How's this for one heck of a messy chapter header?

JSWolf · 06-10-2024, 04:28 PM

I think this is a Vellum made messterpiece. It's one heck of a mess of code. This is why Vellum needs to go away forever.

Code:

  <div id="chapter-37" class="element-bodymatter" role="doc-chapter" epub:type="chapter">
    <div class="heading heading-container-single heading-size-full heading-format-full heading-without-image">
      <div class="heading-contents">
        <div class="title-subtitle-block">
          <div class="element-number-block">
            <div class="element-number case-upper">THIRTY-SEVEN</div>
          </div>
          <div class="title-block">
            <h1 class="element-title case-upper">DANNER</h1>
          </div>
          <h2 class="element-subtitle case-upper">FEBRUARY 1943</h2>
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>
    <div class="text" id="chapter-37-text">
      <div class="alignment-block">
        <div class="text-block">
        <p class="alignment-block-content alignment-block-content-center">Dachau, Germany</p>
      </div>
      </div>

DNSB · 06-10-2024, 05:10 PM

How does this affect those who do not spend their reading time looking at the code? Does it make the ebook unreadable for them? Would they notice any difference if you cleaned up and minimalized the code?

Karellen · 06-10-2024, 05:20 PM

Yea, I agree with JSWolf. It's excessive. Reminds me of this little beauty (see image)

@DNSB who cares. It's a little post about excessive code. Roll with it. Maybe you don't feel the need to look at stuff like this and immediately want to clean it up, others like me get caught up in some OCD thing and dive right in. I find it somewhat cathartic.

Attachment 195405

Terisa de morgan · 06-10-2024, 05:41 PM

@DNSB, in this case (please, don't repeat this...), I agree with JSWolf. It's something I see a lot in the books (I don't read the code but I like to clean it and set it as I like), and I simplify inmediately.

Sarmat89 · 06-10-2024, 08:46 PM

That is inevitable. HTML was designed for man pages, not for books, so it has no concept of a heading.

Sirtel · 06-11-2024, 05:13 PM

Heh. As long as it looks the way I want on my ereader, I don't care how messy the code is. I have far too many books to bother with simplifying the code just for simplicity's sake; if I did that, I would have no time to read at all. I just fix anything that wouldn't look the way I want, and leave the rest alone. Too many books and not enough time. YMMV, of course.

JSWolf · 06-11-2024, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNSB

How does this affect those who do not spend their reading time looking at the code? Does it make the ebook unreadable for them? Would they notice any difference if you cleaned up and minimalized the code?

There are a number of us on MR who do dive into the eBook code, So those of us who do would see that mess.

JSWolf · 06-11-2024, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

That is inevitable. HTML was designed for man pages, not for books, so it has no concept of a heading.

For a simple one line chapter header, I use <h2> and I have <h2> styled as I want. I do make changes if it's appropriate for the eBook.

JSWolf · 06-11-2024, 06:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

@DNSB, in this case (please, don't repeat this...), I agree with JSWolf. It's something I see a lot in the books (I don't read the code but I like to clean it and set it as I like), and I simplify inmediately.

I would clean up that mess of divs as well and be left with just three lines for the chapter headers formatted to what I like.

DNSB · 06-12-2024, 01:50 AM

Personally, I would open the book in Sigil and run my collection of saved searches and plugins—the majority of my saved searches are Vellum specific and yes, I would end up with something like:

Code:

<body>
  <div role="doc-chapter" epub:type="chapter">
         <h2 class="chapnum">DANNER</h1>

         <p class="trifecta">FEBRUARY 1943</p>

        <p class="center2">Dachau, Germany</p>
...
...
  </div>
<body>

Please note I left the first div with the role: and epub:type as I prefer to see them. And this is before I run AccessAide on the epub.

If Jon whinged about InDesign, Scrivener, Jutoh, etc. as often as he whinges about Vellum, it might be more palatable. Instead, he endlessly grumbles about Vellum. I used a quick Google search "jswolf vellum site:mobileread.com" and it comes up with a <expletive deleted> larger number of hits than a similar search for InDesign.

I have to agree that a Vellum produced ebook is not clean and simple code. OTOH, I believe that those of us who look at the code are a very small minority and the overwhelming majority will simply enjoy reading the book. On the gripping hand, Vellum has remained very consistent over several versions making the cleanup task very automatable so a task that once took me 10-15 minutes now takes about 2-3 minutes.

Quoth · 06-13-2024, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

That is inevitable. HTML was designed for man pages, not for books, so it has no concept of a heading.

I'm sure neither of those statements are really true.

