Sugar Labs - User contributions [en]

Fortune Hunter/Game Elements

2010-01-31T20:00:27Z

MikeDeVine: /* http://people.rit.edu/mod1594/fortune_hunter/ferren-merchant.gif Merchant */

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== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedchar.gif Main Characters ==

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedchar.gif Arith ===

:Arith is the protagonist of the game. Her name comes from the root of the word arithmetic. She is curious by nature and a natural explorer. Her best friend and colleague, Lytic, also accompanies her on her journey. Together, they seek to find fortune and glory and put Feren out of commission.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedchar.gif Lytic ===

:Lytic is Arith’s best friend and partner. His name is derived from the word analytic. He is very adventuresome, however more cautious than his female counterpart. Feren causes plenty of trouble for these two during their journey and Lytic will stop at nothing to ensure he and Arith both make it out unscathed and richer.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedchar.gif Feren ===

:Feren is the antagonist of the game. Little is known about Feren, including age and gender. Feren’s name is derived from the word differential. It is believed that Feren may know Arith or Lytic, as Feren seems to recall personal information regarding their pasts. Feren aims to stop the two from discovering the fabled treasure and hoarding it. Dark natured, Feren is a very dangerous and devious foe. There is lots to learn about this mysterious, shady character.

=== http://people.rit.edu/~mod1594/fortune_hunter/ferren-merchant.gif Merchant ===

:The merchant has no allegiance to anyone. The only thing he cares about is increasing the weight of his pockets. He enjoys bumping in to weary travelers and jumps and the opportunity to make a beneficial sale. He loves to cheat people who are off their game and will take advantage of many situations. Although he is a sneak, he is very handy for the protagonists, providing them with items, weapons, armor, and advice during their journey… for a substantial fee, of course!

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Enemies (Bestiary) ==

:Standard enemies are commonly found throughout the game and vary in difficulty.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Bonesprout ===

:It is unknown whether bonesprouts are animals or plants, as they grow from the ground and have the appearance of human skeletons. They cannot stand on those feet of theirs, but their body is fully functional and powerful. Bonesprouts also have a hardened exterior, making it difficult to inflict much damage.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Boom Shroom ===

:They may look like harmless fungi but boom shrooms can attack at a distance, firing a cloud of fast-flying spores into their target. Once enough spores make contact, it’s only a matter of time before paralysis sets in and they move in for the kill. They are also noted for their disgruntled representation of a human face.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Cave Yeti ===

:Ranging in size from that of a chicken to a bear, cave yetis have a lot of potential for power. Smaller ones aren’t as dangerous, but the larger ones are. When threatened, these yetis stand on their hind quarters to appear larger and use their very long and heavy claws for hammering opponents. It is said that the original abominable snow yeti was just one of these creatures defending a nest. It scared the unknowing traveler senseless.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Cave Yeti (Juvenile) ===

:Same in appearance as the normal cave yetis, these yetis are much larger and a whole lot more dangerous! As intimidating as their size is, they have still not reached adulthood yet.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Dark Knight ===

:Ancient protectors of the dungeons, knights were once heralded as champions of the lands. Dark knights are spawned of every fallen knight who met an untimely end. They seek to destroy everything in their path.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Dire Wolf ===

:An ancient and extinct wolf species with a ravenous appetite. Remember wolves always travel in packs.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Dire Wolf Lord ===

:The alpha of the dire wolves. More vicious than the dire wolves, this wolf is stronger and faster.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Dragon Slug ===

:Gorgeous to look at, yes, but very dangerous to unsuspecting travelers. They aren’t terribly strong, but don’t let their size fool you. They pack quite a bit of energy in every bite and sting and should be handled with extreme caution.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Flame Elemental ===

:Born from the flames of scorched earth, these elementals are defenders of the world. Wherever they go, the temperature will rise by hundreds of degrees. Be warned, they have the ability to ignite almost everything.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Frost Giant ===

:Cold by nature, these giants are very dangerous. They can use the power of ice to slow their enemies, making it easier for them to crush them.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/goblin.gif Goblin ===

:Goblins are very old inhabitants of this dungeon. They are from the ancient world and survive in secret away from the prying eyes of the world. They have evolved slightly in intelligence as they are usually depicted, but are still ruthless and primitive. They are strong in numbers, but are normally weak creatures of habit.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Necromancer ===

:These dark mages have the ability to call forth the dead to do their bidding. They are quite a sight, but keep in mind their real power lies within their minions. Defeat them as quickly as possible to stop the endless onslaught of undead they summon.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/orc.gif Orc ===

:Orcs have existed for a very long time. They live with the goblins of this dungeon and their primary asset is brute strength. They lack in intelligence and are easily tricked or deceived.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Roseweaver ===

:These feisty, intelligent creatures trick their enemies by luring them with a beautiful rose-like flower sprouting from their side. Primarily targeting smaller creatures, they will not stop at the chance of larger prey. Once the roseweaver’s target is close enough, they ensnare them with razor sharp thorns mounted on strong, thick vines, constricting the life out of their prisoner.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Sacateran ===

:These enormous insects generally travel in swarms, however it isn’t uncommon to come across one straggler in combat. They are excellent at picking away at their prey’s health as they are parasitic in nature. Their real strength lies in their adulthood when they mature into Sacatetras.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Stone Golem ===

:Extremely large in size, they appear to be made of unique stones with engraved symbols on them. They are very strong and have a high defense as well. Their weakness lies in their speed and agility.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Undead Insurgent ===

:These rogues are simply skeletons with armor, making them harder to defeat. They have a wider range of attacks than most enemies, making them unpredictable. Be on your guard in all fronts when facing undead insurgents. They used to work for the undead scourge, but have since fled and survive on their own.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Volcanaboar ===

:They appear harmless and are usually passive, but do not like unknown foreign invaders into their habitat. They will defend their homes in numbers, though they are generally on the weaker side.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Wake Angel ===

:These invisible enemies are masses of free forming energy that slightly resemble human shapes. They exist riding the wake of balanced energy that flows throughout all life and become enraged when this balance of energy is upset, taking more physical manifestations. In this state, they can be quite dangerous.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Wind Elemental ===

:The essence of wind, they are very strong. Wind elementals resemble tornadoes and can cause enormous pressure changes in nearby areas. They have a temper to match their erratic behavior.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/wizard(adept).gif Wizard (Adept) ===

:The order of wizardry consisted of masters of magic and the elements, allowing them to communicate with their surroundings and cast magical based attacks. They are skilled at their craft and extremely knowledgeable. These wizards, however, have been cut off from the growing world for far too long and have lost touch with the foundation for their order, causing them to lash out at whatever creatures they encounter. They conjure up their own food for survival while stuck in this dungeon for all eternity.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Wizard (Master) ===

:Wizard masters are even strong than adepts with more powerful attacks and boast defensive magic as well. They are distinguished by their colorful, new robes.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Boss Enemies ==

:Boss enemies are usually very rare encounters in the game and offer larger rewards for defeating them. However, they are much tougher and more difficult in discovering and exploiting their weaknesses. Their mathematical principals serve as a unit overview.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Beast King ===

:The king of all beasts found within the dungeon. It has the ability to summon lesser beasts to attack with it. The beast king is exceedingly strong and has lightning fast reflexes. It only shows itself when it absolutely must accomplish tasks itself, when minions simply will not do.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Bitter Biter ===

:A large creature with an angry personality. It is extremely powerful offensively. Try not to give it a chance to attack and keep an eye on those horns and teeth.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Cave Yeti (Adult) ===

:These fully matured cave yetis are extremely powerful and massive in size. Approach them with the utmost caution. They also have the tendency to lure cave yetis from a nearby distance to reconcile and intrusions into their habitat.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Celestial Dragon ===

:As beautiful as this creature is, it is still a danger to travelers. This dragon holds power over the cosmos, protecting both time and space on the planet. It will only fight in self defense. It cannot be killed, but it is said defeating a celestial dragon in battle will yield an unimaginable reward that would protect anyone that happened survive the encounter. It also may grant the victor a small touch of its magical power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Feren ===

:Feren is a seemingly old foe of Arith and Lytic, having knowledge of their lives. Feren is very mysterious and dark and works to oppose the two adventurers and stops at nothing to make things difficult for them, even if that means many battles first-hand. What’s he hiding?

