Audit for ebook readers

[kennethormandy]

I will probably tag the current version v1.0.0 and then start work on this, but I think adding improved support for ebook readers would be a great next step as long as it doesn’t hinder the web version. The could be separate stylesheets if necessary.

• Create ongoing test for all classes on iBooks
• Adobe Reader Mobile SDK doesn’t support text-transform

[JayPanoz]

Hi, just saw that issue while checking the CSS.

First and foremost, you’re awesome.

Here are further details as regards Adobe Reader Mobile SDK, which may help save time…

• you can test using Adobe Digital Editions since it is built on top of the RMSDK.
• version 4.5.1 supports EPUB 3 (via an older version of Readium.js)
• version 3 (at the bottom of the page) only supports EPUB 2
• you’d better use an EPUB 3 test file since ADE is using two different rendering engines depending on the EPUB version you are using i.e. an EPUB 2 file in ADE 4.5.1 triggers the old rendering engine, which doesn’t support text-transform
• as far as I can remember, ADE 4.5.1 on Mac supports @supports but doesn't support @supports not
• ADE 4.5.1 is using Trident and not EdgeHTML on Windows so it doesn't support @supports at all
• you’d better test in version 3 too since an awful lot of devices and apps are still using the old rendering engine and this article gives an idea of how bad it can be (spoiler: it may drop the entire CSS or even crash if it parses something it doesn't like in the CSS)

Other details as regards the ecosystem in general:

• you must enable iBooks’ web inspector via the terminal. See guidelines for the command prompt
• as regards inspectors, you’re out of luck pretty anywhere else, excepted Android apps using a web view like Google Play Books for instance (which means ADE doesn’t have one and, as a matter of fact, I had to open a feature request in their closed beta program because they weren’t planning to add one)
• if you want to test that on Kobo, you must rename the extension of the epub file to .kepub.epub. See guidelines for further details. Basically, this extension triggers their EPUB 3 rendering engine.
• if you want to test that on Kindle, Kindle Previewer is the way to go (just drag and drop the file on the window) but you'll need a patch if you're running on El Capitan
• all the fonts shipping in iBooks doesn’t necessarily have open type features: Iowan, San Fransisco and Seravek are the ones who do
• almost all apps apply overrides. You’re pretty safe with open type features but we never know. We’ve got a repo for that if needed.
• if you need an EPUB 3 template, we’ve got you covered. You then can “compile” to EPUB using Pagina ePubChecker
• the eBook dev ecosystem is terrible, feel free to “ping” me if needed 😉

[kennethormandy]

Wow this is an incredibly useful overview, thank you so much for taking the time to write this up. I will take a look at your projects and links, this seems way more do-able now.