Your ToC in the ToC in iBooks?

[Psymon]

What the heck is the deal with getting your table of contents to show up in the table of contents in iBooks? Like, in my book I have the "front matter," which consists of the title page and illustration, followed by a nicely formatted table of contents (which is much, much nicer to browse through than the device's built-in one), and this is followed by a similarly-formatted list of illustrations, and then the rest (and bulk) of the book.

All of the items that make up that "front matter" I've specified to be listed in the device's table of contents, but no matter what I try, I can't seem to get my table of contents to be listed in the iBooks' table of contents -- it shows the "Title Page & Illustration," and then comes "List of Illustrations." I even tried giving my own ToC a weird ID (like "whatever" or something), but I guess iBooks nevertheless knows that it's a table of contents and just doesn't want it listed in the table of contents -- if ya know what I mean.

Anybody else noticed this? And anybody know a way to "fix" it?

(PS. This isn't an issue in ADE -- my ToC shows up just fine in the ToC in there, so it's not an error in my coding or something.)

[odedta]

I don't understand, assuming you're building an EPUB2, the toc.ncx is what defines how your TOC would look in the app's TOC view. If you like to create an HTML file with a TOC go right ahead and do that and just put it in the spine.

If you're making an EPUB3, just make sure both the toc.ncx and the toc.html are the same.

[Psymon]

I'm not sure how to explain this any better than I did -- although I do realize that it probably sounds a bit convoluted. I only experience this problem in iBooks, on my iPad, too -- it doesn't happen in ADE on my PC -- so I guess if you don't have an iPad (or other IOS device) you won't be able to see it. I'll try to re-state the problem, though, without reviewing what I wrote before -- maybe it'll come out differently this time and be more understandable what the problem is.

So every ebook reader has the ability to display a ToC for the reader -- when I make my book in Sigil, there's an option that does this automatically from the various headings, etc. that I've created in my book, of course. Apart from that, though, I wanted to make a "Table of Contents" in my book that's more like in a print book, i.e. after the title page and stuff, you "turn the page" and there's your ToC, all nicely formatted, looking the same (typographically) as the rest of your book does and stuff.

Oh, and this is in epub2, by the way (if that matters, I don't know).

The words (title) "Table of Contents" in there are coded as an <h1> heading, and therefore should show up in the device's (or more specifically in iBooks') ToC, too, though -- but they don't.

In ADE on my PC -- where things work fine -- the first things listed in my ToC (the app's ToC, that is) are...

Title Page & Illustration
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Foreword
[and then the rest of the book]

...but in iBooks, no matter what I do, I can't seem to get my Toc to show up in iBooks' Toc, so what I end up with is this being listed...

Title Page & Illustration
List of Illustrations
Foreword
[and then the rest of the book]

Hope that explains the problem better?

[Doitsu]

If you've generated the HTML TOC after the NCX TOC, it obviously won't be included in the NCX TOC. I.e., you'll have to regenerate the NCX TOC after you've generated the HTLM TOC.

If you didn't use Sigil's Create HTML TOC option, you also might have to right-click your HTML TOC and select Add Semantics > TOC.

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

If you've generated the HTML TOC after the NCX TOC, it obviously won't be included in the NCX TOC. I.e., you'll have to regenerate the NCX TOC after you've generated the HTLM TOC.

If you didn't use Sigil's Create HTML TOC option, you also might have to right-click your HTML TOC and select Add Semantics > TOC.

I haven't got a clue what you just said.

Ha ha... by my "HTML TOC", I presume you mean the one I made myself, that part of my book, that looks like the rest of my book? I don't actually do anything to "generate" that -- like, there's no feature in my program (Sigil) where I just click a button (or whatever) and it updates it automatically. I have to type in the code by myself, make any changes to it myself, just like any other HTML page in the book.

I'm not quite sure if I understand the rest of what you were saying -- and I have no clue about "semantics." In any case, don't forget that everything works fine in ADE, it just seems to be iBooks that doesn't want to list your nicely-designed, part-of-the-book "Table of Contents" in its ToC.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Psymon

like, there's no feature in my program (Sigil) where I just click a button (or whatever) and it updates it automatically.

How about Tools > Table of Contents > Create HTML Table of Contents

Originally Posted by Psymon

I'm not quite sure if I understand the rest of what you were saying -- and I have no clue about "semantics.

The Add Semantics menu items add information (guide items) for non-ADE readers such as iBooks.

Originally Posted by Psymon

In any case, don't forget that everything works fine in ADE

It works fine, because ADE ignores guide items.

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

How about Tools > Table of Contents > Create HTML Table of Contents

Well, that is indeed exactly how I generate my ToC in Sigil.

The Add Semantics menu items add information (guide items) for non-ADE readers such as iBooks.