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Feren (Akhalite) ===

:At last Feren reveals his true identity! He is truly fearsome. Absolute master of both magical and physical attacks, he deals massive blows to those who oppose him. Fed up with the events of story, he is ready to fight to the death. Good thing our heroes are also ready to end this, once and for all! It will take a true master of mathematics to defeat this king of destruction.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Great Skua ===

:A gigantic skua with an extra bad temper. Watch out you don't take a 'beaking' from this bird! It is rather fast and difficult to fight.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Ice Golem ===

:This ice behemoth is treacherous, freezing everything in its path and fighting with relentless ice attacks. It is made of solid, thick ice, causing most physical attacks to be virtually useless. As you can imagine, this will be one very cold fight.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Root Golem ===

:Another behemoth, this time comprised of the earth. This golem is made entirely out of roots. It is generally passive by nature, but something’s not right in this dungeon. The root golem will ensnare any that seek to pass through its grotto. It can also sap the life from enemies, regenerating its own health over time.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Sacatetra ===

:Only one queen to the sacaterans may be active at one time. Should multiple queens emerge, they must fight to the death. It is only the victor that can reap the benefits of ruling the sacaterans. Being a queen, sacatetra has the ability to summon minions to fight alongside her. She has many insect-oriented attacks that will leave her enemies weak and vulnerable. Her giant rock arms are heavy, sharp, piercing blades. As with all sacaterans though, the heaviness of her leaf wings make it impossible for them to be efficient fliers or make it very long distances without walking.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Serratula ===

:Serratula is a giant spider mutant. Her many eyes gives her the ability to foresee attacks and her many legs makes her powerful and fast. She is very dangerous and will fight with every ounce of energy once she has a fresh meal in her sights. Maybe it’s best to try and avoid her lair altogether.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Undead Scourge ===

:The scourge is nothing short of a small, precision army of undead. Once protectors of this realm, they were outlawed for reasons unknown and desire to take revenge on all living things that they encounter. Led by a royal undead, the most dangerous type, they all fight together simultaneously to make living difficult for their enemies.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Weapons ==

:Weapons are found or purchased in the game. They are solely responsible for improving the player’s attack power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Rusted Blade ===

:A rusty, very old blade. Adds +5 attack power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Great Sword ===

:A large, two handed sword with lots of power. Adds +15 attack power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/falcatta.gif Falcatta ===

:An ancient sword used by warriors. Adds +20 attack power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Sun & Moon Daggers ===

:These daggers are imbued with the power of the cosmos. +20 attack power. +5 defense. +5 combat timer.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Crescent Sword ===

:A strong and fast sword with a curved blade. +25 attack power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Cardinal ===

:A very well built blade that is both quick and extremely powerful. It also provides a small amount of defense. +35 attack power. +5 defense.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Solar & Lunar Blades ===

:The shape of these blades resembles something familiar. They are of unknown original and have massive strength and good defensive capabilities. +50 attack power. +15 defense. +10 combat timer.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedarm.gif Armor ==

:Armor is found or purchased in the game. It is solely responsible for improving the player’s defensive capabilities.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedarm.gif Earth Vest ===

:A ratty old vest made of natural materials. +5 defense.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedarm.gif Wind Breaker ===

:Thick armor made from durable material. +15 defense.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedarm.gif Flame Leggings ===

:Strong, durable leggings imbued with the essence of fire. +25 defense.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedarm.gif Dark Cowl ===

:A dark, gloomy cowl. It appears to have some sort of power. +35 defense. +5 HP.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedarm.gif Celestial Armor ===

:An incredibly strong armor set made from the essence of the stars. +50 defense. +20 HP. +5 BT.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedaccs.gif Accessories ==

:Accessories are found or purchased in the game. They generally add additional or unusual affects to help the player and are more rare than weapons or armor.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedaccs.gif Jewel Shard ===

:A broken jewel piece with unnatural powers. +10 special attack.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedaccs.gif Broken Hourglass ===

:A cracked hourglass. Time itself seems to have been altered. +10 BT.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedaccs.gif Radiant Vial ===

:An empty, shimmering vial with unnatural healing powers. +20 HP.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedaccs.gif Tome of Honor ===

:A large book filled with useful fighting knowledge. It is said that it grants the user better offense in battle. +20% attack power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedaccs.gif Tome of Valor ===

:A large book filled with useful fighting knowledge. It is said that it grants the user better defense in battle. +20% defense.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Items ==

:Items are objects found in the game that grant the user a one-time effect such as regaining lost health points. They are generally consumed after use.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Remedy ===

:A remedy is used to regain lost health points. They are fairly common on your quest. Restores 5% max health points. Buy for 20*. Sell for 2*. Max carried 20 remedies.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Elixir ===

:An elixir is used to regain lost health points. They refill more health points than a remedy and are less common on your quest. Restores 15% max health points. Buy for 60*. Sell for 10*. Max carried 20 elixirs.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif High Elixir ===

:A high elixir is used to regain lost health points. They refill more health points than an elixir and are rare on your quest. Restores 40% max health points. Buy for 100*. Sell for 20*. Max carried 20 high elixirs.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Panacea ===

:An panacea is used to regain lost health points. They refill more health points than a high elixir and are very rare on your quest. Restores 80% max health points. Buy for 150*. Sell for 50*. Max carried 20 panaceas.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Nostrum ===

:They said the merchant was crazy, but look at what he’s concocted now! A nostrum is used to regain lost health points after being defeated. It is automatically used on those who are about to give up their ambitions. Extremely rare to find on your quest. Restores 50% max health points when health points reach 0. Auto-use. Buy for 250*. Sell for 100*. Max carried 5 nostrums.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Ruby ===

:A large, beautiful ruby… Sells for 500*. Also grants the barer a magic flame attack.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Sapphire ===

:A large, deep sapphire… Sells for 500*. Also grants the barer a magic water attack.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Emerald ===

:A large, radiant emerald… Sells for 500*. Also grants the barer a magic earth attack.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Diamond ===

:A large, shimmering diamond… Sells for 500*. Also grants the barer a magic ice attack.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedkey.gif Key Items ==

:Key Items are items that are found in the game that will not be removed from the inventory after use. These items are important and usually involved in the main story line and necessary for game completion.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedkey.gif Ancient Amulet ===

:This is the very same amulet Arith stumbled across during her initial dig at the start of her journey. It possesses untold energy and makes for a great reading light, as it has the ability to uncover hidden secret texts if shone on the right surface.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedkey.gif Room Key ===

:A room key is important for passing through locked doors. They are hidden and scattered throughout the dungeons and must be found in order to progress to locked or hidden areas.

=== http://people.rit.edu/mod1594/fortune_hunter/dungeon_key.gif Dungeon Key ===

:A dungeon key is important for exiting a dungeon. They are hidden in each dungeon and must be found in order to progress to the next level. They are usually guarded by tougher enemies.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedakh.gif Currency ==

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/akhal.png Akhal ===

:Akhal are the in-game currency units. They most closely resemble golden coins with engravings of a horse and unknown language in them. They are named for a special breed of horse, known as the 'golden horse'.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedakh.gif Akhal (small) ===

:Akhal (small) is worth one akhal. They are found everywhere on your journey. +1 *.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedakh.gif Akhal (large) ===

:Akhal (large) is worth ten akhal. They are found everywhere on your journey. +10 *.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedakh.gif Akhal (chest) ===

:Akhal (chest) is worth one hundred akhal. They are uncommon on your journey. +100 *.

{{Fortune_Hunter/Navigation}}

Fortune Hunter/Game Elements

2010-01-31T19:59:04Z

MikeDeVine: /* http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedchar.gif Merchant */

{{Fortune_Hunter/Navigation}}

{{TOCright}}

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedchar.gif Main Characters ==

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedchar.gif Arith ===

:Arith is the protagonist of the game. Her name comes from the root of the word arithmetic. She is curious by nature and a natural explorer. Her best friend and colleague, Lytic, also accompanies her on her journey. Together, they seek to find fortune and glory and put Feren out of commission.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedchar.gif Lytic ===

:Lytic is Arith’s best friend and partner. His name is derived from the word analytic. He is very adventuresome, however more cautious than his female counterpart. Feren causes plenty of trouble for these two during their journey and Lytic will stop at nothing to ensure he and Arith both make it out unscathed and richer.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedchar.gif Feren ===

:Feren is the antagonist of the game. Little is known about Feren, including age and gender. Feren’s name is derived from the word differential. It is believed that Feren may know Arith or Lytic, as Feren seems to recall personal information regarding their pasts. Feren aims to stop the two from discovering the fabled treasure and hoarding it. Dark natured, Feren is a very dangerous and devious foe. There is lots to learn about this mysterious, shady character.

=== http://people.rit.edu/mod1594/fortune_hunter/ferren-merchant.gif Merchant ===

:The merchant has no allegiance to anyone. The only thing he cares about is increasing the weight of his pockets. He enjoys bumping in to weary travelers and jumps and the opportunity to make a beneficial sale. He loves to cheat people who are off their game and will take advantage of many situations. Although he is a sneak, he is very handy for the protagonists, providing them with items, weapons, armor, and advice during their journey… for a substantial fee, of course!

