IPB READ ME 1.2 ---------------------------------------- I. INTRODUCTION II. REQUIREMENTS III. INSTALLING IV. READING AN IPB WEBBOOK V. SERVING YOUR IPB WEBBOOK VI. PUBLISHING AN IPB WEBBOOK VII. CREATING AN IPB WEBBOOK VIII. KNOWN ISSUES IX. NOTES SPECIFIC TO THIS IPB X. HISTORY I. INTRODUCTION ---------------------------- WHAT IS AN IPB WEBBOOK? An IPB WEBBOOK is an e-book which is translated into an interactive, full-screen website. The goal is to move away from the current "miles of scrolling text" form of e-book to a more practical and fun way of reading books on screen. FEATURES INCLUDE * A method of keeping your place within the book (a "bookmark") whenever you come back * May include original illustrations, fan art, and possibly many other mutlimedia features throughout * Easy to read layout, background & interface * Offers the option to share with your friends or keep to yourself * Extras specific to each book are offered on each IPB WebBook. Extras could include live chats dedicated to the book or genre, forums dedicated to the book, author or genre; detailed biographical portraits for each author, & many more features dependent on each book. II. REQUIREMENTS ----------------------------- There are no absolute requirements to read an IPB outside of a web browser. However, there are some features I reccomend to ensure that it works as well as it can. * IPB WebBooks are setup, written and designed for the Internet Explorer Browser ver. 5.0. (or higher). Some features of IPB WebBooks will require you have additional plug ins' like Flash & Quicktime (just like a web site). If you run into problems on a different browser or if a feature is not working, try it on IE 5.0. To "keep your place" in the book, you need to be set up to accept cookies. Numerous features will not work if you are not allowing javascript. * IPB WebBooks are designed and tested assuming the Frutiger Linotype, Berling Antiqua and Lucinda Sans Typewriter fonts (MSReader Fonts) are installed on your system. These fonts can be downloaded at the IPB Books website (http://www.ipbbooks.com). You can also get the fonts by downloading a free program called MSReader by Microsoft, available at download.com . (just search for "microsoft reader"). MSReader will install the fonts. If you don't like the program, feel free to uninstall, the fonts will remain. All IPB WebBooks will work regardless of whether you install these fonts. Instead, your browser's default font will be used. Aside from improved overall appearance, certain text formattings within the books are dependent upon you haveing these fonts installed. III. INSTALLING ------------------------------------- Installation Instructions 1) Unzip contents somewhere you can find it. 2) If IE 5.0 is your default browser, find the folder with the book title that you just unzipped. Double click on index.html. For your ease and convenience, some IPB WebBooks will come with a file giving the book title outside of the book folder (so you don't have to search.) Double- clicking this file will work as well. 3) If IE 5.0 is not your default browser, run IE 5.0. Hit File-->Open and Browse until you find the folder containing the IPB folder. Open index.html (or, if applicable, the prominent file stating the bookname outside the folder). 4) To bookmark this IPB WebBook in your browser (for quick access), open up the IPB WebBook. It will immediately go full frame. RIGHT click inside the window and select "Add to Favorites" (in Netscape the option is called "Add Bookmark." IV. READING AN IPB WEBBOOK ----------------------------- LEAVING FULLSCREEN To exit fullscreen, press the exit button on the menu. This will return you to a windowed (normal) web look. THE MENU BAR With the exception of the title page, a menu bar exists on every page in the upper left/right and (usually) the lower left/right of each page. The menu options are "next page," "previous page," "home," "exit," and "extras." The "extras" button has been created so a "special" addition can be added to each IPB WebBook. If nothing "special" has been added, the button defaults to the extras section of the WebBook. In addition, a "Jump To Page" space is offered on each page. This function does not work on all browsers, in which case type the page # and press the "Next" button and you will jump to the page you typed. KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS The following is a list of useful shortcut keys for Internet Explorer: UP/DOWN ARROW: scrolls up and down the document F11: Toggles Full Screen On/OFF ALT+LEFT ARROW: Go "Back" (Back button on browser) ALT+RIGHT ARROW: Go "Forward (Forward button on browser) CTRL+N: Opens a new browser window ESC: Stop downloading a page F1: Display Internet Explorer Help. V. SERVING YOUR IPB WEBBOOK --------------------------------- It's quite easy to serve your IPB WebBook "live" so that others can read it "live" as well. Of course, it can also remain on your hard drive, where only YOU can read it. But if you want to make it available to others as a web site... 1) Many (nearly all) ISPs offer free web space to their customers. Check to see if your's does and follow their instructions to set up the space. 2) Once your storage/web space is available, simply upload the folder you unzipped to your web space. Now tell whoever you want to check out http://yourwebspacename/youripbbookfoldername/ That is the address where your IPB now exists. If visitors type that, they will immediately go full screen and be browsing/reading just like yourself. 3) It is possible that the IPB folder will be too large in memory for your web space. IPB's uncompressed are generally 1-10 megabytes, depending on what is offered within. If you know HTML and are used to creating sites, you can see that there are many spaces within each IPB where you can set up your own "personal" space for your friends, be it forums, chats or whatever you can think of. Have fun with it. VI. PUBLISHING AN IPB ----------------------------------- We are not yet offering the IPB WebBook Publishing program publicly. If you are interested in making IPB WebBooks, however, come to the IPB Books website and look around. There will be much more information there. VII. CREATING-CUSTOMIZING AN IPB WEBBOOK -------------------------------------------- We welcome people adding and changing IPB WebBooks in any way they see fit. Creators "create" new versions of existing IPB WebBooks and redistribute. Please come to the website (http://www.ipbbooks.com/) and check out the creators section for info on that. VIII. KNOWN ISSUES ------------------------------- I wouldn't call this a "known issue", but it's true I haven't tested these yet on anything other than on a win98 system. I'm not sure how systems demanding MS-DOS type filenames handle my rather descriptive filenames... IX. NOTES FOR THIS IPB --------------------------------- X. HISTORY --------------------------------- 1.2 - Fixed "Back" page problem 1.1 - Added "Jump to Page," minor fixes