A closer look at Classics.app

A Screenshot of Classics

“[Classics](http://www.classicsapp.com/)” is a great product, it shows us iPhone developers what an *elegant* ebook reader can be, so I bought it almost instantly after it’s released. I’ve been chatting with my friends about this app for a while, now I’d like to give a more closer examination to it from the perspective of a typographer and a programmer. Especially its weaknesses.

Illustrated by my favorite graphic designer, [David Lanham](http://dlanham.com), Classics tries its best to provide a traditional book reading experience (that’s why it’s called “Classics”). It contains the following books, even I’ve read most of them in Chinese long time ago, thanks to Classics, it’s still a fascinating experience to read them again in English:

* *[20,000 Leagues Under the Sea](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty_Thousand_Leagues_Under_the_Sea)* by [Jules Verne](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne)
* *[A Christmas Carol](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Carol)* by [Charles Dickens](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens) [Added in version 1.1]
* *[Alice in Wonderland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_in_Wonderland)* by [Lewis Carroll](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll)
* *[Flatland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland)* by [Edwin Abbott Abbott](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Abbott_Abbott)
* *[Gulliver’s Travels](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver%27s_Travels)* by [Jonathan Swift](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Swift)
* *[The Hound of the Baskervilles](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hound_of_the_Baskervilles)* by Sir [Arthur Conan Doyle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Conan_Doyle)
* *[Adventures of Huckleberry Finn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn)* by [Mark Twain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain)
* *[Paradise Lost](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost)* by [John Milton](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton)
* *[Robinson Crusoe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Crusoe)* by [Daniel Defoe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Defoe)
* *[The Call of the Wild](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Call_Of_The_Wild)* by [Jack London](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_London)
* *[The Jungle Book](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle_Book)* by [Rudyard Kipling](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling)
* *[The Metamorphosis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis)* by [Franz Kafka](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka)
* *[The Time Machine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine)* by [H. G. Wells](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells)

However, there are still some details to be improved.
Continue reading “A closer look at Classics.app”

Cocoa Text System

[Cocoa Text System](http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/site/cocoa-text.html),所有 Mac OS X 用户的必读,这篇文章对所有的 Cocoa 软件都有用,非常易读,简洁。

可以参考的还有:[Mac OS X Keybindings](http://www.lsmason.com/articles/macosxkeybindings.html), [Usable Selectors for Cocoa Key Bindings](http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/site/selectors.html) 和 [Default Mac OS X System Key Bindings](http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/site/system-bindings.html).

可惜还是不能解决它下层的键映射问题,比如右 enter 的作用,fn 键,等等。

w3c’s presentations

W3C 的东西太学究,估计大家都不喜欢,但世上有一物名幻灯片,特点是简洁明了,大家想必都不讨厌——此物最适合一个学期没看书,临时抱佛脚的偶们。

w3c 近期的一些 presentation,多为介绍技术的趋势,宣讲一些大家平时不大注意的东西,我选了几个不太酸的,有时间不妨看看:

* Tutorial: Ruby Markup and Styling, Ruby 标记的使用教程,International 工作组刚刚提供的一个教程,这个东西和汉语的关系也比较大,加上实用性较高,可以了解一下。
* The device-independent browser: CSS and grid layout, 副标题叫做“CSS 布局的过去、现在与未来”,演讲者是 CSS 的创建者之一 Bert Bos,核心是介绍 CSS3 中的网格式布局 (grid layout) 方式。
* An Introduction to Writing Systems, 多种书写系统的异同,及其带来的问题。这个演讲比较长,不过对东亚、拉丁、阿拉伯等各种书写系统在 Web 上的呈现有比较详尽叙述,也涉及一些 Unicode 的内容,与此有兴趣的朋友可以读读。
* XHTML & XForms, 这个演讲主要是介绍下一代的 XHTML 在语义表达方面的改进。

Recent News

临近半个学期一度的考期,blog 的频率不得不降下来,好几天没上网,确实也出现了不少新的东西。

定位总是一个热门话题,近来,Tommy 的两篇文章:[Relatively Absolute](http://www.autisticcuckoo.net/archive.php?id=2004/12/07/relatively-absolute) 和 [Float Layouts](http://www.autisticcuckoo.net/archive.php?id=2004/12/10/floating) 相信能给你一点启发。

Marek 的 [CSS Workshop](http://www.sovavsiti.cz/css/),介绍关于 CSS 的有趣实践,比如纯粹用 CSS 做一个 W3C 的验证标志,给水平线 `


` 设定样式等。

Roger 的 [Quotations and citations: quoting text](http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200411/quotations_and_citations_quoting_text/) 是关于如何正确地在 (X)HTML 中引用别人的文本的一篇解释性文章,而他的 [The alt and title attributes](http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200412/the_alt_and_title_attributes/) 则是就 `alt` 和 `title` 属性的正确使用这个老话题而写的。Dave Shea 说得不错,Roger 完全可以就如何正确使用标记写本书了。

最近一期 ALA 的 [Invasion of the Body Switchers](http://www.alistapart.com/articles/bodyswitchers) 是先前流行的 Paul Sowden 版本样式表切换器的一个更新版本,更关心与亲和力方面的应用。

来自 Mozilla 方面的消息,则是 [Thunderbird](http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/) 和 [Nvu](http://www.nvu.com/) 分别发布了 1.0 版本和 0.6 版本,不过似乎 nvu 还没有成为 mozilla 的 HTML 编辑器的下一代版本,或许它更愿意作为一个独立软件提供?

时间有限,不得不在这里打住。