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Enemies (Bestiary) ==

:Standard enemies are commonly found throughout the game and vary in difficulty.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Bonesprout ===

:It is unknown whether bonesprouts are animals or plants, as they grow from the ground and have the appearance of human skeletons. They cannot stand on those feet of theirs, but their body is fully functional and powerful. Bonesprouts also have a hardened exterior, making it difficult to inflict much damage.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Boom Shroom ===

:They may look like harmless fungi but boom shrooms can attack at a distance, firing a cloud of fast-flying spores into their target. Once enough spores make contact, it’s only a matter of time before paralysis sets in and they move in for the kill. They are also noted for their disgruntled representation of a human face.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Cave Yeti ===

:Ranging in size from that of a chicken to a bear, cave yetis have a lot of potential for power. Smaller ones aren’t as dangerous, but the larger ones are. When threatened, these yetis stand on their hind quarters to appear larger and use their very long and heavy claws for hammering opponents. It is said that the original abominable snow yeti was just one of these creatures defending a nest. It scared the unknowing traveler senseless.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Cave Yeti (Juvenile) ===

:Same in appearance as the normal cave yetis, these yetis are much larger and a whole lot more dangerous! As intimidating as their size is, they have still not reached adulthood yet.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Dark Knight ===

:Ancient protectors of the dungeons, knights were once heralded as champions of the lands. Dark knights are spawned of every fallen knight who met an untimely end. They seek to destroy everything in their path.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Dire Wolf ===

:An ancient and extinct wolf species with a ravenous appetite. Remember wolves always travel in packs.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Dire Wolf Lord ===

:The alpha of the dire wolves. More vicious than the dire wolves, this wolf is stronger and faster.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Dragon Slug ===

:Gorgeous to look at, yes, but very dangerous to unsuspecting travelers. They aren’t terribly strong, but don’t let their size fool you. They pack quite a bit of energy in every bite and sting and should be handled with extreme caution.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Flame Elemental ===

:Born from the flames of scorched earth, these elementals are defenders of the world. Wherever they go, the temperature will rise by hundreds of degrees. Be warned, they have the ability to ignite almost everything.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Frost Giant ===

:Cold by nature, these giants are very dangerous. They can use the power of ice to slow their enemies, making it easier for them to crush them.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/goblin.gif Goblin ===

:Goblins are very old inhabitants of this dungeon. They are from the ancient world and survive in secret away from the prying eyes of the world. They have evolved slightly in intelligence as they are usually depicted, but are still ruthless and primitive. They are strong in numbers, but are normally weak creatures of habit.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Necromancer ===

:These dark mages have the ability to call forth the dead to do their bidding. They are quite a sight, but keep in mind their real power lies within their minions. Defeat them as quickly as possible to stop the endless onslaught of undead they summon.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/orc.gif Orc ===

:Orcs have existed for a very long time. They live with the goblins of this dungeon and their primary asset is brute strength. They lack in intelligence and are easily tricked or deceived.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Roseweaver ===

:These feisty, intelligent creatures trick their enemies by luring them with a beautiful rose-like flower sprouting from their side. Primarily targeting smaller creatures, they will not stop at the chance of larger prey. Once the roseweaver’s target is close enough, they ensnare them with razor sharp thorns mounted on strong, thick vines, constricting the life out of their prisoner.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Sacateran ===

:These enormous insects generally travel in swarms, however it isn’t uncommon to come across one straggler in combat. They are excellent at picking away at their prey’s health as they are parasitic in nature. Their real strength lies in their adulthood when they mature into Sacatetras.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Stone Golem ===

:Extremely large in size, they appear to be made of unique stones with engraved symbols on them. They are very strong and have a high defense as well. Their weakness lies in their speed and agility.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Undead Insurgent ===

:These rogues are simply skeletons with armor, making them harder to defeat. They have a wider range of attacks than most enemies, making them unpredictable. Be on your guard in all fronts when facing undead insurgents. They used to work for the undead scourge, but have since fled and survive on their own.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Volcanaboar ===

:They appear harmless and are usually passive, but do not like unknown foreign invaders into their habitat. They will defend their homes in numbers, though they are generally on the weaker side.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Wake Angel ===

:These invisible enemies are masses of free forming energy that slightly resemble human shapes. They exist riding the wake of balanced energy that flows throughout all life and become enraged when this balance of energy is upset, taking more physical manifestations. In this state, they can be quite dangerous.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Wind Elemental ===

:The essence of wind, they are very strong. Wind elementals resemble tornadoes and can cause enormous pressure changes in nearby areas. They have a temper to match their erratic behavior.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/wizard(adept).gif Wizard (Adept) ===

:The order of wizardry consisted of masters of magic and the elements, allowing them to communicate with their surroundings and cast magical based attacks. They are skilled at their craft and extremely knowledgeable. These wizards, however, have been cut off from the growing world for far too long and have lost touch with the foundation for their order, causing them to lash out at whatever creatures they encounter. They conjure up their own food for survival while stuck in this dungeon for all eternity.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Wizard (Master) ===

:Wizard masters are even strong than adepts with more powerful attacks and boast defensive magic as well. They are distinguished by their colorful, new robes.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Boss Enemies ==

:Boss enemies are usually very rare encounters in the game and offer larger rewards for defeating them. However, they are much tougher and more difficult in discovering and exploiting their weaknesses. Their mathematical principals serve as a unit overview.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Beast King ===

:The king of all beasts found within the dungeon. It has the ability to summon lesser beasts to attack with it. The beast king is exceedingly strong and has lightning fast reflexes. It only shows itself when it absolutely must accomplish tasks itself, when minions simply will not do.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Bitter Biter ===

:A large creature with an angry personality. It is extremely powerful offensively. Try not to give it a chance to attack and keep an eye on those horns and teeth.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Cave Yeti (Adult) ===

:These fully matured cave yetis are extremely powerful and massive in size. Approach them with the utmost caution. They also have the tendency to lure cave yetis from a nearby distance to reconcile and intrusions into their habitat.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Celestial Dragon ===

:As beautiful as this creature is, it is still a danger to travelers. This dragon holds power over the cosmos, protecting both time and space on the planet. It will only fight in self defense. It cannot be killed, but it is said defeating a celestial dragon in battle will yield an unimaginable reward that would protect anyone that happened survive the encounter. It also may grant the victor a small touch of its magical power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Feren ===

:Feren is a seemingly old foe of Arith and Lytic, having knowledge of their lives. Feren is very mysterious and dark and works to oppose the two adventurers and stops at nothing to make things difficult for them, even if that means many battles first-hand. What’s he hiding?

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Feren (Akhalite) ===

:At last Feren reveals his true identity! He is truly fearsome. Absolute master of both magical and physical attacks, he deals massive blows to those who oppose him. Fed up with the events of story, he is ready to fight to the death. Good thing our heroes are also ready to end this, once and for all! It will take a true master of mathematics to defeat this king of destruction.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Great Skua ===

:A gigantic skua with an extra bad temper. Watch out you don't take a 'beaking' from this bird! It is rather fast and difficult to fight.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Ice Golem ===

:This ice behemoth is treacherous, freezing everything in its path and fighting with relentless ice attacks. It is made of solid, thick ice, causing most physical attacks to be virtually useless. As you can imagine, this will be one very cold fight.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Root Golem ===

:Another behemoth, this time comprised of the earth. This golem is made entirely out of roots. It is generally passive by nature, but something’s not right in this dungeon. The root golem will ensnare any that seek to pass through its grotto. It can also sap the life from enemies, regenerating its own health over time.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Sacatetra ===

:Only one queen to the sacaterans may be active at one time. Should multiple queens emerge, they must fight to the death. It is only the victor that can reap the benefits of ruling the sacaterans. Being a queen, sacatetra has the ability to summon minions to fight alongside her. She has many insect-oriented attacks that will leave her enemies weak and vulnerable. Her giant rock arms are heavy, sharp, piercing blades. As with all sacaterans though, the heaviness of her leaf wings make it impossible for them to be efficient fliers or make it very long distances without walking.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Serratula ===

:Serratula is a giant spider mutant. Her many eyes gives her the ability to foresee attacks and her many legs makes her powerful and fast. She is very dangerous and will fight with every ounce of energy once she has a fresh meal in her sights. Maybe it’s best to try and avoid her lair altogether.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Undead Scourge ===

:The scourge is nothing short of a small, precision army of undead. Once protectors of this realm, they were outlawed for reasons unknown and desire to take revenge on all living things that they encounter. Led by a royal undead, the most dangerous type, they all fight together simultaneously to make living difficult for their enemies.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Weapons ==

:Weapons are found or purchased in the game. They are solely responsible for improving the player’s attack power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Rusted Blade ===

:A rusty, very old blade. Adds +5 attack power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Great Sword ===

:A large, two handed sword with lots of power. Adds +15 attack power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/falcatta.gif Falcatta ===

:An ancient sword used by warriors. Adds +20 attack power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Sun & Moon Daggers ===

:These daggers are imbued with the power of the cosmos. +20 attack power. +5 defense. +5 combat timer.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Crescent Sword ===

:A strong and fast sword with a curved blade. +25 attack power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Cardinal ===

:A very well built blade that is both quick and extremely powerful. It also provides a small amount of defense. +35 attack power. +5 defense.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Solar & Lunar Blades ===

:The shape of these blades resembles something familiar. They are of unknown original and have massive strength and good defensive capabilities. +50 attack power. +15 defense. +10 combat timer.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedarm.gif Armor ==

:Armor is found or purchased in the game. It is solely responsible for improving the player’s defensive capabilities.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedarm.gif Earth Vest ===

:A ratty old vest made of natural materials. +5 defense.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedarm.gif Wind Breaker ===

:Thick armor made from durable material. +15 defense.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedarm.gif Flame Leggings ===

:Strong, durable leggings imbued with the essence of fire. +25 defense.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedarm.gif Dark Cowl ===

:A dark, gloomy cowl. It appears to have some sort of power. +35 defense. +5 HP.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedarm.gif Celestial Armor ===

