×

Notice

The forum is in read only mode.
× Feel free to discuss any typical forums accepted topic here, Whateley or otherwise. Let's avoid the usual suspects: politics, religion, and so forth that tend to result in flame wars and angered forums readers. Other topics will be considered fair game unless they prove to be too volatile, at which point we'll use Devisor created anti-flame chemicals on the subject.

Question Would other fans be interested in an epub maker?

8 years 10 months ago #1 by riking
  • riking
  • riking's Avatar Topic Author


  • Posts: 9

  • Gender: Unknown
  • Birthdate: Unknown
    • I've been writing for my personal use (I like to read with white-on-black text at night, ok?) a program to take the Whateley stories and make epubs out of them.

    Basically, it takes a gigantic definition file that looks like this: i.imgur.com/jUIsNOg.png
    And spits out an epub file.

    I'm sitting here slogging through making that gigantic file and realized that "hey, this might be useful to other fans". The main problems here are (1) should I be spending any more time on this; i.e. does anyone else actually want it? and (2) if I do give out the program, there needs to be a sense of "you're not allowed to give the epub files to anyone else" (ref. the scum who scraped the wiki and attempted to sell it on Amazon).

    Curious to hear thoughts / if this has been brought up in the past.
    8 years 10 months ago #2 by Sir Lee
    • Sir Lee
    • Sir Lee's Avatar


  • Posts: 3113

  • Gender: Male
  • Birthdate: 08 Nov 1966
    • I do my own ePub conversions to read offline, but I don't think my approach is compatible with yours
    Don't call me "Shirley." You will surely make me surly.
    8 years 10 months ago #3 by Kristin Darken
    • Kristin Darken
    • Kristin Darken's Avatar


  • Posts: 3898

  • Gender: Unknown
  • Birthdate: Unknown
    • I'll make the same reminder that is in the copyright rules...

    Modifying stories from the way they were released is a violation of copyright. Even something as seemingly innocuous as correcting a typo, changing the font or adding the filename or an organizational code to the top of the story... is technically illegal. We understand that people can't always sit in front of the online computer reading the stories... and so we're not going to pursue the issue if you want to do this for a 'personal copy'. But you cannot share a modified copy of the stories with anyone else. We don't share things that YOU own with other readers (Malady's public posting of copies of the old forums and fan fiction is the closest to that that we've allowed)... please don't take the choice out of our hands with regards to these stories. If you DO make modifications... put them in edoc formats, etc... please don't put them somewhere that other people can copy them. That takes distribution control out of our hands and could cause us legal problems.

    So please keep this in mind... if you choose to convert the stories using one of these techniques... that those are YOUR private copies and you are not permitted to distribute them. Not even privately.
    Fate guard you and grant you a Light to brighten your Way.
    8 years 10 months ago - 8 years 10 months ago #4 by rubberjohn
    • rubberjohn
    • rubberjohn's Avatar


  • Posts: 113

  • Gender: Unknown
  • Birthdate: Unknown
    • Riking, you might want to clear this idea with the authors before you start offering the results to anyone else. From similar offers I've seen in the past they can take a rather dim view of people offering such conversions for anything other than 'Own use only'. I think it is an issue of the copywrite of the materiel.

    John.

    Dagnabbit! Ninjaed!
    Last Edit: 8 years 10 months ago by rubberjohn.
    8 years 10 months ago - 8 years 10 months ago #5 by riking
    • riking
    • riking's Avatar Topic Author


  • Posts: 9

  • Gender: Unknown
  • Birthdate: Unknown

    • So please keep this in mind... if you choose to convert the stories using one of these techniques... that those are YOUR private copies and you are not permitted to distribute them. Not even privately.


    Yeah, that's the weird part - because I think (based on my amateur analysis of US copyright law) that distributing the tool wouldn't be a copyvio, but using it would be.

    Running this code creates artifacts on your computer that are materially similar derivative works of The Stories ("The Artifacts"). This means that everything in The Story License applies to The Artifacts.


    edit: looks like en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_liability applies here, with the exception carved out by the Betamax case.
    Last Edit: 8 years 10 months ago by riking.
    8 years 10 months ago #6 by Kristin Darken
    • Kristin Darken
    • Kristin Darken's Avatar


  • Posts: 3898

  • Gender: Unknown
  • Birthdate: Unknown
    • Ya... same condition that most theatres face as a result of using music referenced in a script or selected by a sound designer if they don't obtain rights to use the music in the production. The theatre's are held liable because they are the ones benefiting from ticket price, while the designer is just working on a set contract hired by the theatre and not (usually) gaining in any way from the actual performance of the 'recommended' pieces of music. That... and the fact that sound designers are the lowest paid of the design elements in theatre productions (by a significant amount despite the increasing complexity of sound plots for stage productions... considering people expect from a theatre what they expect from film or television, while those art forms both have 'set' performances around which a sound design can be built... over months... while in theatre, actors are still settling into their parts on opening night and a design is rarely more than conceptualized by the beginning of the rehearsal process a few weeks before opening).
    Fate guard you and grant you a Light to brighten your Way.
    8 years 8 months ago - 8 years 8 months ago #7 by riking
    • riking
    • riking's Avatar Topic Author


  • Posts: 9

  • Gender: Unknown
  • Birthdate: Unknown
    • Update on this.

    Removing the titles and inserting cover pages is a stupid idea. No point in rewriting the author credits every single time. So I stopped doing that.

    The real work with this is building the "typos file" to fix formatting (stray /p>, style="background-color:white;" on every paragraph, genuine typos) and the logic of converting
    * * * *
    into a proper horizontal line, and when it should and when it shouldn't convert an empty paragraph into a horizontal line.

    Also, using style="font-size: 16pt" really screws up my reader, it makes the text absolutely tiny, stop doing that please :)

    Here's what the book definitions look like now. It's actually kinda interesting deciding when to shuffle the order of stuff around so it reads easier.
    Warning: Spoiler! [ Click to expand ]


    Not gonna link the code from here. If you want it that bad, find it yourself. Google is the wrong answer, as of time of posting.
    Last Edit: 8 years 8 months ago by riking.
    Moderators: WhateleyAdmin, Kristin Darken, E. E. Nalley, elrodw, Nagrij, MageOhki, Astrodragon, NeoMagus, Warren, Morpheus, Wasamon, sleethr, OtherEric, Bek D Corbin, MaLAguA, Souffle Girl, Phoenix Spiritus, Starwolf, DanZilla, Katie_Lyn, Maggie Finson, DrBender, JG, Bladedancer, Renae_Whateley
    Powered by Kunena Forum