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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> Steel Panthers World At War & Mega Campaigns >> Get the SPWaW eBook package Page: [1]
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Get the SPWaW eBook package - 11/23/2001 10:09:00 PM   
robber

 

Posts: 34
Joined: 10/4/2000
From: Stockholm, Sweden
Status: offline 		This, is just to let you know that I have released Larry Holt's Introduction to Tactics guide as an eBook. In fact I have packaged it with three other eBooks creating a special SPWaW eBook package that contains the following:
  • Scenario Design Tutorials by Wild Bill Wilder
  • Introduction to Tactics Guide by Larry Holt
  • The Art of War by Sun Tzu
  • On War by Carl von Clausewitz
    [/list] So why wait? Fill your handheld with SPWaW related reading material and better yourself both as a player and as a scenario designer. The eBook package can be downloaded from the Brickhouse Enjoy
    /robber

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- 11/23/2001 10:19:00 PM   
David Heath


Posts: 3274
Joined: 3/29/2000
From: Staten Island NY
Status: offline 		Hi I dob't want ot sound dum but what is an ebook...how does it work

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Post #: 2
- 11/23/2001 10:35:00 PM   
robber

 

Posts: 34
Joined: 10/4/2000
From: Stockholm, Sweden
Status: offline 		Hi, an eBook is an ordinary book in binary form that you read with a special reader on the platform of your choice. For instance, both Adobe and Microsoft have eBook readers as do many others. The ones I have created are in a format that is readable on most modern handhelds, i.e. Palm. Pocket PC, Psion etc. You can read it on your windows pc if you get an emulator. I personally use Mobipocket. From them you can get a reader, an emulator and an eBook publisher for free. Hope this clarifies things?!? /robber [ November 23, 2001: Message edited by: robber ]



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Post #: 3
- 11/23/2001 10:39:00 PM   
mao

 

Posts: 167
Joined: 9/15/2000
From: Michigan, USA
Status: offline 		why not include the SPWaW manual?

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Post #: 4
- 11/23/2001 10:47:00 PM   
robber

 

Posts: 34
Joined: 10/4/2000
From: Stockholm, Sweden
Status: offline 		This, is not probable as an eBook anyways, but you can download beta versions of Acrobat Reader (at least for Palm which I use) which should enable you to read the manual on your handheld. The problem with the SPWaW manual is it's size. All the graphics and stuff may be too much for the average handheld to handle. Remember that the SPWaW manual is something like 12 Mb in size! /robber

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Post #: 5
- 11/25/2001 1:51:00 AM   
generalrichmond

 

Posts: 178
Joined: 10/15/2001
From: richmond, va
Status: offline 		More ebook questions: What is the value of an ebook as opposed to Larry's HTML guide? Just curious.

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Post #: 6
- 11/25/2001 6:56:00 AM   
Neil Stalker

 

Posts: 181
Joined: 8/10/2000
From: Brisbane Qld Australia
Status: offline 		The only problem is that Adobe Ebook Reader wont read the Pocket Ebook. There is an emulator at mobibook site which allows you to read it on an pocket device emulator only problem is you would need a magnifying glass to read em. Probably better if these docs where done as PDFs and the PC community can read them. Good idea but.

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Neil "Dingo" Stalker
Wild Bill's Raiders
http://www.militarygamer.com/raiders/

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Post #: 7
- 11/25/2001 12:01:00 PM   
Larry Holt

 

Posts: 1969
Joined: 3/31/2000
From: Atlanta, GA 30068
Status: offline 		Robber, Thanks the package is more than I expected. Some have asked why an e-book? I have to say that there is a balance between HTML & other formats such as PDF & E-book. HTML does not have that annoying hand that PDF does but then again, its several seperate files. You can't just print the whole thing as you can do with PDF or ebook for example. Stephan King kind of popularized ebooks when he released a novelette a year or so ago in that format. The technology is coming when we will have readers that are the height & width of a regular book but very thin (1/4 inch or so?), flexible and yet can store tens of thousands of pages.

