Re: Welcome to our Publishing CG

It's really best to think of EPUB as a _publication_ format rather than 
a _document_ format. It packages up a bunch of related resources, 
including, e.g., chapters of a book, which are actually XHTML+CSS 
documents contained in the package. The reason it has not taken off for 
journals is that while it might have been useful for journal _issues_, 
we no longer relate to journal literature by issues, it's about 
articles, and articles are perfectly fine as HTML documents (at least to 
convey the textual content)--and in an ideally accessible manner.

The CP/LD format Rinke and I wrote about is really also a _publication_ 
format (though it works for documents, hence its name); as Rinke 
mentioned, it uses the W3C standard Publication Manifest for packaging. 
One thing we stressed in developing CP/LD is that Linked Documents 
distinguish between content structure and the narrative and data 
semantics associated with that content. The content structure is 
expressed in HTML, the standard structural markup for the Web, rendered 
via CSS, used both in websites and in EPUBs. The narrative and data 
semantics are expressed in JSON-LD. And schema.org is used for 
subject/topic semantics, the "aboutness."

You can see why I'm so interested in joining this group! Especially for 
science and other scholarship, HTML/CSS is really the ideal long 
document format.

--Bill

On 2024-02-05 07:26, Leonard Rosenthol wrote:
>> HTML finally grew out of its "No, do it _my _way!" adolescence, and
> unless/until EPUB does the same,
> 
>> it will never be a truly competitive doc format.
>> 
> 
> Interesting position, James – as many of us here feel that this
> “feature” of HTML is actually the reason it can never be a
> “document format”.
> 
> When one thinks about a document, especially a “document of
> record”, they think of something that is designed to withstand the
> test of time by utilizing consistent standards that are not designed
> to change “on a whim”.  In addition, users have certain
> expectations of what a document can (and cannot) do – such as
> “phoning home” – that are exactly the opposite of what HTML
> wishes to do.
> 
> So EPUB, as building on top of HTML, makes a lot of sense…but the
> more we let the barn door open to leverage more of that “living
> standard”, the further we get from a reliable document format. (IMO)
> 
> 
> Leonard
> 
> From: James Gifford <james.gifford@nitropress.net>
> Date: Monday, January 29, 2024 at 4:05 PM
> To: Will Crichton <crichton.will@gmail.com>, Wolfgang Schindler
> <ws.schindler@googlemail.com>
> Cc: public-publishingcg@w3.org <public-publishingcg@w3.org>
> Subject: Re: Welcome to our Publishing CG
> 
> EXTERNAL: Use caution when clicking on links or opening attachments.
> 
> On 1/29/2024 1:53 PM, Will Crichton wrote:
> 
>> My main goal is to make HTML documents an acceptable format in
>> academia.
> 
> You've got my vote, here. HTML completely fell out of favor as a
> document format and is seen by too many as suitable only for
> structured web pages. It's possibly the best, most flexible, most
> widely accessible document format there is, with the caveat that
> there's absolutely no way to rights-protect it.
> 
> As a companion to PDF  — which has other, complementary strengths
> — HTML/CSS needs to be restored as a general long-form document
> format.
> 
> Without, _*ahem* _the many strictures and stumbling blocks of its
> implementation within EPUB — mostly the disastrous and crippling
> lack of standardization in readers. HTML finally grew out of its "No,
> do it _my _way!" adolescence, and unless/until EPUB does the same, it
> will never be a truly competitive doc format.
> 
> _  —James Gifford_
> 
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> 
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Received on Monday, 5 February 2024 17:37:10 UTC