:An incredibly strong armor set made from the essence of the stars. +50 defense. +20 HP. +5 BT.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedaccs.gif Accessories ==

:Accessories are found or purchased in the game. They generally add additional or unusual affects to help the player and are more rare than weapons or armor.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedaccs.gif Jewel Shard ===

:A broken jewel piece with unnatural powers. +10 special attack.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedaccs.gif Broken Hourglass ===

:A cracked hourglass. Time itself seems to have been altered. +10 BT.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedaccs.gif Radiant Vial ===

:An empty, shimmering vial with unnatural healing powers. +20 HP.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedaccs.gif Tome of Honor ===

:A large book filled with useful fighting knowledge. It is said that it grants the user better offense in battle. +20% attack power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedaccs.gif Tome of Valor ===

:A large book filled with useful fighting knowledge. It is said that it grants the user better defense in battle. +20% defense.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Items ==

:Items are objects found in the game that grant the user a one-time effect such as regaining lost health points. They are generally consumed after use.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Remedy ===

:A remedy is used to regain lost health points. They are fairly common on your quest. Restores 5% max health points. Buy for 20*. Sell for 2*. Max carried 20 remedies.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Elixir ===

:An elixir is used to regain lost health points. They refill more health points than a remedy and are less common on your quest. Restores 15% max health points. Buy for 60*. Sell for 10*. Max carried 20 elixirs.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif High Elixir ===

:A high elixir is used to regain lost health points. They refill more health points than an elixir and are rare on your quest. Restores 40% max health points. Buy for 100*. Sell for 20*. Max carried 20 high elixirs.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Panacea ===

:An panacea is used to regain lost health points. They refill more health points than a high elixir and are very rare on your quest. Restores 80% max health points. Buy for 150*. Sell for 50*. Max carried 20 panaceas.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Nostrum ===

:They said the merchant was crazy, but look at what he’s concocted now! A nostrum is used to regain lost health points after being defeated. It is automatically used on those who are about to give up their ambitions. Extremely rare to find on your quest. Restores 50% max health points when health points reach 0. Auto-use. Buy for 250*. Sell for 100*. Max carried 5 nostrums.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Ruby ===

:A large, beautiful ruby… Sells for 500*. Also grants the barer a magic flame attack.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Sapphire ===

:A large, deep sapphire… Sells for 500*. Also grants the barer a magic water attack.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Emerald ===

:A large, radiant emerald… Sells for 500*. Also grants the barer a magic earth attack.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Diamond ===

:A large, shimmering diamond… Sells for 500*. Also grants the barer a magic ice attack.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedkey.gif Key Items ==

:Key Items are items that are found in the game that will not be removed from the inventory after use. These items are important and usually involved in the main story line and necessary for game completion.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedkey.gif Ancient Amulet ===

:This is the very same amulet Arith stumbled across during her initial dig at the start of her journey. It possesses untold energy and makes for a great reading light, as it has the ability to uncover hidden secret texts if shone on the right surface.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedkey.gif Room Key ===

:A room key is important for passing through locked doors. They are hidden and scattered throughout the dungeons and must be found in order to progress to locked or hidden areas.

=== http://people.rit.edu/mod1594/fortune_hunter/dungeon_key.gif Dungeon Key ===

:A dungeon key is important for exiting a dungeon. They are hidden in each dungeon and must be found in order to progress to the next level. They are usually guarded by tougher enemies.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedakh.gif Currency ==

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/akhal.png Akhal ===

:Akhal are the in-game currency units. They most closely resemble golden coins with engravings of a horse and unknown language in them. They are named for a special breed of horse, known as the 'golden horse'.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedakh.gif Akhal (small) ===

:Akhal (small) is worth one akhal. They are found everywhere on your journey. +1 *.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedakh.gif Akhal (large) ===

:Akhal (large) is worth ten akhal. They are found everywhere on your journey. +10 *.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedakh.gif Akhal (chest) ===

:Akhal (chest) is worth one hundred akhal. They are uncommon on your journey. +100 *.

{{Fortune_Hunter/Navigation}}

Fortune Hunter/Game Elements

2010-01-29T07:58:40Z

MikeDeVine: /* http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedkey.gif Dungeon Key */

{{Fortune_Hunter/Navigation}}

{{TOCright}}

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedchar.gif Main Characters ==

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedchar.gif Arith ===

:Arith is the protagonist of the game. Her name comes from the root of the word arithmetic. She is curious by nature and a natural explorer. Her best friend and colleague, Lytic, also accompanies her on her journey. Together, they seek to find fortune and glory and put Feren out of commission.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedchar.gif Lytic ===

:Lytic is Arith’s best friend and partner. His name is derived from the word analytic. He is very adventuresome, however more cautious than his female counterpart. Feren causes plenty of trouble for these two during their journey and Lytic will stop at nothing to ensure he and Arith both make it out unscathed and richer.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedchar.gif Feren ===

:Feren is the antagonist of the game. Little is known about Feren, including age and gender. Feren’s name is derived from the word differential. It is believed that Feren may know Arith or Lytic, as Feren seems to recall personal information regarding their pasts. Feren aims to stop the two from discovering the fabled treasure and hoarding it. Dark natured, Feren is a very dangerous and devious foe. There is lots to learn about this mysterious, shady character.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedchar.gif Merchant ===

:The merchant has no allegiance to anyone. The only thing he cares about is increasing the weight of his pockets. He enjoys bumping in to weary travelers and jumps and the opportunity to make a beneficial sale. He loves to cheat people who are off their game and will take advantage of many situations. Although he is a sneak, he is very handy for the protagonists, providing them with items, weapons, armor, and advice during their journey… for a substantial fee, of course!

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Enemies (Bestiary) ==

:Standard enemies are commonly found throughout the game and vary in difficulty.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Bonesprout ===

:It is unknown whether bonesprouts are animals or plants, as they grow from the ground and have the appearance of human skeletons. They cannot stand on those feet of theirs, but their body is fully functional and powerful. Bonesprouts also have a hardened exterior, making it difficult to inflict much damage.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Boom Shroom ===

:They may look like harmless fungi but boom shrooms can attack at a distance, firing a cloud of fast-flying spores into their target. Once enough spores make contact, it’s only a matter of time before paralysis sets in and they move in for the kill. They are also noted for their disgruntled representation of a human face.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Cave Yeti ===

:Ranging in size from that of a chicken to a bear, cave yetis have a lot of potential for power. Smaller ones aren’t as dangerous, but the larger ones are. When threatened, these yetis stand on their hind quarters to appear larger and use their very long and heavy claws for hammering opponents. It is said that the original abominable snow yeti was just one of these creatures defending a nest. It scared the unknowing traveler senseless.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Cave Yeti (Juvenile) ===

:Same in appearance as the normal cave yetis, these yetis are much larger and a whole lot more dangerous! As intimidating as their size is, they have still not reached adulthood yet.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Dark Knight ===

:Ancient protectors of the dungeons, knights were once heralded as champions of the lands. Dark knights are spawned of every fallen knight who met an untimely end. They seek to destroy everything in their path.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Dire Wolf ===

:An ancient and extinct wolf species with a ravenous appetite. Remember wolves always travel in packs.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Dire Wolf Lord ===

:The alpha of the dire wolves. More vicious than the dire wolves, this wolf is stronger and faster.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Dragon Slug ===

:Gorgeous to look at, yes, but very dangerous to unsuspecting travelers. They aren’t terribly strong, but don’t let their size fool you. They pack quite a bit of energy in every bite and sting and should be handled with extreme caution.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Flame Elemental ===

:Born from the flames of scorched earth, these elementals are defenders of the world. Wherever they go, the temperature will rise by hundreds of degrees. Be warned, they have the ability to ignite almost everything.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Frost Giant ===

:Cold by nature, these giants are very dangerous. They can use the power of ice to slow their enemies, making it easier for them to crush them.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/goblin.gif Goblin ===

:Goblins are very old inhabitants of this dungeon. They are from the ancient world and survive in secret away from the prying eyes of the world. They have evolved slightly in intelligence as they are usually depicted, but are still ruthless and primitive. They are strong in numbers, but are normally weak creatures of habit.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Necromancer ===

:These dark mages have the ability to call forth the dead to do their bidding. They are quite a sight, but keep in mind their real power lies within their minions. Defeat them as quickly as possible to stop the endless onslaught of undead they summon.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/orc.gif Orc ===

:Orcs have existed for a very long time. They live with the goblins of this dungeon and their primary asset is brute strength. They lack in intelligence and are easily tricked or deceived.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Roseweaver ===

:These feisty, intelligent creatures trick their enemies by luring them with a beautiful rose-like flower sprouting from their side. Primarily targeting smaller creatures, they will not stop at the chance of larger prey. Once the roseweaver’s target is close enough, they ensnare them with razor sharp thorns mounted on strong, thick vines, constricting the life out of their prisoner.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Sacateran ===

:These enormous insects generally travel in swarms, however it isn’t uncommon to come across one straggler in combat. They are excellent at picking away at their prey’s health as they are parasitic in nature. Their real strength lies in their adulthood when they mature into Sacatetras.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Stone Golem ===

:Extremely large in size, they appear to be made of unique stones with engraved symbols on them. They are very strong and have a high defense as well. Their weakness lies in their speed and agility.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Undead Insurgent ===