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Never take counsel of your fears.

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Post #: 8
- 11/26/2001 2:48:00 AM   
robber

 

Posts: 34
Joined: 10/4/2000
From: Stockholm, Sweden
Status: offline 		I agree, that it's a problem that (as usual?!?) the companies involved can't agree on a standard format for eBooks. I'm painfully aware that one eBook displays differently using the same reader on a different platform. But, these problems notwithstanding, I think of it as an opportunity, interesting useful information should be available in as many formats as possible. If I was in the position to help with pdf conversions I would. Personally I prefer html when reading on my pc, but I do read on my Palm as well. One of the advantages of eBooks on handhelds are that many do compression which keeps size down. If you look at the package I made available it's one meg for four eBooks. If you take the SPWaW manual I don't have enough storage on my Palm to download it. Sure, eBooks are a trade off, and far from perfect at the moment. That doesn't mean that they are useless though. I use them, and I did this for myself and for any others that find it useful. So if you have any use for it - fine. If not, why not convert it to a format that YOU like? That would benefit all of us Actually I'm in the process of creating more SPWaW reference material in formats usable on the Palm (at least), so love it or loathe it, but I'm gonna do it /robber [ November 25, 2001: Message edited by: robber ]



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Post #: 9
- 11/27/2001 12:02:00 AM   
Larry Holt

 

Posts: 1969
Joined: 3/31/2000
From: Atlanta, GA 30068
Status: offline 		Someone posted a link to a free PDF generator in another thread. I will be trying it out in the next few weeks. If I can create an acceptably good document I will translate the Tactics guide and Scenario guide into PDF if there is a demand. So vote now. What format do you prefer for documentation: HTML, ebook or PDF? Thanks

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Never take counsel of your fears.

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Post #: 10
- 11/27/2001 12:08:00 AM   
john g

 

Posts: 984
Joined: 10/6/2000
From: college station, tx usa
Status: offline
quote:

Originally posted by Larry Holt:
So vote now. What format do you prefer for documentation: HTML, ebook or PDF? Thanks
Personally I prefer reading straight .txt (plain ascii) files. Then anything will display them from my old RS mod 100 thru my latest pentium. With the added benefit that plain text is the smallest file.
thanks, John.

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Post #: 11
- 11/27/2001 1:57:00 AM   
Larry Holt

 

Posts: 1969
Joined: 3/31/2000
From: Atlanta, GA 30068
Status: offline
quote:

Originally posted by john g:
Personally I prefer reading straight .txt (plain ascii) files. Then anything will display them from my old RS mod 100 thru my latest pentium. With the added benefit that plain text is the smallest file.
thanks, John.

This is true. However humans depend upon their vision as their primary sense in assimilating information. We can assist this assimilation by organizing information in visually accessible means. HTML, etc. offers tables, images, and links that helps us to organize complex information. RTF can handle tables but not the rest. However, if you prefer ASCII you can always open it in an HTML capable word editor and save it as .txt or .rft.

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Never take counsel of your fears.

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Post #: 12
- 11/27/2001 5:19:00 AM   
robber

 

Posts: 34
Joined: 10/4/2000
From: Stockholm, Sweden
Status: offline 		Larry, I don't want to vote!
I want them all! txt, html, pdf, eBook, etc. One idea is to write everything in DocBook (sgml/xml), then it's just a question of writing converters for different formats Read more about DocBook at DocBook.org /robber

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Post #: 13
- 11/27/2001 7:16:00 PM   
Reg


Posts: 2787
Joined: 5/26/2000
From: NSW, Australia
Status: offline 		I'm all for freedom of choice but multiple formats brings up configuration issues. A change in the document needs to be reflected in all the formats. If a conversion utility from the master document to all formats is written, I'm sure everyone will be grateful. Acrobat Distiller and Ghostscript* can create PDF files from the printer output from any editor so there is one conversion that can done with little effort. A worthy project. Reg.

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Cheers,
Reg.

