AZARDI 8 is now available at azardi.infogridpacific.com. This is the first release with auto updating. Mac and Linux will silently update. For those with AZARDI 7, Windows 7 may ask for permission and show an unsigned/unknown publisher box.
This is a relatively low-key upgrade. We have a lot more features planned for the next release based on requests and recommendations from users, and to address the demands of digital content.
The current fascination with Javascript and CSS, the encapsulated formats of PDF and ePub, and other distractions, blinds many to the value and need of consistent, reliable, highly controlled XHTML and the serious foundation business strategy needed for digital content ownership... regardless of content genre.
I read a laughable comment about how we produced EPUB3 UNLEASHED. "The market will wait until Adobe comes out with the tools". That is the joke. Sure they will have tools that will be able to produce something like EPUB UNLEASHED. But not with a controlled XHTML foundation and in two days, with two production "resources" in India. The cost of producing EPUB3 UNLEASHED... around INR 5000 or US$100.
Reader devices for ePub have had a strong English orientation. This has been addressed with ePub 3, but of course it needs to be easier. This test book has 28 languages from around the world including alphabet, script, logograph and all the other "too hard" languages.
It is available from the AZARDI resource site for those who are interested in language in general or perhaps a specific language.
For those interested in the page sequence, it follows the sun. Starting at the International Dateline in New Zealand with Maori, and moving with the sun more or less with lines of longitude. An alphabetic listing may have been more useful, but then that would have been alphabetic in English and missed the point.
