I present... Something...

All,

I gave myself a week to develop something to show something.  Honestly – when I started, I wasn’t sure WHAT it is I was really building, or why, but often when I get to building, things become much clearer.  Fueled also by the wonderful discussions that we’ve had over the past week, I’ve created something…

What is it
A server-side script written in PHP/Apache that converts, in real time, an epub document.

What does it convert it to?
Anything we want.  Right now is creates a very simple JSON spine, and then injects an extremely lightweight navigation RS on top (a next/previous button)

Why?
I wanted to create something that was easy for content creators to work with, and the reality is, epubs are being made.  BUT, it could easily be adapted to handle other formats.
ALSO – This can be used to allow us to “test” different implementations.  We can unzip an epub, tweak the script to output a specific type of WAM and see what happens in different browsers.  We can create situations and easily see what happens.
As things continue, I can add more “conversions” so we can generate examples on the fly.  It can also help us if we want to point out examples where existing systems need to be improved.

Where is it:
Example: http://nickruffilo.com/wp/book/zot.epub/

Code: http://nickruffilo.com/wp/code.php (will output the JS, CSS, htaccess, and PHP code.

This should probably go into a github repo somewhere, but I wasn’t sure if this is something the W3C would want in their repo, or if I should put it in a personal repo.  Thoughts welcomed.

-Nick