(One day I will learn to spell - or check before posting....)
Uh oh, Firefox has a spell checker!! What excuse can I use now!!!

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Post #: 14
- 11/27/2001 8:59:00 PM   
Larry Holt

 

Posts: 1969
Joined: 3/31/2000
From: Atlanta, GA 30068
Status: offline 		The whole issue of formats is very relevant to me. While I will not do much more with this tactics guide (I will put it in its final form after v7 is out), I hope to continue to write such documents for other Matrix games and perhaps help WB with other games too. I can see that a universal base document would be useful. I will have to check out the docbook thing suggested by Robber. Another way might be to write in RTF then add in links for HTML and convert it to ebooks and PDF. A PDF question. Reg is working with Ghostscript. He has done a good job of PDF conversion but the links do not work. That is not surprising as PDF does not have HTML tagged links, but it has a way to jump from table of contents to text for example. Can anyone enlighten me about how this works?

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Never take counsel of your fears.

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Post #: 15
- 11/27/2001 11:26:00 PM   
RichardTheFirst

 

Posts: 466
Joined: 10/17/2001
From: Algés, Lisbon - Portugal
Status: offline 		I don't understand a thing about Readers. So very innocently I say that personally I don't like those formats. I really never understood why the hell is Acrobat Reader (or any reader) useful for... A lot more difficult to read those pages than a Word (or other word processor) document unless you print them. As I don't print much I prefer what is easier to read onscreen. Also it seems to me that a reader document have a lot more bytes. And that is bad for downloads... If someone could explain me like I'm a 6 year old (that one I took from Philadelphia ) the advantages of Readers, I would appreciate it very much.

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Post #: 16
- 11/28/2001 3:13:00 AM   
robber

 

Posts: 34
Joined: 10/4/2000
From: Stockholm, Sweden
Status: offline 		Ok here goes, sit on that chair over there and look at me when I talk to you! Let's say that you and your pal Joey both have Microsoft Word installed on your computers. It's even the same version since you both installed from the cd that Jimmy got from his uncle. Joey has shown you a cool document he wrote, full with cheat codes and tips for Quake III and you want a copy. No problemo you think, he'll just e-mail you a copy. He does, and you open it and it looks like turds on wheels. What gives? Turns out that Joey has downloaded and installed loads of fonts on his computer that you don't have on yours. So Word tries do to the best with what it have, and fails totally. Bummer huh? Now if Joey had turned that cheat sheet into a pdf document it would look the same on both his and your box regardless of fonts. Pretty neat? Well it gets more complicated than this, but since you're only six I won't bother you with this. Now git - and try to stay out of trouble...
/robber

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Post #: 17
- 11/28/2001 3:38:00 AM   
Larry Holt

 

Posts: 1969
Joined: 3/31/2000
From: Atlanta, GA 30068
Status: offline 		Richard, I have Word Perfect ver 5 at home. My life is complicated enough without keeping up with or spending the money on new versions of Word that the SPWaW community may or may not have. Because my basic HTML reads on any browser I don't ahve to worry about proprietary document formats or versions. Similarly with ebook or PDF readers. The readers are free so I can write to them and know that all can read my great works. (coughing very hard now).

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Never take counsel of your fears.

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Post #: 18
- 11/28/2001 1:58:00 PM   
RichardTheFirst

 

Posts: 466
Joined: 10/17/2001
From: Algés, Lisbon - Portugal
Status: offline 		Thank you for the lesson, very clear . But remember I'm only 6 so I'm very curious and innocent. So here goes another one: wouldn't it be simpler that the sender formats his text to a font that everybody have, like Arial or Times New Roman? If the receiver doesn't like it he can format it to his font. I'm still not convinced that the trouble of installing the reader, the extra bytes and the difficulty in reading with the reader compensates the pretty text. Explain me now like I'm 4 .

