Right, I see how to change the CSS in the publishing wizard, and I've confirmed that it works by making a class in the Advanced CSS settings. The problem is that the only way I can see to apply that custom class to text in my chapter is to view the HTML in the editor and then manually add "class id=foobar" to the appropriate p tag. We have something like 50 different styles currently, and although a lot of those would hopefully be taken care of by lists nesting properly and manual indents (so a figure inside a list indents to match the list, for instance), there are a number that would need to be applied manually.

Hi Adam,

What formats will you be publishing in? Regarding the eBooks (ePub and mobi) the less you set in terms of design, the better - the device can do the formatting. When it comes to PDF for print, Booktype does not provide a live preview. Yet. We are working on this, along the lines of an HTML5 editor where you can see your page size, fonts and everything in action "as if" you were holding your book in your hands. But this won't be implemented in the coming months, realistically (or conservatively, as my colleagues would call it) the first quarter of 2013 it will be ready. We showcased this new editor at the Frankfurt Book Fair a few weeks ago and got very good feedback.

Regarding the styling across pages and chapters, we are also working on something by the name of StyleJS which will work like a hovering panel, allowing to add styling to sections across the book. This is in very early stages. And we would benefit from your input on how you would like this to look and work. The more input you give right now, the sooner we will be able to roll this out and the more it will work for you. Right now there is no area for the blueprint of the funtionality, but if you are game, we will set it up.

Thanks for your interest and input. This is the kind of feedback which helps open source products to get better.

All the best, micz

hi Adam,

What you describe on your needs list is pretty much exactly what we are
designing so it looks like we are on the right track at least for your
needs!

We will have a better idea of the timeline and deliverable dates for this
in about 2 weeks. If you wish to follow the progress more closely and be a
part of some of the discussions please feel free to join the dev list:


http://sourcefabric.github.com/Booktype/


adam

On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 3:33 PM, Adam Engst <<br />booktype-support@lists.sourcefabric.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 3:47 AM, Micz Flor
> wrote:
>
> > What formats will you be publishing in?
>
> PDF is our primary format still, since it has the broadest platform
> support, but EPUB is a close second, and Mobi a distant third. We're
> also interested in having a password-protected HTML format.
>
>
> > Regarding the eBooks (ePub and mobi)
> > the less you set in terms of design, the better - the device can do the
> > formatting.
>
> That's true for basic stuff, but not really true for a lot of the kind
> of thing that goes into technical books. We have notes and sidebars
> and warnings and emphasis paragraphs and chapter intros and captions
> and code text and all sorts of other stuff, because technical books
> need to be more than a solid block of text like fiction. EPUB can do
> relatively well with such formatting - it still flows in a stream
> rather than needing to be page-based, as in PDF. Mobi just stinks as a
> format, and there we mostly hope to not come out with embarrassing
> problems.
>
>
> >When it comes to PDF for print, Booktype does not provide a live
> > preview. Yet. We are working on this
>
> That sounds great - we're not too concerned with a page-based preview
> as just being able to verify that the custom styles we're applying
> have been applied.
>
>
> > Regarding the styling across pages and chapters, we are also working on
> > something by the name of StyleJS which will work like a hovering panel,
> > allowing to add styling to sections across the book.
>
> To entire sections? Or to selections of text? Our styles are either
> paragraph-based or character-based (mostly paragraph).
>
>
> >This is in very early
> > stages. And we would benefit from your input on how you would like this!
> to
>
> > look and work. The more input you give right now, the sooner we will be
> able
> > to roll this out and the more it will work for you. Right now there is no
> > area for the blueprint of the funtionality, but if you are game, we will
> set
> > it up.
>
> I'm happy to provide some input and feedback, though without something
> to actually use, it would be hard to spend much time on it (since I
> have to actually publish books too!). :-)
>
> Off the top of my head, I would say that you need a floating palette
> divided into two sections, one for styles that apply to paragraphs,
> and another for character-based styles. The paragraph styles should
> always be available, and should modify the paragraph containing the
> insertion point if there's no selection, and the paragraphs
> encompassed by the selection if there is one. The character styles
> should be available only if there is a selection, since they apply
> only to selections. Obviously, there should also be an indication of
> which style(s) are applied based on the insertion point or selection.
>
> Somewhere in the Settings, you'll need an interface where the user can
> define a style name and the associated CSS for each output type (with
> a shortcut for the same CSS to apply to all output types). It's also
> very important that the styles be able to be copied between documents,
> since any professional publisher will use the same styles across
> similar books.
>
> Within the source HTML, I would assume that you would assign classes
> to the P tags for each paragraph style, and use SPANs for the
> character styles.
>
>
> > Thanks for your interest and input. This is the kind of feedback which
> helps
> > open source products to get better.
>
> I'll be watching closely. We're also looking into the Atavist
> publishing system, which sounds roughly similar.
>
> cheers... -Adam
>
>