(2020-07-30) Sloan PerfectEdition Ebook Template

As part of his Annabel Scheme serial, Robin Sloan created a template and ruby code to take markdown and generate (a) a web-based ebook, and (b) an epub.

• code
• someone else's description

is an aspirational name for this project, which aims to provide a lean, fast-loading web e-book template with a kind of definitive sturdiness. (I first encountered the term "perfect edition" in the world of manga. I haven't been able to confirm this etymology, but I think it comes from the use of a perfect paperback binding.)

What it is:
a web e-book template that works in modern browsers
a tool to generate a nice web edition and robust EPUB edition from the same text
suitable for fiction and other straight-through prose

I imagined a web e-book that was paged, selectable, lightweight, and typographically perfect.

• Paged: This is 100% my opinion, but I believe the side-to-side paged experience communicates something important about what you're reading, (me: Strong disagree)

How to work with this template: You need a computer with Ruby 2.6 or above and a modern browser.

The source directory contains both the e-book template and the e-book text, which is stored in Markdown format.

That will
combine the text with the template to generate a finished e-book in a new build directory, and
serve that finished e-book, which you can view at http://localhost:8000/.
(The script also generates an EPUB edition, which really isn't the focus of this project, but a feature I needed, so there you go!)