Re: [NTLK] Newton book part specification

I would definitely use this app.

I've got a Color Classic that I occasionally get online if I need to
bootstrap something Newton related, but I've stayed away from
bookmaking as the software was never that stable, and it's just too
much work to prepare things on the Mac OS X side, get it over to my
Color Classic, and _then_ try to prepare the book.

Also, such an application could provide PDF conversion features as
well (although even copy and paste on Mac OS X would be an
_excellent_ first step).

Being able to read Newton Books on Mac OS X wouldn't hurt either. And
once the spec is determined, my guess is it wouldn't take someone all
that long to create a Spotlight plug-in to allow indexing of Newton
Book packages.

Anyway, getting ahead of myself here.

Sincerely,

Morgan Aldridge

--
morgant@makkintosshu.com
http://www.makkintosshu.com/
On Apr 19, 2006, at 7:55 PM, James Nichols wrote:
> I've been tossing around the concept of writing an OS-X replacement
> for Newton Press / BookMaker. Bookmaker is too obscure for casual
> use, and Press has always been buggy and crash-prone in my
> experience. Not to mention their demand for classic / OS 9 support
> will only become more and more of a difficulty as time passes and the
> intelMac transition continues.
>
> I've been reviewing the "Newton Formats 1.1" pdf, so I think I can
> sort out generation of packages, and the cocoa API will make
> generating the user interface pretty simple too. What I lack is a
> specification for what the Book part looks like on disk. In doing a
> search through the list archives I saw it mentioned that  a newton
> book specification was never really made available, and that one's
> best bet would be to use Frame View to reverse engineer such from
> example books and bookmaker output.
>
> Is this still the case? Does anyone know if such a beast has been
> found or put together since the subject was last brought up? Should I
> get to work on said reverse engineering?
>
> Finally, while I personally would find such a program as a
> rejuvenated Newton Press useful, do you think this would be a
> worthwhile tool?
>
> Thanks,
> 	J. Tyler Nichols
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