfect for choose-your-own-adventure books! >> >> >> On Wednesday, March 11, 2020 at 4:33:57 AM UTC-6, Xavier Cazin 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 <http://xn--immatriel-f4a.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 <http://xn--immatriel-f4a.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 >>> <http://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 [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/7464ffe8-31d9-4044-ae34-f09cffd82220%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/7464ffe8-31d9-4044-ae34-f09cffd82220%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- 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 [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/CADeSwYOzjGH3iO8tUN7qNgMn3UreGGZCOR%2B8nRWyJu2uhDJVhA%40mail.gmail.com.
