Mobi2IMP 9.4 with new Windows GUI & UTF-8

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

[PRE-EMPTIVE EDIT : it seemed to me that the first info of my DOS window must be getting cut off (i don't know if there is a maximum length to a DOS window ?), so i did a conversion on a very small mobi file with no images, and i unselected "debug info". problem solved, i can see the options at the top of the window. i'm leaving this part of the message though, in case someone else is as big a goon when it comes to this stuff as me i'm going to try the recursive batch repetitive conversion recursiveness now. further updates as events warrant ]

That's it!

Loose the 'debug info' option and the "top of the screen" will not be pushed off to oblivion! The 'verbose' alone should give you more than you need!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

thank you, Department of Recursiveness Department, batch processing works ! i have imp versions of all Harry's Austen books now, just cleaning up the code a little bit and fixing the illustrations before uploading them.

What needs to be fixed?

[DaleDe]

Hi Zelda, when pronounced the letter GUI sound like Gooey but in text they should be GUI as nobody will make the association you spell it gooey. GUI mean Graphic User Interface. Thanks for the efforts on the books.

Dale

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Hi Zelda, when pronounced the letter GUI sound like Gooey but in text they should be GUI as nobody will make the association you spell it gooey. GUI mean Graphic User Interface. Thanks for the efforts on the books.

Dale

oh sorry about that ! i'll write GUI from now on. i just learned it is pronounced "gooey" in english and i think it's really funny, that's why i spelled it that way...

[EDIT i know it means Graphic User Interface, that's why i was surprised the first time i heard "gooey"]

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

thank you, Department of Recursiveness Department, batch processing works ! i have imp versions of all Harry's Austen books now, just cleaning up the code a little bit and fixing the illustrations before uploading them.

a question about that : i put all my mobi files to be converted in the mobi2imp\bin directory in my system drive (where the .bat file is), but i have the impression that the "installer" doesn't so much "install" as "uncompress" the file...

NOOOOOOOO!

The installer is just a smart uncompressor! I assume (wrongly so in your situation and JSWolf's situation) that the home directory will be "C:\Program Files\Mobi2IMP". Moving the program, GUI, bin directory will most certainly break this setup!

The problem is that the 'Mobi2IMP.exe' in the bin directory (the work-horse routine!) is not placed in your path by the installer.

If YOU place 'Mobi2IMP.exe' in another directory in your path (or add "C:\Program Files\Mobi2IMP\bin"; to your path), then you can call the (recursive) batch file from anywhere! Just put the 'prc2imp.bat' in the directory where your .prc files reside (NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. That is like "Letting the mountain come to Mohammad!").

so, if i wanted to do this work on a different drive (i like to leave my system drive exclusively for my system), can i just move the entire mobi2imp directory ? or should i only move the .bat and .exe files to the directory with my mobi files ? or should i reinstall it to the I drive ? or ???

as above, I wanted to make it simpler for novices to use, hence, rely on a forced home directory for just the 'Mobi2IMP.ini' (remembered) options file. To move this to a different drive/directory, and use the GUI, you need to retain the Mobi2IMP and Mobi2IMP\bin directory structure and expect your 'Mobi2IMP.ini' to ALWAYS reside in "C:\Program Files\Mobi2IMP". This is hard coded into the GUI (as I couldn't get it to work otherwise)!

as for "don't get me started" on BookDesigner program... seriously ! that thing makes some wacky code... what's up with the open <p> tags before the images, but no closing p tag... or the double tags like <i><i> (...) </i></i> ?? why ??

i've been following the thread about writing a new ebook creation tool, i really hope they do it...

in the meantime, i should have enough to keep me busy with eBookPublisher and mobi2imp...

I've got company on that anti-BD wagon....

