New Features

New Site, Themes, Languages, EPUB3, Heartbleed

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A quick update for you from PressBooks central:

1. New Website

We’ve got a brand new website, clean and clear. What do you think?

2. New Themes

Along with the new site, we have a raft of new themes to choose from, with more on the way. New ones include:

  1. Angelou and Angelou Color, named for Maya Angelou, this is good for memoir, literary fiction, romance
  2. Atwood, a classic design for fiction and non-fiction, named after Margaret Atwood
  3. Bukowski, named for Charles Bukowski, built for fiction
  4. Eliot, once again, a classic design for fiction and non-fiction, this one named for George Eliot
  5. Kolbert, for non-fiction writer Elizabeth Kolbert, yet another classic design that’ll suit fiction or nonfiction
  6. LeGuin, named for Ursula K. LeGuin, this is a clean design with sans-serif title fonts
  7. Lovecraft, a theme for horror, named after HP Lovecraft
  8. Mailer and Mailer Color, bold title fonts, for fiction or non-fiction, named after Norman Mailer
  9. Vonnegut and Vonnegut Color, bold slab title fonts, for fiction or non-fiction. So it goes.

You can see the new themes in the PressBooks admin (click on Appearance), or on our new public Theme Gallery Page.

You also might want to check out our Sample Books page, for some free public domain books, and some examples of the more complex designs we’ve been doing for clients.

3. Languages & Translation (Help!)

Finally, finally we have ourselves set up on Transifex, a system for translating web software. We have, in various levels of completion: Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Estonian, Spanish, German, French, Chinese (Taiwan), Japanese, Khmer (Cambodia), Basque, Korean, Romanian…

Can you help? Would you like PressBooks in your language? Would you like to improve the translation in your language?

Visit here to pitch in:
https://www.transifex.com/projects/p/pressbooks/

4. EPUB3

Progress is being made on our EPUB3 initiative, thanks to Brad Payne and the team at BC Campus. We’ll be inviting more participation soon… stay tuned.

5. E-Book Revolution Guest Post

I’ve got an article up at Emily Craven’s E-Book Revolution website, about ebooks, print-on-demand, and the context of the sales numbers we’re seeing in the marketplace. Read it here.

6. Heartbleed

Like the rest of the Internet, we were affected by the Heartbleed bug. All precautions have been taken, and we should be safe now.

Is there something you’d like to ask us or tell us? Please, get in touch! 

All the best,

Hugh & the PressBooks team.