ePub 3 reader - AZARDI with samples

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Since Azardi is now using the Mozilla Firefox framework, it has to be open source since Mozilla Firefox is open source.

Not necessarily true. It all depends on which of the three licensing options has been chosen for the Mozilla Application Framework and how the Application Framework is being used. It's quite possible to develop both open-source AND proprietary software using the Mozilla Application Framework.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Not necessarily true. It all depends on which of the three licensing options has been chosen for the Mozilla Application Framework and how the Application Framework is being used. It's quite possible to develop both open-source AND proprietary software using the Mozilla Application Framework.

Thanks for that.

Azardi no longer allows editing ePub. It's now just an ePub viewer.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by carmelra

The application looks great and I think it's one of the best desktop ePub readers out there.

I would improve the following three main issues:
1) Enable drag & drop of an epub on the application.
2) Enable multiple file selection when adding epub files to the library.
3) Make the GUI clearer. The current icon buttons are too small.

To these requests I would add.
4) keyboard shortcuts such as arrows to move from page to page and the space bar for next page.
5) TOC icon - needs a back/cancel button for use if I decide not to go somewhere after selecting TOC.

I like the pullout TOC. I have updated our wiki page for this product.

Dale

[carmelra]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

To these requests I would add.
4) keyboard shortcuts such as arrows to move from page to page and the space bar for next page.
5) TOC icon - needs a back/cancel button for use if I decide not to go somewhere after selecting TOC.

I like the pullout TOC. I have updated our wiki page for this product.

Dale

I totally agree with issue no. 4.
About the TOC icon, just click it again and it will get back/cancel. As I said, the GUI should be improved...
I also like the pullout TOC. It's really cool!

[DiapDealer]

I don't get it. It's completely ignoring the CSS of every ePub book I've attempted to load so far. And it has errors loading several epubs that pass every validation test I know of.

[carmelra]

Well, it seems like there is an updated version with a few good improvements:

http://azardi.infogridpacific.com/html

AZARDI 8.1

Free ePub Reader. Release: 17 January 2012

If you have AZARDI 7 or 8 installed, AZARDI 8.1 will be updated next time you open AZARDI.

The interactive demo book EPUB3 UNLEASHED can be downloaded from Resources. See what ePub3 can do.

This January 2012 AZARDI 8.1 release is a bug-fix and minor feature update.

If you still have AZARDI 6 you will have to uninstall before installing AZARDI 8.1. Click here to go to the version update instructions.

This release has new features and bug fixes and moves forward improved ePub3 conformance issues.

New Reader Features in AZARDI 8.1

AZARDI Special Features


This version is the first version to incorporate automated updates.

AZARDI 8.1 works on all desktops Firefox works on: Linux, Macintosh and Windows.

The AZARDI User Guide is available in ePub3 format on the resources page along with other ePub3 resources.
AZARDI - Main Features

Supports ePub 3, ePub 2 and the secure AZD format
Fully HTML5 and CSS3 capable
Native MathML built-in
SVG built-in.
Browser Typography
Page and flow modes
Fixed layout capable
Multiple simultaneous readers can be open, even on the same book.
Secure Online links
Built-in AZARDI Interactive Engine
Runs on Linux, Macintosh and Windows

New ePub3 Features in AZARDI 8.1

Landmarks. If your ePub 3 uses landmarks these can be displayed with the new Landmarks button.

Page Nav. If your ePub 3 uses page navigation this can be displayed with the new Landmarks button and select the Page Navigation option.
New General Features in AZARDI 8.1

Drag and Drop ePub Upload. You can now drag and drop multiple ePubs into AZARDI in a single action.
Library Table View. Presentation improved and it now has Date Added. All columns sort and can be turned on and off. Table now has alternate row shading in all operating systems.
Page Navigation. You can now navigate pages with Left-Right arrows and PgUp / PgDn keyboard buttons
Section Navigation. You can now navigate document sections with Shift-Left Arrow, Shift-Right-Arrow, and Shift-PgUp and Shift-PgDn buttons.
XUL-Runner Version. The framework is now aligned with all the features of Mozilla Firefox 8.
Image Viewer. You can now click on any image and it will open in a new window. You can zoom the image using the mouse center scroll key, and click and drag the image around in the viewport.
Covers. If cover images are available in an ePub3 they can be viewed from a fixed link in the Tables of Content.
Multi-language Hyphenation. If your ePub is correctly declaring the language in the XHTML file, language specific hyphenation will be applied if CSS -moz-hyphens: auto; is applied.
AZARDI Interactive Engine. Now supports QAA-Set, Flashcards, Interactive Tutorials and other numerous bug-fixes and improvements.
Bug-fixes. Numerous bug-fixes and clean-ups. RTL content now displays aligned correctly in Contents.

AZARDI Special Features

MathML can be directly inserted into pages. Read the User Guide ePub to get information on fonts.
SVG. Including SVG animation using SMIL is supported, although we haven't experimented with this yet.
Browser typography. OTF properties and hyphenation are supported with the -moz CSS properties. The hyphenation feature uses Mozilla CSS hyphenation.
Page/Flow. Reading mode can be set to page or flow depending on the type of content. AZARDI tries to maintain the page position while changing modes.
Fixed layout capable. Pages can be set up with width and height and edge-to-edge. (See User Guide and demonstration books).
Multiple Readers. You can have multiple readers open at the same time even with the same book. Notes can be made between readers and will reflect in each other.
Internet Extension Viewport. External links resolve to a protected viewport rather than open a general browser.
AZARDI Interactive Engine. AZARDI includes an interactive engine for learning and training. This is proprietary and included for general capability demonstration.