:These rogues are simply skeletons with armor, making them harder to defeat. They have a wider range of attacks than most enemies, making them unpredictable. Be on your guard in all fronts when facing undead insurgents. They used to work for the undead scourge, but have since fled and survive on their own.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Volcanaboar ===

:They appear harmless and are usually passive, but do not like unknown foreign invaders into their habitat. They will defend their homes in numbers, though they are generally on the weaker side.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Wake Angel ===

:These invisible enemies are masses of free forming energy that slightly resemble human shapes. They exist riding the wake of balanced energy that flows throughout all life and become enraged when this balance of energy is upset, taking more physical manifestations. In this state, they can be quite dangerous.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Wind Elemental ===

:The essence of wind, they are very strong. Wind elementals resemble tornadoes and can cause enormous pressure changes in nearby areas. They have a temper to match their erratic behavior.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/wizard(adept).gif Wizard (Adept) ===

:The order of wizardry consisted of masters of magic and the elements, allowing them to communicate with their surroundings and cast magical based attacks. They are skilled at their craft and extremely knowledgeable. These wizards, however, have been cut off from the growing world for far too long and have lost touch with the foundation for their order, causing them to lash out at whatever creatures they encounter. They conjure up their own food for survival while stuck in this dungeon for all eternity.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedbeast.gif Wizard (Master) ===

:Wizard masters are even strong than adepts with more powerful attacks and boast defensive magic as well. They are distinguished by their colorful, new robes.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Boss Enemies ==

:Boss enemies are usually very rare encounters in the game and offer larger rewards for defeating them. However, they are much tougher and more difficult in discovering and exploiting their weaknesses. Their mathematical principals serve as a unit overview.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Beast King ===

:The king of all beasts found within the dungeon. It has the ability to summon lesser beasts to attack with it. The beast king is exceedingly strong and has lightning fast reflexes. It only shows itself when it absolutely must accomplish tasks itself, when minions simply will not do.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Bitter Biter ===

:A large creature with an angry personality. It is extremely powerful offensively. Try not to give it a chance to attack and keep an eye on those horns and teeth.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Cave Yeti (Adult) ===

:These fully matured cave yetis are extremely powerful and massive in size. Approach them with the utmost caution. They also have the tendency to lure cave yetis from a nearby distance to reconcile and intrusions into their habitat.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Celestial Dragon ===

:As beautiful as this creature is, it is still a danger to travelers. This dragon holds power over the cosmos, protecting both time and space on the planet. It will only fight in self defense. It cannot be killed, but it is said defeating a celestial dragon in battle will yield an unimaginable reward that would protect anyone that happened survive the encounter. It also may grant the victor a small touch of its magical power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Feren ===

:Feren is a seemingly old foe of Arith and Lytic, having knowledge of their lives. Feren is very mysterious and dark and works to oppose the two adventurers and stops at nothing to make things difficult for them, even if that means many battles first-hand. What’s he hiding?

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Feren (Akhalite) ===

:At last Feren reveals his true identity! He is truly fearsome. Absolute master of both magical and physical attacks, he deals massive blows to those who oppose him. Fed up with the events of story, he is ready to fight to the death. Good thing our heroes are also ready to end this, once and for all! It will take a true master of mathematics to defeat this king of destruction.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Great Skua ===

:A gigantic skua with an extra bad temper. Watch out you don't take a 'beaking' from this bird! It is rather fast and difficult to fight.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Ice Golem ===

:This ice behemoth is treacherous, freezing everything in its path and fighting with relentless ice attacks. It is made of solid, thick ice, causing most physical attacks to be virtually useless. As you can imagine, this will be one very cold fight.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Root Golem ===

:Another behemoth, this time comprised of the earth. This golem is made entirely out of roots. It is generally passive by nature, but something’s not right in this dungeon. The root golem will ensnare any that seek to pass through its grotto. It can also sap the life from enemies, regenerating its own health over time.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Sacatetra ===

:Only one queen to the sacaterans may be active at one time. Should multiple queens emerge, they must fight to the death. It is only the victor that can reap the benefits of ruling the sacaterans. Being a queen, sacatetra has the ability to summon minions to fight alongside her. She has many insect-oriented attacks that will leave her enemies weak and vulnerable. Her giant rock arms are heavy, sharp, piercing blades. As with all sacaterans though, the heaviness of her leaf wings make it impossible for them to be efficient fliers or make it very long distances without walking.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Serratula ===

:Serratula is a giant spider mutant. Her many eyes gives her the ability to foresee attacks and her many legs makes her powerful and fast. She is very dangerous and will fight with every ounce of energy once she has a fresh meal in her sights. Maybe it’s best to try and avoid her lair altogether.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedboss.gif Undead Scourge ===

:The scourge is nothing short of a small, precision army of undead. Once protectors of this realm, they were outlawed for reasons unknown and desire to take revenge on all living things that they encounter. Led by a royal undead, the most dangerous type, they all fight together simultaneously to make living difficult for their enemies.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Weapons ==

:Weapons are found or purchased in the game. They are solely responsible for improving the player’s attack power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Rusted Blade ===

:A rusty, very old blade. Adds +5 attack power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Great Sword ===

:A large, two handed sword with lots of power. Adds +15 attack power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/falcatta.gif Falcatta ===

:An ancient sword used by warriors. Adds +20 attack power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Sun & Moon Daggers ===

:These daggers are imbued with the power of the cosmos. +20 attack power. +5 defense. +5 combat timer.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Crescent Sword ===

:A strong and fast sword with a curved blade. +25 attack power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Cardinal ===

:A very well built blade that is both quick and extremely powerful. It also provides a small amount of defense. +35 attack power. +5 defense.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedweap.gif Solar & Lunar Blades ===

:The shape of these blades resembles something familiar. They are of unknown original and have massive strength and good defensive capabilities. +50 attack power. +15 defense. +10 combat timer.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedarm.gif Armor ==

:Armor is found or purchased in the game. It is solely responsible for improving the player’s defensive capabilities.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedarm.gif Earth Vest ===

:A ratty old vest made of natural materials. +5 defense.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedarm.gif Wind Breaker ===

:Thick armor made from durable material. +15 defense.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedarm.gif Flame Leggings ===

:Strong, durable leggings imbued with the essence of fire. +25 defense.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedarm.gif Dark Cowl ===

:A dark, gloomy cowl. It appears to have some sort of power. +35 defense. +5 HP.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedarm.gif Celestial Armor ===

:An incredibly strong armor set made from the essence of the stars. +50 defense. +20 HP. +5 BT.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedaccs.gif Accessories ==

:Accessories are found or purchased in the game. They generally add additional or unusual affects to help the player and are more rare than weapons or armor.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedaccs.gif Jewel Shard ===

:A broken jewel piece with unnatural powers. +10 special attack.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedaccs.gif Broken Hourglass ===

:A cracked hourglass. Time itself seems to have been altered. +10 BT.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedaccs.gif Radiant Vial ===

:An empty, shimmering vial with unnatural healing powers. +20 HP.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedaccs.gif Tome of Honor ===

:A large book filled with useful fighting knowledge. It is said that it grants the user better offense in battle. +20% attack power.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedaccs.gif Tome of Valor ===

:A large book filled with useful fighting knowledge. It is said that it grants the user better defense in battle. +20% defense.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Items ==

:Items are objects found in the game that grant the user a one-time effect such as regaining lost health points. They are generally consumed after use.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Remedy ===

:A remedy is used to regain lost health points. They are fairly common on your quest. Restores 5% max health points. Buy for 20*. Sell for 2*. Max carried 20 remedies.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Elixir ===

:An elixir is used to regain lost health points. They refill more health points than a remedy and are less common on your quest. Restores 15% max health points. Buy for 60*. Sell for 10*. Max carried 20 elixirs.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif High Elixir ===

:A high elixir is used to regain lost health points. They refill more health points than an elixir and are rare on your quest. Restores 40% max health points. Buy for 100*. Sell for 20*. Max carried 20 high elixirs.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Panacea ===

:An panacea is used to regain lost health points. They refill more health points than a high elixir and are very rare on your quest. Restores 80% max health points. Buy for 150*. Sell for 50*. Max carried 20 panaceas.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Nostrum ===

:They said the merchant was crazy, but look at what he’s concocted now! A nostrum is used to regain lost health points after being defeated. It is automatically used on those who are about to give up their ambitions. Extremely rare to find on your quest. Restores 50% max health points when health points reach 0. Auto-use. Buy for 250*. Sell for 100*. Max carried 5 nostrums.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Ruby ===

:A large, beautiful ruby… Sells for 500*. Also grants the barer a magic flame attack.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Sapphire ===

:A large, deep sapphire… Sells for 500*. Also grants the barer a magic water attack.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Emerald ===

:A large, radiant emerald… Sells for 500*. Also grants the barer a magic earth attack.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockeditem.gif Diamond ===

:A large, shimmering diamond… Sells for 500*. Also grants the barer a magic ice attack.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedkey.gif Key Items ==

:Key Items are items that are found in the game that will not be removed from the inventory after use. These items are important and usually involved in the main story line and necessary for game completion.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedkey.gif Ancient Amulet ===

:This is the very same amulet Arith stumbled across during her initial dig at the start of her journey. It possesses untold energy and makes for a great reading light, as it has the ability to uncover hidden secret texts if shone on the right surface.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedkey.gif Room Key ===

:A room key is important for passing through locked doors. They are hidden and scattered throughout the dungeons and must be found in order to progress to locked or hidden areas.