I've never done anything with "semantics", although I did come across that, that if I right-click on a filename in my list of files (on the left in Sigil) that "Add Semantics" is one of the things there, and that there's a bunch of things I can choose from (Title Page, Table of Contents, etc.).

I also just looked into this ("semantics") a little more, and came across this page...

http://sigildev.blogspot.ca/2010/04/...tics-menu.html

...but I still don't know what it's supposed to do, and -- perhaps more importantly -- how I would impliment it the way that I've done my book. I have one file, called "front_matter.xhtml", which contains ALL the front matter to my book, i.e. the title page, the following illustration, the table of contents and the list of illustrations. That "Add Semantics" thingie will only allow me to add one of those things.

And in any case, even if I did add a "semantic", I still don't get what that's supposed to do.

It works fine, because ADE ignores guide items.

Pardon my stupidity, but I don't understand what that means. Like, with this current problem, it's iBooks that's "ignoring" something that is, in fact, there, while ADE isn't ignoring it.

[DomesticExtremis]

I have one file, called "front_matter.xhtml", which contains ALL the front matter to my book, i.e. the title page, the following illustration, the table of contents and the list of illustrations. That "Add Semantics" thingie will only allow me to add one of those things.

And in any case, even if I did add a "semantic", I still don't get what that's supposed to do.

Split the file then add appropriate semantics to each bit.
IIRC the semantics actually updates the guide section of content.opf.
e.g.

<reference href="Text/contents.xhtml" title="Table Of Contents" type="toc"/>

and so on.
The reader should use these internally for various functions.

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by DomesticExtremis

Split the file then add appropriate semantics to each bit.

Nope, splitting the file -- which I would really rather not do anyway (because that'll add blank pages in-between files in ADE) -- and then giving each separate thing (ToC, list of illustrations, etc.) semantics respectively, still doesn't get my ToC to show up in iBooks ToC.

Unfortunately -- but then, like I said, I didn't want to split the file anyway. :/

[DomesticExtremis]

Originally Posted by Psymon

Nope, splitting the file -- which I would really rather not do anyway (because that'll add blank pages in-between files in ADE) -- and then giving each separate thing (ToC, list of illustrations, etc.) semantics respectively, still doesn't get my ToC to show up in iBooks ToC.

Unfortunately -- but then, like I said, I didn't want to split the file anyway. :/

Ho hum. Maybe iBooks is just carp.
Can you not buy a proper e-ink device?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by DomesticExtremis

Ho hum. Maybe iBooks is just carp.
Can you not buy a proper e-ink device?

Well iBooks works fine with most TOC. It uses the NCX version just fine for ePub 2 files. It will not find the HTML file for ePub 2 because the standard does not support it although there is a way in ePub 3 to make it work. For ePub 2, which is what Sigil generates I suspect the NCX file is not being generated or not be generated correctly.

Dale

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Well iBooks works fine with most TOC. It uses the NCX version just fine for ePub 2 files. It will not find the HTML file for ePub 2 because the standard does not support it although there is a way in ePub 3 to make it work. For ePub 2, which is what Sigil generates I suspect the NCX file is not being generated or not be generated correctly.

Well, I think perhaps there might be some confusion here (again/still), It's not that I'm not getting a ToC at all, but rather that in that Toc my "other" ToC doesn't get listed.

See my third post here in this thread -- I don't know how to explain the problem any better than I did there...

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...14&postcount=3

[DaleDe]

Ah, I was confused. It looks like Apple is treating your inline TOC as an external TOC and removing it from the book but probably keeping it as an external TOC so you can use it to navigate. This may be a function of epub 3 where Apple is confused.

Dale

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Ah, I was confused. It looks like Apple is treating your inline TOC as an external TOC and removing it from the book but probably keeping it as an external TOC so you can use it to navigate. This may be a function of epub 3 where Apple is confused.

Well, except my book is epub2, plus my ToC is in the middle of a bigger file -- that one XHTML file contains the title page, full-page illustration, then the ToC, then the list of illustrations. It'll show all the other items in iBooks' ToC, but not my ToC.

If that makes sense -- I know it's confusing when I keep talking about "my" ToC and iBooks' ToC.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Psymon

Well, except my book is epub2, plus my ToC is in the middle of a bigger file -- that one XHTML file contains the title page, full-page illustration, then the ToC, then the list of illustrations. It'll show all the other items in iBooks' ToC, but not my ToC.

If that makes sense -- I know it's confusing when I keep talking about "my" ToC and iBooks' ToC.

It does make sense. Apple seems to have targeted that particular file as it recognized it at the TOC and moved it to the external TOC. It was not accidental. Apple also removes the cover from the book unless you display it in landscape mode.

Dale