Quoth · 06-13-2024, 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNSB

P
If Jon whinged about InDesign, Scrivener, Jutoh, etc. as often as he whinges about Vellum, it might be more palatable. Instead, he endlessly grumbles about Vellum. I used a quick Google search "jswolf vellum site:mobileread.com" and it comes up with a <expletive deleted> larger number of hits than a similar search for InDesign.

InDesign is far worse than Vellum being a rented program partially designed before Adobe even bought Aldus and it designed for paper print. Kludged for ebooks and especially Kludged for reflowable content. Far harder to clean up.

DNSB · 06-13-2024, 06:05 PM

Most automated document creation/conversion programs create very ugly code when you look under the covers.

One job I'm looking at taking on for the next couple of weeks is an author whose book rights reverted but the publisher supplied 4 of the books as PDF and 3 as fixed layout ePubs straight from InDesign. What they want is to have them in Word/LO Writer format so the books can be edited and republished. Thankfully, they understand the limitations of what I am willing to do for the amount they can afford to offer.

06-12-2024, 01:50 AM	#10
DNSB Bibliophagist Posts: 40,426 Karma: 156982136 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Vancouver Device: Kobo Sage, Libra Colour, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos	Personally, I would open the book in Sigil and run my collection of saved searches and plugins—the majority of my saved searches are Vellum specific and yes, I would end up with something like: Code: <body> <div role="doc-chapter" epub:type="chapter"> <h2 class="chapnum">DANNER</h1> <p class="trifecta">FEBRUARY 1943</p> <p class="center2">Dachau, Germany</p> ... ... </div> <body> Please note I left the first div with the role: and epub:type as I prefer to see them. And this is before I run AccessAide on the epub. If Jon whinged about InDesign, Scrivener, Jutoh, etc. as often as he whinges about Vellum, it might be more palatable. Instead, he endlessly grumbles about Vellum. I used a quick Google search "jswolf vellum site:mobileread.com" and it comes up with a <expletive deleted> larger number of hits than a similar search for InDesign. I have to agree that a Vellum produced ebook is not clean and simple code. OTOH, I believe that those of us who look at the code are a very small minority and the overwhelming majority will simply enjoy reading the book. On the gripping hand, Vellum has remained very consistent over several versions making the cleanup task very automatable so a task that once took me 10-15 minutes now takes about 2-3 minutes.

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06-10-2024, 05:10 PM	#2
DNSB Bibliophagist Posts: 40,426 Karma: 156982136 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Vancouver Device: Kobo Sage, Libra Colour, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos	How does this affect those who do not spend their reading time looking at the code? Does it make the ebook unreadable for them? Would they notice any difference if you cleaned up and minimalized the code?

06-10-2024, 05:20 PM	#3
Karellen Wizard Posts: 1,353 Karma: 6794938 Join Date: Sep 2021 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Libra 2	Yea, I agree with JSWolf. It's excessive. Reminds me of this little beauty (see image) @DNSB who cares. It's a little post about excessive code. Roll with it. Maybe you don't feel the need to look at stuff like this and immediately want to clean it up, others like me get caught up in some OCD thing and dive right in. I find it somewhat cathartic. Attachment 195405

06-10-2024, 05:41 PM	#4
Terisa de morgan Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,388 Karma: 12117217 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Madrid, Spain Device: Kobo Clara/Aura One/Forma,XiaoMI 5, iPad, Huawei MediaPad, YotaPhone 2	@DNSB, in this case (please, don't repeat this...), I agree with JSWolf. It's something I see a lot in the books (I don't read the code but I like to clean it and set it as I like), and I simplify inmediately.

06-10-2024, 08:46 PM	#5
Sarmat89 Fanatic Posts: 502 Karma: 2267928 Join Date: Nov 2015 Device: none	That is inevitable. HTML was designed for man pages, not for books, so it has no concept of a heading.

06-11-2024, 05:13 PM	#6
Sirtel Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,451 Karma: 230178176 Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Estonia Device: Kobo Sage & Libra 2	Heh. As long as it looks the way I want on my ereader, I don't care how messy the code is. I have far too many books to bother with simplifying the code just for simplicity's sake; if I did that, I would have no time to read at all. I just fix anything that wouldn't look the way I want, and leave the rest alone. Too many books and not enough time. YMMV, of course.

06-13-2024, 06:05 PM	#13
DNSB Bibliophagist Posts: 40,426 Karma: 156982136 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Vancouver Device: Kobo Sage, Libra Colour, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos	Most automated document creation/conversion programs create very ugly code when you look under the covers. One job I'm looking at taking on for the next couple of weeks is an author whose book rights reverted but the publisher supplied 4 of the books as PDF and 3 as fixed layout ePubs straight from InDesign. What they want is to have them in Word/LO Writer format so the books can be edited and republished. Thankfully, they understand the limitations of what I am willing to do for the amount they can afford to offer.

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