eBook formats

On Tue, 02 Jun 2015 03:14:41 -0700, Don Y <this@is.not.me.com> wrote:

>Other advantages are support for multimedia, interactive documents and
>as a "packaging" mechanism (e.g., I "include" attachments in the PDF's
>that I create instead of having to add other "files" to a repository
>and somehow tag them as "belonging" to a particular "document".


MHTML does the packing thing fairly well for HTML based documents, and
support is fairly common.  Depending on the system, even something as
simple as a ZIP file can be used as a package the browser can access.

Personally I don't like HTML as a documentation format, but in some
cases it's the least worst option.  Usually I prefer PDF.

On 6/2/2015 4:19 PM, Robert Wessel wrote:
> On Tue, 02 Jun 2015 03:14:41 -0700, Don Y <this@is.not.me.com> wrote:
>
>> Other advantages are support for multimedia, interactive documents and
>> as a "packaging" mechanism (e.g., I "include" attachments in the PDF's
>> that I create instead of having to add other "files" to a repository
>> and somehow tag them as "belonging" to a particular "document".
>
> MHTML does the packing thing fairly well for HTML based documents, and
> support is fairly common.  Depending on the system, even something as
> simple as a ZIP file can be used as a package the browser can access.
>
> Personally I don't like HTML as a documentation format, but in some
> cases it's the least worst option.  Usually I prefer PDF.

With HTML, you're always worrying about browser compatibility, plugin
versions, etc.  There will always be things that you CAN do in a
browser environment that you *can't* in a document format like a
PDF.  But, taken to extreme, why not build a VM for each "document"
and just archive VM's?

With such, not only can your atlas contain 2D (and 3D!) maps, but it
can also contain photos of wildlife in each locale, sound recordings
of their mating calls, phonebooks of their inhabitants (with LIVE
updates!), *up-to-date* exchange rates for their currencies, heck,
even an automatic renaming and resurveying capability to reflect
ongoing political changes, conflicts, etc.!  :>

And, you'll spend all your time updating plugins/modules so you
could access this information -- when all you really want to know
is if it was landlocked or not in 1783!