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What needs to be fixed?

well, since the original mobi files were made with BookDesigner sometimes there are odd things in the code. i'm not being very thorough today but in the output window of eBook Publisher there is a huge list of things i *could* fix, like open tags or text not inside a tag... and in addition, if i were being picky, for example, i should correct the paragraph indent, so that it is made with css and not several non-breaking spaces.

however, the books i am converting today are more or less readable directly from conversion, so, i am only fixing some small details :

1. add a "a name=TOC" tag before the TOC, for those people who like to jump back to it
2. change header to "smallfont" (personal preference) and remove the unnecessary bgcolor indication (since i chose white)
3. move image link anchors to *before* illustrations, instead of after (otherwise, if you click on the link, the illustration is not actually visible, it is on the previous page)
4. close the open <p> tags around the illustrations
5. fix the double <i> tags around the image captions with a ctrl+H replace all

(and 6. fixing the image sizes, but i think you mean specifically with the code).

if you want to see the output results, just do a conversion using mobi2imp and then open the opf file with eBook Publisher, and do "preview".

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What needs to be fixed?

EDIT: Was DELETED as zelda_pinwheel already answered this, but on second thoughts, I'll just add that I also ensure that there are no stray blank lines BEFORE a page break. That means that any:

<div>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</div>

before a

<p style="page-break-before:always">

gets removed/deleted by me. The consequence of NOT doing so is that there can be situations where an unwarranted 'blank page' gets inserted. The reason is that the stray/extra blank line may allow the 'text' to continue onto a new page (which is now blank!) and then the page break comes along and that blank page stays there! Yuk!

This is sometimes unavoidable when the image used is longer than wider and bleeds into the bottom. This situation can only be fixed by re-sizing the image to the device's dimensions or inserting width/height specifications within the <img> tag. Either way you loose the generality of the code and need to re-do this resizing for the other .IMP device (REB1200).

Likewise, I also like remove stray blank lines after "THE END". Nothing more annoying than reaching "THE END" and there being one more page to read; only to find out its BLANK!

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by nrapallo

NOOOOOOOO!

The installer is just a smart uncompressor! I assume (wrongly so in your situation and JSWolf's situation) that the home directory will be "C:\Program Files\Mobi2IMP". Moving to program, GUI, bin directory will most certainly break this setup!

ok ok calm down !! don't worry, i didn't set anything on fire !!

The problem is that the 'Mobi2IMP.exe' in the bin directory (the work-horse routine!) is not placed in your path by the installer.

If YOU place 'Mobi2IMP.exe' in another directory in your path (or add "C:\Program Files\Mobi2IMP\bin"; to your path), then you can call the (recursive) batch file from anywhere! Just put the 'prc2imp.bat' in the directory where your .prc files reside (NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. That is like "Letting the mountain come to Mohammad!").

ok, now i understand. the first time, i placed only the .bat file in the directory with my .prc files (I:\austen), but when i double clicked on it, it told me it couldn't find "mobi2imp.exe" (one time for every .prc file...). now i tried placing the .bat and mobi2imp.exe (from the bin directory) in the same directory with the .prc (well, one small .prc, to test), on the I drive : seems to work perfectly.

[EDIT : ARG !! watch out, the batch file looks in sub-directories as well !!! and if you already re-formatted those other opf files, well, you can start over again from a completely new source code... thank god it's not any faster.]

currently, mobi2imp is installed in the default location (C drive) ; but i don't like to mix my system with my other files, that's why the books are on the I drive.

no worries ; now i think i have it figured out, and soon i will have written your tutorial for you

I've got company on that anti-BD wagon....

OH yes. that thing is a catastrophe (*especially* for making imp files). i tried using it once ; i never thought i would be so glad to go back to eBook Publisher !

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

OH yes. that thing is a catastrophe (*especially* for making imp files). i tried using it once ; i never thought i would be so glad to go back to eBook Publisher !

This was my inspiration to develop 'Mobi2IMP'!

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by nrapallo

This was my inspiration to develop 'Mobi2IMP'!

it's a good thing you're here, because in my house the only thing it inspired was new and creative swearing techniques !