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Post #: 19
- 11/28/2001 4:45:00 PM   
Reg


Posts: 2787
Joined: 5/26/2000
From: NSW, Australia
Status: offline 		Downloading fonts is a valid solution that I have seen used but you must remember that this is a software component installation that some people may not have the ability or the inclination to do so (for either personal or technical reasons). Most people would only be interested in reading your document and would not bother to edit it. I would put it to you that you would be limiting your audience with this approach. You must remember that M$ Word also has an annoying habit of reformatting a document if the recipient's machine has different default settings (usually in their normal.dot file) or has a different printer installed. (When you are working with a 450 page document (which I have done), annoying is not the description I would use!! ) The 'P' in PDF stands for PORTABLE document format which means that any file can be viewed across different platforms provided a viewer is available. Acrobat readers exist for Unix and Macintosh as well as for the PC. (This standardization is what the e-book format is also attempting to achieve but it looks like it isn't quite there yet - but give it time!!). The standardised format also allows other 3rd party tools to be developed (xpdf for Unix/Linux, Ghostscript for Unix/Linux/PC to name a few). I convert documents to PDF format when I am sending them to anyone when I am not sure of their viewing software, one in particular who uses a Mac and another who runs Linux. There have been complaints about the size of PDF files but if you put 20Mbytes of jpeg graphics (which are already compressed as much as they can) into a single PDF file, then that file is going to be over 20MBytes in size (stands to reason). The only thing you can do is increase the compression of the graphics which will affect their clarity (the SPWaW Manual suffers from this). No matter what format you use, you will suffer the same problem but the size may be spread across multiple files in formats such as HTML. PDF uses a compressed format so 'text only' files are quite small. PDF also has a lot of features that may or may be fully utilised which means it can be an overkill in some situations. The ability to put multiple pages and graphics in a single file is handy for distribution. The ability to print exactly what you see on any platform can hardly be considered a drawback. The ability to rotate pages is handy for landscape diagrams. Multiple PDF files can be linked together with hyperlinks in a manner similar to HTML pages. The ability to view these documents on a web browser with an adobe plugin can be very useful if you want to publish your document. The feature that I like best is the ability to SEARCH the document (or multiple PDF documents if you set up an index) for text. A HTML document requires a search engine to be installed on the web server (not useful if you downloaded the files). PDF being a vector format, zooms in very closely without getting 'jagged' (bitmap graphics are the exception to this as they stay at their created resolution). Don't forget that the reader is freely redistributable. If your recipient doesn't have a copy, you can sent him one (M$ takes a dim view of you doing that with Word). On the whole I think one of the viewer formats is worth the extra effort (consider the disk space required for M$ Word) and PDF is my choice as it is the one I am most familiar with. I'm sure Robber will assure you that e-book is just as good but maybe not as standard. The format is up to you but consider your potential audience before you choose. Hope I haven't confused you too much,
Reg. [ November 28, 2001: Message edited by: Reg ]



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Cheers,
Reg.

(One day I will learn to spell - or check before posting....)
Uh oh, Firefox has a spell checker!! What excuse can I use now!!!

(in reply to robber)
Post #: 20
- 11/28/2001 8:04:00 PM   
robber

 

Posts: 34
Joined: 10/4/2000
From: Stockholm, Sweden
Status: offline 		Geee, I wish I had been THAT smart when I was four... robber

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Post #: 21
- 11/29/2001 2:27:00 PM   
Reg


Posts: 2787
Joined: 5/26/2000
From: NSW, Australia
Status: offline 		Sorry, I got carried away......... Reg.

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Cheers,
Reg.

(One day I will learn to spell - or check before posting....)
Uh oh, Firefox has a spell checker!! What excuse can I use now!!!

(in reply to robber)
Post #: 22
- 11/29/2001 5:45:00 PM   
robber

 

Posts: 34
Joined: 10/4/2000
From: Stockholm, Sweden
Status: offline 		But, apart from the intellectual age difference I agree with what you say in your post. At least now, some thirty-odd years later.... Look Ma, I grew up!
/robber [ November 29, 2001: Message edited by: robber ]



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Post #: 23
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