=== http://people.rit.edu/mod1594/fortune_hunter/dungeon_key.gif Dungeon Key ===

:A dungeon key is important for exiting a dungeon. They are hidden in each dungeon and must be found in order to progress to the next level. They are usually guarded by tougher enemies.

== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedakh.gif Currency ==

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/akhal.png Akhal ===

:Akhal are the in-game currency units. They most closely resemble golden coins with engravings of a horse and unknown language in them. They are named for a special breed of horse, known as the 'golden horse'.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedakh.gif Akhal (small) ===

:Akhal (small) is worth one akhal. They are found everywhere on your journey. +1 *.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedakh.gif Akhal (large) ===

:Akhal (large) is worth ten akhal. They are found everywhere on your journey. +10 *.

=== http://people.rit.edu/jam2707/xodev/thumbs/lockedakh.gif Akhal (chest) ===

:Akhal (chest) is worth one hundred akhal. They are uncommon on your journey. +100 *.

{{Fortune_Hunter/Navigation}}

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-27T00:01:57Z

MikeDeVine: /* People Contributing To The Discussion */

==Overview==
The overall premise of this effort is to produce a streamlined, unified system to enable XO users to access and view electronic books.

===The Idea===
It goes without saying that reading is a crucial tool for a child's development; the OLPC program provides the means to provide the world's poorest children with an infinite supply of books; I came up with this idea after realizing that there exists no easy way for a XO user to accomplish this.

===The Need===
While there are several projects related to the concept of file distribution and document reading in the works, the methods and goals between them don't totally line up eye-to-eye, and as a result there are several considerable obstacles standing in the way of the XO offering competent and feature-rich e-book accessibility.

===Goals===
The endgame here is to create a multi-lateral solution which utilizes features from numerous existing projects and software to not only allow easy access to and viewing of e-books on the user end, but to provide an infrastructure for the uploading, cataloguing and hosting of e-books for the purpose of creating clear channels of communication between online e-book sources (including XS servers and online archives) and XO users. This can best be accomplished with participation from the authors of the Activities and software which ideally will be used in this project, in a collaborative effort with myself and other students enrolled in RIT's OLPC course. Ideally, this project will provide a use for our XS server as part of the ebook hosting solution.

In the long-term, I hope that the solution we end up with becomes part of the default set of Activities included on every XO.

In the far future, with a solid distribution framework in place the OLPC team could begin talking with textbook publishers to arrange for hosting of digital textbooks for use by teachers who otherwise don't have access to/can't afford printed textbooks for their students.

==People Contributing To The Discussion==
*[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:MikeDeVine Mike DeVine] - Project Lead
*[http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta] - Creator of Read Activity
*Martin Langhoff
*Samuel Klein
*[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Cheezmeister Brendan Luchen]

==Desired Features==

===On The User Side===
*An easy-to-use reader Activity which allows a user to navigate the e-books on his/her XO, open and read them. This Activity should ideally contain features similar to those found in dedicated e-reader OSes: bookmarking, annotations, chapter selection, different view options, and especially "Tablet Mode" compatibility for user input.
*An Activity which enables the user to go online, access a central repository of e-books as well as the various third-party repositories, browse and search using metadata tags for refining results, and download desired files to his/her XO.

===On The Hosting Side===
*Service should include as much metadata as possible for tagging purposes.
*Multiple file formats are available, and it seems wise to integrate compatibility for as many as possible; which formats make the most sense to integrate into our applications?
**Epub supports a large amount of metadata and has been widely adopted, it seems like a no-brainer format to include.
**PDF files are powerful and contain plenty of metadata, but can be rather large, and aren't very flexible for different resolutions (so displaying on the XO could be an issue, although several reader Activities do support them)
**Mobipocket(MOBI and PRC) is a powerful format and supports SQL queries to use with databases.
**HTML files are larger but offer the formatting capabilities of a website, and many other formats use html files for each chapter compressed into one file along with other relevant files (images, stylesheets, etc.)
**TXT files leave a very small footprint and have broad compatibility, however they contain no formatting or metadata (I might be wrong about that, though)
**Open eBook(OPF) is an XML-based format from E-book Systems. It's a legacy version of Epub.
**DJVU is designed to hold scanned images so it's ideal for e-books, but contains almost no metadata.

===Distribution===
*An easy-to-use interface that allows XO users to browse, access and download e-book files, and other parties to upload to a central location, as well as from third-party repositories.
*It has been suggested that there should be various points of entry to a central directory structure, including:
**A directory to upload e-books into via Moodle - For teachers to
upload new e-books that they may have downloaded or obtained via sneakernet.
**The XS scans USB sticks that you plug in for certain directories- and if the content matches what the XS expects, then they are imported. This works for activity bundles, etc. Adding support for an 'ebooks'
directory is easy.

==Collaborating Activities, Software & Hardware==

===Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing===
*Several existing document reader Activities contain various combinations of the desired features outlined above:
**The default [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Read Read] Activity, developed by [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta], is compatible with most e-book file formats, has support for Tablet Mode. What it lacks is a user interface which allows younger users to easily browse through their collection of e-books on their XO. It also lacks a book retrieval mechanism; its sole purpose is the viewing of documents.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Get_Internet_Archive_Books Get Internet Archive Books][http://github.com/internetarchive/bookserver (Git Repository)] is capable of retrieving books from multiple repositories, with only minor changes to the code required.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Read_Etexts Read Etexts] is an Activity which started as a generic text file reader for Project Guttenberg files and has grown to include a built-in catalog of tens of thousands of Project Guttenberg's books.
*On the book retrieval side, could also possibly use RIT student [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Jlew Justin Lewis]' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare File Share Activity]?

===Software: File Hosting & Distribution===
*Could possibly use Justin Lewis' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare/Server File Share Server]?
*[http://code.google.com/p/openpub/wiki/OPDS OPDS] catalogs seem to be the ideal way to go when it comes to a directory system. The Get Books Activity supports OPDS, as does the Internet Archive which the Get Internet Archive books Activity uses. (Does File Share Server support OPDS?)
*OPDS combined with support for the OpenSearch API on the server side seems to be an ideal setup, as it enables remote searches without requiring local caches, and also avoids large downloads.
*Sayamindu's proposed a workflow that proceeds thusly:
**1. Have a specified directory on the file system which is crawled periodically via cron.
**2. If a new file is found, metadata is extracted either from the file, or from an external CSV file which is also found at a fixed location (CSV so that deployments can use any spreadsheet software while adding books.)
**3. Once metadata is obtained successfully the file is added to the index. The index is then generated into OPDS catalogs, which can be queried from any XO to the XS.

===Hardware: File Storage & Hosting===
*The XS server at RIT would ideally serve as part of the e-book hosting solution

==Progress==

===Milestones===
====What To Get From Where?====
At this point, my main process has been to figure out which components in existing projects can be best utilized. On the user end, there's a lot of functionality overlap between Activities, as well as a lot of gaps in each Activity's feature-set. The hosting and distribution side are much less saturated with projects, though what options do exist seem to already be capable of being utilized for our purposes. Sweet. So the toughest questions that need to be asked concern the user-end:
*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch?
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features?

===Notes===
*(1/15/2010) Filled in most of the Wiki page; started some Discussion topics to hopefully gather more ideas. (Mike DeVine)
*(1/14/2010) As of now, still collecting feedback and gauging interest in the project. (Mike DeVine)

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-26T23:37:05Z

MikeDeVine: /* Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing */

==Overview==
The overall premise of this effort is to produce a streamlined, unified system to enable XO users to access and view electronic books.

===The Idea===
It goes without saying that reading is a crucial tool for a child's development; the OLPC program provides the means to provide the world's poorest children with an infinite supply of books; I came up with this idea after realizing that there exists no easy way for a XO user to accomplish this.

===The Need===
While there are several projects related to the concept of file distribution and document reading in the works, the methods and goals between them don't totally line up eye-to-eye, and as a result there are several considerable obstacles standing in the way of the XO offering competent and feature-rich e-book accessibility.

===Goals===
The endgame here is to create a multi-lateral solution which utilizes features from numerous existing projects and software to not only allow easy access to and viewing of e-books on the user end, but to provide an infrastructure for the uploading, cataloguing and hosting of e-books for the purpose of creating clear channels of communication between online e-book sources (including XS servers and online archives) and XO users. This can best be accomplished with participation from the authors of the Activities and software which ideally will be used in this project, in a collaborative effort with myself and other students enrolled in RIT's OLPC course. Ideally, this project will provide a use for our XS server as part of the ebook hosting solution.

In the long-term, I hope that the solution we end up with becomes part of the default set of Activities included on every XO.

In the far future, with a solid distribution framework in place the OLPC team could begin talking with textbook publishers to arrange for hosting of digital textbooks for use by teachers who otherwise don't have access to/can't afford printed textbooks for their students.