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by nrapallo

EDIT: Was DELETED, but on second thoughts, I'll just add that I also ensure that there are no stray blank line(s) BEFORE a page break. That means that any:

<div>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</div>

before a

<p style="page-break-before:always">

gets removed/deleted by me. The consequence of NOT doing so is that there can be situations where an unwarranted 'blank page' gets inserted. The reason is that the stray/extra blank line may allow the 'text' to continue onto a new page (which is now blank!) and then the page break comes along and that blank page stays there! Yuk!

This is sometimes unavoidable when the image used is longer than wider and bleeds into the bottom. This situation can only be fixed by re-sizing the image to the device's dimensions or inserting width/height specifications within the <img> tag. Either way you loose the generality of the code and need to re-do this resizing for the other .IMP device (REB1200).

Likewise, I also like remove stray blank lines after "THE END". Nothing more annoying than reaching "THE END" and there being one more page to read; only to find out its BLANK!

Can't you have mobi2imp do all that work for you? It would help for those of us who do not do such cleaning.

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Can't you have mobi2imp do all that work for you? It would help for those of us who do not do such cleaning.

Jon, too many variables to automate this and you run the risk of changing something that you shouldn't have.

These stray blank lines take many forms '<div>&nbsp;</div>' or '<BR><BR>' or '<br /><br /></font>' or '<br /></span>' and so on...

I just visually inspect each '<p style="page-break-before:always">' to see if I should remove any preceding blank lines. It's tedious but safer!

The link to AFTER an illustration problem is not easily detectable since I do not parse the HTML code in Mobi2IMP. I think it would be hard to automate since I just gloably search and replace to 'fix' things!

In the end, it should be the preparer of the .prc (or BookDesigner program) that should fix these (broken) things.

[nrapallo]

Please check out the Development Hub repository for Mobi2IMP.

This repository will host the most current source, programs, and documentation as well as unreleased source revisions.

There you can fill out "tickets" for Bugs Reports / Feature Requests / Help Requests ...

I uploaded all my previous versions except for version 3 to 5, which were overwritten by version 6. Oh well, otherwise, it's pretty complete.

To have a look around is "free", but to create "tickets" requires (free) registration.

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

... my DOS window has this at the very top :

MOBIHEADER uniquid: 1691981635
MOBIHEADER ver: 4
MOBIHEADER exthflg: 80
EXTH doctype: EXTH
EXTH length: 156
EXTH n_items: 7
ITEM: 64 14 - 100 20 - Austen, Jane
ITEM: 6e 11 - 110 17 - FIC004000
ITEM: 69 10 - 105 16 - Classics
ITEM: 12c 36 - 300 54 - 0x (no, sorry, i really can't be bothered to retype that gazillion-digit number by hand)
ITEM: c9 c - 201 12 - 0c00018
----> Cover Image_Index: 24
ITEM: cb c - 203 12 - 0x0000
ITEM: ca c - 202 12 0x00019

(and then there's all the images listed with names and dimensions and such).

Did you really type in the above output by hand (as indicated by the bold above)?

If so, there is a shortcut, namely, when the dos box/command prompt window is open, right-menu click on that window, select Mark, then highlight the area you want to copy with the mouse (only line blocks are copied so start at the beginning of the line). When done highlighting, press Enter key and the contents will be copied to your clipboard. Now you can paste it where you please. **DOS 101 is now out on hiatus**

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by nrapallo

Did you really type in the above output by hand (as indicated by the bold above)?

If so, there is a shortcut, namely, when the dos box/command prompt window is open, right-menu click on that window, select Mark, then highlight the area you want to copy with the mouse (only line blocks are copied so start at the beginning of the line). When done highlighting, press Enter key and the contents will be copied to your clipboard. Now you can paste it where you please. **DOS 101 is now out on hiatus**

ha, if only i had know this before... because yes, all that code is in fact demonstration of my mad typing skillz. i couldn't find any way to copy the output from the dos window. hopefully next time i will remember that... thank you, DOS 101...