Quote:
Originally Posted by mattcurtis
What sucks is that you can't have both
|
I disagree, Matt. You definitely
can and
should have both as user
options.
Much as I'm dismayed by the fully arbitrary "page" schemes (ADE, Marvin, whatever...), the root of my dismay is when these are
enforced as the
only available page-count option.
That is the trouble here. Marvin is enforcing its own, (in my opinion
:) quite needlessly introduced new arbitrary scheme, while Hyphen is enforcing ADE. (I'm talking about "pages in
book", of course.)
Apple, in their turn, is enforcing the
natural page-count (screen-flips) as the
only option in iBooks, which happens to be my preference, but enforcing any
single option is just not a good way of treating your users. Naturally, anyone foolhardy enough to use Apple software must be used to such contemptuous treatment from Apple software, in that Apple just hates providing freedom of choice to their customers (unless they really, really must provide it here and there), and typically, you just need to meekly accept whatever you're force-fed by Apple software.
That's why I believe Marvin and Hyphen should be very different in their approach to their paying users. Don't be like Apple, please – don't give us a
single option, expecting it to satisfy everyone. As this thread clearly demonstrates (and you've just summarized it yourself, Matt), a
single page-count option will never satisfy
everyone. Apple's approach to this dilemma is arrogance: they simply
ignore the demands of the minority (as a multi-billion corporation, they can
afford to be arrogant towards the software demands of minorities), and they just go with whatever the bulk of the masses of users demands, because that's where the big buck is. (Other software corporations like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Adobe, or Facebook are no better, really – arrogance is in the DNA of software mega-corporations.) And for the masses,
mediocre software will do perfectly. Please let's not Marvin and Hyphen settle for mediocrity and an Apple-like, dismissive, arrogant approach to
diversified user demands and expectations. Apple is happy to settle, ignobly, for the lowest common denominator every time; but Marvin and Hyphen should aim higher.
I believe both Marvin and Hyphen should give us
alternative page-count options, too: among them, what I call the "natural" or "common-sense" option:
screen flip = page turn.
If you and Kris do that, I will no longer be incensed by Marvin's scheme or ADE – I'll be free to ignore them, or even use them
along with what I call the "natural" page-count (iBooks-style).
Yup,
along with it. For example, now that Marvin allows us to customize page footers, I wouldn't mind in the least if I saw
both the natural page-count in the footer,
and ADE's page-count at the same time. Why not? What I find unbearable and unacceptable is if ADE's page-count (or Marvin's scheme) is the
only option.
(Hyphen displays the same internal conflict, in terms of page-counts, as Marvin does – you are, Matt, simply masking that internal contradiction better through Hyphen's user interface, whereas Marvin's user interface, being fully transparent and customizable, makes that internal contradiction and inconsistency glaringly, in-your-face obvious. The contradiction and inconsistency consists in both Marvin and Hyphen using
natural page-counts = screen-flips for "pages in
chapter", but artificial, abstract, arbitrary pseudo-page-counts for "pages in
book".)
Quote:
Originally Posted by mattcurtis
I replied to you over here on Hyphen's thread, Faterson, so as not to derail Marvin's. |
Right. I'll be posting my Hyphen-specific reply there.