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103 lines
8.4 KiB
Plaintext
103 lines
8.4 KiB
Plaintext
Episode: 1433
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Title: HPR1433: Ubuntu Quickly Ebook Template
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Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1433/hpr1433.mp3
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Transcribed: 2025-10-18 02:15:29
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---
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Thank you.
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Hello, my name is Mike Engley and in this episode of HPR, I'm going to talk about Ubuntu
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quickly eBook template, which is a project I'm working on.
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So way back in episode 855 of HPR, I talked about the idea of packaging content for your
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distro as if it were an application. The idea was to take the same tools and techniques
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that we use to push applications and apply those to content so that the software centre
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or repository system for your Linux environment becomes a single place to get both content
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and applications.
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I've been working on this template system as part of that research and now using the
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quickly system, I'm working on a template that will allow you to do just that, will
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allow you to package an eBook and make it available in software centre.
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So this solution is built using quickly and if you haven't heard it quickly, allow me
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to elaborate. So quickly is a boilerplating system that allows you to create all of the
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necessary infrastructure for a project by building a template directory and expanding
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various placeholders within that to fill in blank data and almost like a fill in the
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blanks project. I've created one of those for an eBook along with a set of scripts that
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will allow you to interact with that project. Using the Ubuntu quickly template, you can
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create a sample eBook and that sample eBook contains two chapters. That allows you to
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demonstrate things like chapters, navigation, table contents, imaging, using the basic
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editing tools you can now edit your text and you can add a cover. It builds on the same
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resources available to Ubuntu developers so you can use G-Edit, you can use bizarre to
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track your version information, you can use launchpad for bug tracking and build services
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and you can use the repository system to push out updates to all of your readers. You can
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store your book on launchpad and you can get the source code and remix it, assuming that
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you've licensed it in an appropriate way. The template I've been working on adds a set
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of commands to the quickly system. So once you've created your eBook, you can issue commands
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like quickly add chapter to add a new chapter into your eBook, automatically adding into your
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table of contents and making it a badable few to edit. You can quickly set a title so you can
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rename your eBook and it will automatically build the front cover and all the rest of it.
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The quickly template will allow a book author to upload their book to a PPA. That's like a personal
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package archive, that's like a repository but a personal one. You can use the build services available
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from Canonical to build your book into a book that people can download. So this means that any
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readers who have got your PPA installed will automatically find your book when it's released.
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So imagine your, I don't know, Curry Doctorow and you have a PPA set upon launchpad where all
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your books are. If you write a new book and push it to the PPA, everybody who's read all your
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previous books will be able to find your new book. Because we're using the standard repository system,
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authors can now sell their books. Software Central and Ubuntu allows you to have products that
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can be sold, which means that authors have a more direct relationship with their readers.
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Authors because we're using the repository system can look at alternate ways of publishing.
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This system allows you to do things like periodicals where a chapter is released every month,
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or perhaps a chapter is released by different people every month, or perhaps it's more of a
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collaborative approach where the book is owned by the community and chapters and characters
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are added in by whoever happens to be running the book for that month. You can now read a book
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anywhere, anywhere where you can install software. So your desktop PC could have the book or your
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laptop or your phone. How about your TV? If you can run Ubuntu or by extension any Linux on those
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environments, then you can now install books on them. So question, why would you want to read a book
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on the TV? Well, perhaps you could publish the TV guide using that system. It may even be a new
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revenue stream for companies like Radio Times or any other TV guides. And the convergence of
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Unity, the same desktop and operating system available on your phone, laptop, desktop, TV,
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car will allow you to potentially take your same book and deploy it everywhere.
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And it leads a really interesting possibility. The Ubuntu One system allows you to sync
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data between all of your platforms. So what about if Ubuntu One could record where you were
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in each book? And if that location was synchronized between all of your devices, it wouldn't matter
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which device you went to, you'd be able to carry on reading from where you were. A bit like Kindle
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does. And that leads me to a whole different podcast where I'm going to be looking at
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hands-on Kindle, stalls, bookmark, location. That's to come. This podcast is purely about the
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template ebook side of things. So what can you do at the moment? Like the moment a template can
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create a sample book folder, set a perversion control system, create a chapter, delete chapters,
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rebuild table content, build sample covers, reorder chapters, add images, remove images, edit a
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chapter, set metadata, you can also add custom metadata. You can list the metadata, you can
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publish to ePub, you can share your book via a PPA, you can read the book. To audio file, I'm
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currently working on a system that will build audio files based out of your book content.
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And you can edit it all using a web-based interface. To allow you to do all this
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adding chapters, removing images or rest of it graphically. So if you're interested in writing books
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or you've written books or you fancy helping a brother out with some Python work, then hit the
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sub. My blog is titaniumbunker.com. You can reach me at Mike at titaniumbunker.com. You can find the
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launchpad project site for a quickly Ubuntu eBook template at launchpad.net slash quickly
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hyphen Ubuntu hyphen eBook. I'd be interested to hear what people think, whether this makes the
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concept more solid in people's minds. And I'd be interested if anybody can offer any
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advice or guidance, particularly about things like audio books. So that's a little shout out to
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HPR community. At the moment, I'm trying to read audio books, trying to create audio books from
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my eBook content. I can create all the chapter files. I can create all the audio files. I can
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stitch it all together. I'm having problems getting chapter markers set. If anyone knows how to do it,
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can you drop me an email? Let me know. Because that would be fantastic. The only way I'd be
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able to do it so far has been using a something called authentic, which is a system that was
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I believe reviewed an HPR. Actually, I've just checked it was actually on Floss Weekly.
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But that's not an idea for an episode for somebody. Anybody wants to do a review episode of
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Authonic? That would be quite interesting. Anyway, that's my rambling episode over for today.
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As I say, contact me if you've got new ideas or guidance hints, tips, whatever about this project,
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that would be cool. If you've got ideas of your own, record an episode of HPR and tell everybody
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and get the community involved. That's what it's here for. It's amazingly simple to contribute to HPR.
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And I'd encourage everybody out there to drop an episode up to HPR. To find out how you can
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record your episode, you can even call in an episode using the phone, go to hackapublicradio.org,
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and click on the link to contribute. Or go directly to hackapublicradio.org-contribute.php.
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I'm looking forward to listening to all your shows and getting all your feedback as well.
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Thanks everyone. Take care. Toodles.
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