Re: EPUB and XML [was: The non-polyglot elephant in the room]

Bill,

Polyglot Markup is a Working Draft.[1] So not not only editor’s draft. 
We're now discussing whether to send it on the recommendation track …

If the goal is easy exchange between ePUB and HTML, then use of 
polyglot markup can allow that, today. (I have not tested that it 
*actually* works - I have only briefly dabbled into ePUB, but at least 
it should per the spec work. As long as the reading systems accepts the 
HTML5 doctype and the @lang attribute in addition to XML:lang.)

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/html-polyglot/


Leif H Silli

Bill McCoy, Mon, 28 Jan 2013 08:42:00 -0800:
> Leif,
> 
> re: polyglot XHTML5 being a good fit, sure, why not be able to have
> content that can be served up as both HTML and/or XML? And polyglot
> gives practical advantages in re: integration of SVG and MathML.
> 
> I believe EPUB 3.0 was well down the track before the polyglot notion
> was fleshed out (it seems even now it is still an Editors Draft), and
> if we had *required* polyglot that would have even further narrowed
> what kind of HTML5 content was acceptable in EPUB.
> 
> But if polyglot markup becomes a stable specification that's more
> widely adopted, e.g. in CMS systems, then requiring it in the future
> could be an interesting option for something like an EPUB 4. It's
> already common to render EPUB publications via browser-based "cloud
> readers". But who knows, by the time of HTML6 maybe the discussion
> will be about a JSON encoding of HTML rather than arguments about XML
> vs. "tag soup".
> 
> --Bill
> 
> On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 11:55 AM, Leif Halvard Silli
> <xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no> wrote:
>> Bill, regarding polyglot markup …
>> 
>> Bill McCoy, Sun, 27 Jan 2013 07:25:51 -0800:
>>> I agree with you that for those using XML of whatever flavor for their
>>> core content, generating XHTML in creating EPUB is a good fit, since
>>> by definition they will have XML-oriented toolchains in place.
>>   […]
>>> But as Web/EPUB has become a more central output for many content
>>> publishers, and with HTML5 having more semantic elements and means for
>>> microdata / semantic inflection, there's been something of a trend
>>> towards certain book publishers (at least) looking at (X)HTML as an
>>> option for the core content structure not just as a generated output
>>> format. This has been helped along by  popular blogging platforms like
>>> WordPress and Drupal having (X)HTML as their internal article storage
>>> format,
>> 
>> doesn't all this make polyglot XHTML5 seem like a good fit? E.g. as a
>> "transition" format?
>> --
>> leif halvard silli

Received on Monday, 28 January 2013 17:21:15 UTC