[DaleDe]

this is the most complete eBook reader available that supports ePub 3

[DiapDealer]

I still can't get Azardi to honor the css of any of my ePub 2 books. Not a single one. I've tried the latest version on Windows and Linux. What am I missing?

I download one of their test ePub 2 books and it works fine, but none of my Sigil-built ePubs are working right. They all pass validation with flying colors and I can't see any differences in the opf files.

EDIT: Well. Apparently AZARDI doesn't like something about Sigil made ePubs. As soon as I open one of their sample ePub2 books and save it with Sigil, formatting is lost when viewing with AZARDI. I'll have to investigate.

[richardigp]

Hi anyone here. Can we get a link to a few of the problem books. We will look into it immediately. We appreciate SIGIL as a tool and want to be in sync. We have a corpus of "problem" books we test against, but don't know how they were created. Theoretically AZARDI is soft on CSS - IE it wont try and over-ride any styles applied in the ePub CSS. Anyway links to problem samples appreciated.

[stasys]

Maybe it is a good app, but it is impossible to download it

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by richardigp

Hi anyone here. Can we get a link to a few of the problem books. We will look into it immediately. We appreciate SIGIL as a tool and want to be in sync. We have a corpus of "problem" books we test against, but don't know how they were created. Theoretically AZARDI is soft on CSS - IE it wont try and over-ride any styles applied in the ePub CSS. Anyway links to problem samples appreciated.

Thanks for the response! Sorry I didn't notice it sooner.

Anyway... using one of the sample epubs (v2) directly from Infogridpacific's resources page.... specifically: Dickens' A Chistmas Carol. I open the file in Sigil (v0.5.0—but the same behavior was exhibited in earlier versions) and immediately check the ePub using Sigil's built in FlightCrew. It gives me one error about a reference item in the guide section that's using the unrecognized "titlepage" for its type attribute. No biggie... I delete that reference item from the OPF and the epub checks out absolutely clean according to FlightCrew. So I save the epub without touching anything else.

The first epub (pre-Sigil) displays as expected with Azardi (8.1). The epub saved with Sigil displays as if there is no css file... Drop caps gone... paragraph styling all gone.

The fact of the matter is: I've yet to create any ePub with Sigil that displays correctly in Azardi (or calibre-built epubs now that I test it).

Anyway.. I'm attaching the pre-sigil and post-sigil epubs to this post in case anything there might be helpful.

I've experienced the same issues with Azardi on Windows or Linux.

[richardigp]

Got the files. Thanks. We are taking a look to see if we can solve the mystery and will get back ASAP. We are also in the middle of an AZARDI Online and AZARDI Web App reader so all this type of input is received with thanks.

I wouldn't mind a few more books that are not derivatives of ours as well if anyone can supply.

If you could supply a Calibre built sample or two that would be great. We don't use these apps so it is a bit time consuming to go through the learning curve and I think it is better to take samples from other creators. It's a big world out there.

[richardigp]

Just to let anybody who is following this thread know we have found the AZARDI bug on this issue and are working on the bug for the next release (very soon). Thanks for the great feedback and assistance. Today the IDPF started a much needed ePub3 test book site as well. http://idpf.org/news/idpf-announces-...amples-project to help development of ePub 3 readers. Having said that, I am quite aware that our pernicious CSS bug has little to do with ePub 3! Really big, special thanks to you DiapDealer for the samples.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by richardigp

Really big, special thanks to you DiapDealer for the samples.

No problem! I only mentioned it because I'd really like to use it. Look forward to the fix.

In the meantime... since it's obviously possible to create an epub that will display properly in AZARDI, is there an easy work-around that can be employed (in the CSS itself) to avoid the issue?

Thanks for addressing this.

[richardigp]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

No problem! I only mentioned it because I'd really like to use it. Look forward to the fix.

In the meantime... since it's obviously possible to create an epub that will display properly in AZARDI, is there an easy work-around that can be employed (in the CSS itself) to avoid the issue?

Thanks for addressing this.

Because we have our own highly automated ePub generation from a master XHTML source, and we kinda rushed AZARDI out for an October 2011 release, and quite frankly we didn't test enough it would appear. We have a huge batch of test ePubs but Sigil and Calibre generated ePubs were obviously not in the mix.

What AZARDI does internally is reads the manifest converts all XHTML5 into HTML5, loads everything into variables (except audio and video) and then loads the content. It wasn't finding the CSS in the /Styles/ directory as it was expecting a forward path from the HTML - the way we package (a little hard coded nonsense). We also discovered another CSS bug @import was not handled reliably. We are targeting Wed 22nd IST for an 8.2 bug-fix update just for these CSS issues. It is a big deal.

You can put the CSS in a css/mybook.css path from the XHTML, but that "quick fix" may be too much work with the update imminent. Book creators shouldn't have to compensate for sucky reader code!

Our objective with AZARDI is to keep adding ePub3 features. We have added page and epub:type TOC navigation. SMIL is the next major thing. But we don't want to support the "ethereal" parts of the spec if no-one is ever going to use them.