==People Contributing To The Discussion==
*[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:MikeDeVine Mike DeVine] - Project Lead
*[http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta] - Creator of Read Activity
*Martin Langhoff
*Samuel Klein

==Desired Features==

===On The User Side===
*An easy-to-use reader Activity which allows a user to navigate the e-books on his/her XO, open and read them. This Activity should ideally contain features similar to those found in dedicated e-reader OSes: bookmarking, annotations, chapter selection, different view options, and especially "Tablet Mode" compatibility for user input.
*An Activity which enables the user to go online, access a central repository of e-books as well as the various third-party repositories, browse and search using metadata tags for refining results, and download desired files to his/her XO.

===On The Hosting Side===
*Service should include as much metadata as possible for tagging purposes.
*Multiple file formats are available, and it seems wise to integrate compatibility for as many as possible; which formats make the most sense to integrate into our applications?
**Epub supports a large amount of metadata and has been widely adopted, it seems like a no-brainer format to include.
**PDF files are powerful and contain plenty of metadata, but can be rather large, and aren't very flexible for different resolutions (so displaying on the XO could be an issue, although several reader Activities do support them)
**Mobipocket(MOBI and PRC) is a powerful format and supports SQL queries to use with databases.
**HTML files are larger but offer the formatting capabilities of a website, and many other formats use html files for each chapter compressed into one file along with other relevant files (images, stylesheets, etc.)
**TXT files leave a very small footprint and have broad compatibility, however they contain no formatting or metadata (I might be wrong about that, though)
**Open eBook(OPF) is an XML-based format from E-book Systems. It's a legacy version of Epub.
**DJVU is designed to hold scanned images so it's ideal for e-books, but contains almost no metadata.

===Distribution===
*An easy-to-use interface that allows XO users to browse, access and download e-book files, and other parties to upload to a central location, as well as from third-party repositories.
*It has been suggested that there should be various points of entry to a central directory structure, including:
**A directory to upload e-books into via Moodle - For teachers to
upload new e-books that they may have downloaded or obtained via sneakernet.
**The XS scans USB sticks that you plug in for certain directories- and if the content matches what the XS expects, then they are imported. This works for activity bundles, etc. Adding support for an 'ebooks'
directory is easy.

==Collaborating Activities, Software & Hardware==

===Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing===
*Several existing document reader Activities contain various combinations of the desired features outlined above:
**The default [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Read Read] Activity, developed by [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta], is compatible with most e-book file formats, has support for Tablet Mode. What it lacks is a user interface which allows younger users to easily browse through their collection of e-books on their XO. It also lacks a book retrieval mechanism; its sole purpose is the viewing of documents.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Get_Internet_Archive_Books Get Internet Archive Books][http://github.com/internetarchive/bookserver (Git Repository)] is capable of retrieving books from multiple repositories, with only minor changes to the code required.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Read_Etexts Read Etexts] is an Activity which started as a generic text file reader for Project Guttenberg files and has grown to include a built-in catalog of tens of thousands of Project Guttenberg's books.
*On the book retrieval side, could also possibly use RIT student [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Jlew Justin Lewis]' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare File Share Activity]?

===Software: File Hosting & Distribution===
*Could possibly use Justin Lewis' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare/Server File Share Server]?
*[http://code.google.com/p/openpub/wiki/OPDS OPDS] catalogs seem to be the ideal way to go when it comes to a directory system. The Get Books Activity supports OPDS, as does the Internet Archive which the Get Internet Archive books Activity uses. (Does File Share Server support OPDS?)
*OPDS combined with support for the OpenSearch API on the server side seems to be an ideal setup, as it enables remote searches without requiring local caches, and also avoids large downloads.
*Sayamindu's proposed a workflow that proceeds thusly:
**1. Have a specified directory on the file system which is crawled periodically via cron.
**2. If a new file is found, metadata is extracted either from the file, or from an external CSV file which is also found at a fixed location (CSV so that deployments can use any spreadsheet software while adding books.)
**3. Once metadata is obtained successfully the file is added to the index. The index is then generated into OPDS catalogs, which can be queried from any XO to the XS.

===Hardware: File Storage & Hosting===
*The XS server at RIT would ideally serve as part of the e-book hosting solution

==Progress==

===Milestones===
====What To Get From Where?====
At this point, my main process has been to figure out which components in existing projects can be best utilized. On the user end, there's a lot of functionality overlap between Activities, as well as a lot of gaps in each Activity's feature-set. The hosting and distribution side are much less saturated with projects, though what options do exist seem to already be capable of being utilized for our purposes. Sweet. So the toughest questions that need to be asked concern the user-end:
*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch?
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features?

===Notes===
*(1/15/2010) Filled in most of the Wiki page; started some Discussion topics to hopefully gather more ideas. (Mike DeVine)
*(1/14/2010) As of now, still collecting feedback and gauging interest in the project. (Mike DeVine)

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-26T23:35:18Z

MikeDeVine: /* Software: File Hosting & Distribution */

==Overview==
The overall premise of this effort is to produce a streamlined, unified system to enable XO users to access and view electronic books.

===The Idea===
It goes without saying that reading is a crucial tool for a child's development; the OLPC program provides the means to provide the world's poorest children with an infinite supply of books; I came up with this idea after realizing that there exists no easy way for a XO user to accomplish this.

===The Need===
While there are several projects related to the concept of file distribution and document reading in the works, the methods and goals between them don't totally line up eye-to-eye, and as a result there are several considerable obstacles standing in the way of the XO offering competent and feature-rich e-book accessibility.

===Goals===
The endgame here is to create a multi-lateral solution which utilizes features from numerous existing projects and software to not only allow easy access to and viewing of e-books on the user end, but to provide an infrastructure for the uploading, cataloguing and hosting of e-books for the purpose of creating clear channels of communication between online e-book sources (including XS servers and online archives) and XO users. This can best be accomplished with participation from the authors of the Activities and software which ideally will be used in this project, in a collaborative effort with myself and other students enrolled in RIT's OLPC course. Ideally, this project will provide a use for our XS server as part of the ebook hosting solution.

In the long-term, I hope that the solution we end up with becomes part of the default set of Activities included on every XO.

In the far future, with a solid distribution framework in place the OLPC team could begin talking with textbook publishers to arrange for hosting of digital textbooks for use by teachers who otherwise don't have access to/can't afford printed textbooks for their students.

==People Contributing To The Discussion==
*[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:MikeDeVine Mike DeVine] - Project Lead
*[http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta] - Creator of Read Activity
*Martin Langhoff
*Samuel Klein

==Desired Features==

===On The User Side===
*An easy-to-use reader Activity which allows a user to navigate the e-books on his/her XO, open and read them. This Activity should ideally contain features similar to those found in dedicated e-reader OSes: bookmarking, annotations, chapter selection, different view options, and especially "Tablet Mode" compatibility for user input.
*An Activity which enables the user to go online, access a central repository of e-books as well as the various third-party repositories, browse and search using metadata tags for refining results, and download desired files to his/her XO.

===On The Hosting Side===
*Service should include as much metadata as possible for tagging purposes.
*Multiple file formats are available, and it seems wise to integrate compatibility for as many as possible; which formats make the most sense to integrate into our applications?
**Epub supports a large amount of metadata and has been widely adopted, it seems like a no-brainer format to include.
**PDF files are powerful and contain plenty of metadata, but can be rather large, and aren't very flexible for different resolutions (so displaying on the XO could be an issue, although several reader Activities do support them)
**Mobipocket(MOBI and PRC) is a powerful format and supports SQL queries to use with databases.
**HTML files are larger but offer the formatting capabilities of a website, and many other formats use html files for each chapter compressed into one file along with other relevant files (images, stylesheets, etc.)
**TXT files leave a very small footprint and have broad compatibility, however they contain no formatting or metadata (I might be wrong about that, though)
**Open eBook(OPF) is an XML-based format from E-book Systems. It's a legacy version of Epub.
**DJVU is designed to hold scanned images so it's ideal for e-books, but contains almost no metadata.

===Distribution===
*An easy-to-use interface that allows XO users to browse, access and download e-book files, and other parties to upload to a central location, as well as from third-party repositories.
*It has been suggested that there should be various points of entry to a central directory structure, including:
**A directory to upload e-books into via Moodle - For teachers to
upload new e-books that they may have downloaded or obtained via sneakernet.
**The XS scans USB sticks that you plug in for certain directories- and if the content matches what the XS expects, then they are imported. This works for activity bundles, etc. Adding support for an 'ebooks'
directory is easy.

==Collaborating Activities, Software & Hardware==

===Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing===
*Several existing document reader Activities contain various combinations of the desired features outlined above:
**The default [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Read Read] Activity, developed by [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta], is compatible with most e-book file formats, has support for Tablet Mode. What it lacks is a user interface which allows younger users to easily browse through their collection of e-books on their XO. It also lacks a book retrieval mechanism; its sole purpose is the viewing of documents.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Get_Internet_Archive_Books Get Internet Archive Books][http://github.com/internetarchive/bookserver (Git Repository)] is capable of retrieving books from multiple repositories, with only minor code changes.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Read_Etexts Read Etexts] is an Activity which started as a generic text file reader for Project Guttenberg files and has grown to include a built-in catalog of tens of thousands of Project Guttenberg's books.
*On the book retrieval side, could also possibly use RIT student [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Jlew Justin Lewis]' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare File Share Activity]?

===Software: File Hosting & Distribution===
*Could possibly use Justin Lewis' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare/Server File Share Server]?
*[http://code.google.com/p/openpub/wiki/OPDS OPDS] catalogs seem to be the ideal way to go when it comes to a directory system. The Get Books Activity supports OPDS, as does the Internet Archive which the Get Internet Archive books Activity uses. (Does File Share Server support OPDS?)
*OPDS combined with support for the OpenSearch API on the server side seems to be an ideal setup, as it enables remote searches without requiring local caches, and also avoids large downloads.
*Sayamindu's proposed a workflow that proceeds thusly:
**1. Have a specified directory on the file system which is crawled periodically via cron.
**2. If a new file is found, metadata is extracted either from the file, or from an external CSV file which is also found at a fixed location (CSV so that deployments can use any spreadsheet software while adding books.)
**3. Once metadata is obtained successfully the file is added to the index. The index is then generated into OPDS catalogs, which can be queried from any XO to the XS.

===Hardware: File Storage & Hosting===
*The XS server at RIT would ideally serve as part of the e-book hosting solution

==Progress==

===Milestones===
====What To Get From Where?====
At this point, my main process has been to figure out which components in existing projects can be best utilized. On the user end, there's a lot of functionality overlap between Activities, as well as a lot of gaps in each Activity's feature-set. The hosting and distribution side are much less saturated with projects, though what options do exist seem to already be capable of being utilized for our purposes. Sweet. So the toughest questions that need to be asked concern the user-end:
*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch?
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features?

===Notes===
*(1/15/2010) Filled in most of the Wiki page; started some Discussion topics to hopefully gather more ideas. (Mike DeVine)
*(1/14/2010) As of now, still collecting feedback and gauging interest in the project. (Mike DeVine)

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-26T23:26:23Z

MikeDeVine: /* Software: File Hosting & Distribution */

==Overview==
The overall premise of this effort is to produce a streamlined, unified system to enable XO users to access and view electronic books.

===The Idea===
It goes without saying that reading is a crucial tool for a child's development; the OLPC program provides the means to provide the world's poorest children with an infinite supply of books; I came up with this idea after realizing that there exists no easy way for a XO user to accomplish this.

===The Need===
While there are several projects related to the concept of file distribution and document reading in the works, the methods and goals between them don't totally line up eye-to-eye, and as a result there are several considerable obstacles standing in the way of the XO offering competent and feature-rich e-book accessibility.

===Goals===
The endgame here is to create a multi-lateral solution which utilizes features from numerous existing projects and software to not only allow easy access to and viewing of e-books on the user end, but to provide an infrastructure for the uploading, cataloguing and hosting of e-books for the purpose of creating clear channels of communication between online e-book sources (including XS servers and online archives) and XO users. This can best be accomplished with participation from the authors of the Activities and software which ideally will be used in this project, in a collaborative effort with myself and other students enrolled in RIT's OLPC course. Ideally, this project will provide a use for our XS server as part of the ebook hosting solution.

In the long-term, I hope that the solution we end up with becomes part of the default set of Activities included on every XO.

In the far future, with a solid distribution framework in place the OLPC team could begin talking with textbook publishers to arrange for hosting of digital textbooks for use by teachers who otherwise don't have access to/can't afford printed textbooks for their students.

==People Contributing To The Discussion==
*[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:MikeDeVine Mike DeVine] - Project Lead
*[http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta] - Creator of Read Activity
*Martin Langhoff
*Samuel Klein

==Desired Features==

===On The User Side===
*An easy-to-use reader Activity which allows a user to navigate the e-books on his/her XO, open and read them. This Activity should ideally contain features similar to those found in dedicated e-reader OSes: bookmarking, annotations, chapter selection, different view options, and especially "Tablet Mode" compatibility for user input.
*An Activity which enables the user to go online, access a central repository of e-books as well as the various third-party repositories, browse and search using metadata tags for refining results, and download desired files to his/her XO.

===On The Hosting Side===
*Service should include as much metadata as possible for tagging purposes.
*Multiple file formats are available, and it seems wise to integrate compatibility for as many as possible; which formats make the most sense to integrate into our applications?
**Epub supports a large amount of metadata and has been widely adopted, it seems like a no-brainer format to include.
**PDF files are powerful and contain plenty of metadata, but can be rather large, and aren't very flexible for different resolutions (so displaying on the XO could be an issue, although several reader Activities do support them)
**Mobipocket(MOBI and PRC) is a powerful format and supports SQL queries to use with databases.
**HTML files are larger but offer the formatting capabilities of a website, and many other formats use html files for each chapter compressed into one file along with other relevant files (images, stylesheets, etc.)
**TXT files leave a very small footprint and have broad compatibility, however they contain no formatting or metadata (I might be wrong about that, though)
**Open eBook(OPF) is an XML-based format from E-book Systems. It's a legacy version of Epub.
**DJVU is designed to hold scanned images so it's ideal for e-books, but contains almost no metadata.

===Distribution===
*An easy-to-use interface that allows XO users to browse, access and download e-book files, and other parties to upload to a central location, as well as from third-party repositories.
*It has been suggested that there should be various points of entry to a central directory structure, including:
**A directory to upload e-books into via Moodle - For teachers to
upload new e-books that they may have downloaded or obtained via sneakernet.
**The XS scans USB sticks that you plug in for certain directories- and if the content matches what the XS expects, then they are imported. This works for activity bundles, etc. Adding support for an 'ebooks'
directory is easy.

==Collaborating Activities, Software & Hardware==

===Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing===
*Several existing document reader Activities contain various combinations of the desired features outlined above:
**The default [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Read Read] Activity, developed by [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta], is compatible with most e-book file formats, has support for Tablet Mode. What it lacks is a user interface which allows younger users to easily browse through their collection of e-books on their XO. It also lacks a book retrieval mechanism; its sole purpose is the viewing of documents.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Get_Internet_Archive_Books Get Internet Archive Books][http://github.com/internetarchive/bookserver (Git Repository)] is capable of retrieving books from multiple repositories, with only minor code changes.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Read_Etexts Read Etexts] is an Activity which started as a generic text file reader for Project Guttenberg files and has grown to include a built-in catalog of tens of thousands of Project Guttenberg's books.
*On the book retrieval side, could also possibly use RIT student [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Jlew Justin Lewis]' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare File Share Activity]?

===Software: File Hosting & Distribution===
*Could possibly use Justin Lewis' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare/Server File Share Server]?
*[http://code.google.com/p/openpub/wiki/OPDS OPDS] catalogs seem to be the ideal way to go when it comes to a directory system. The Get Books Activity supports OPDS, as does the Internet Archive which the Get Internet Archive books Activity uses. (Does File Share Server support OPDS?)
*Sayamindu's proposed a workflow that proceeds thusly:
**1. Have a specified directory on the file system which is crawled periodically via cron.
**2. If a new file is found, metadata is extracted either from the file, or from an external CSV file which is also found at a fixed location (CSV so that deployments can use any spreadsheet software while adding books.)
**3. Once metadata is obtained successfully the file is added to the index. The index is then generated into OPDS catalogs, which can be queried from any XO to the XS.

===Hardware: File Storage & Hosting===
*The XS server at RIT would ideally serve as part of the e-book hosting solution

==Progress==

===Milestones===
====What To Get From Where?====
At this point, my main process has been to figure out which components in existing projects can be best utilized. On the user end, there's a lot of functionality overlap between Activities, as well as a lot of gaps in each Activity's feature-set. The hosting and distribution side are much less saturated with projects, though what options do exist seem to already be capable of being utilized for our purposes. Sweet. So the toughest questions that need to be asked concern the user-end:
*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch?
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features?

===Notes===
*(1/15/2010) Filled in most of the Wiki page; started some Discussion topics to hopefully gather more ideas. (Mike DeVine)
*(1/14/2010) As of now, still collecting feedback and gauging interest in the project. (Mike DeVine)

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-26T23:25:58Z

MikeDeVine: /* Distribution */

==Overview==
The overall premise of this effort is to produce a streamlined, unified system to enable XO users to access and view electronic books.

===The Idea===
It goes without saying that reading is a crucial tool for a child's development; the OLPC program provides the means to provide the world's poorest children with an infinite supply of books; I came up with this idea after realizing that there exists no easy way for a XO user to accomplish this.

===The Need===
While there are several projects related to the concept of file distribution and document reading in the works, the methods and goals between them don't totally line up eye-to-eye, and as a result there are several considerable obstacles standing in the way of the XO offering competent and feature-rich e-book accessibility.

===Goals===
The endgame here is to create a multi-lateral solution which utilizes features from numerous existing projects and software to not only allow easy access to and viewing of e-books on the user end, but to provide an infrastructure for the uploading, cataloguing and hosting of e-books for the purpose of creating clear channels of communication between online e-book sources (including XS servers and online archives) and XO users. This can best be accomplished with participation from the authors of the Activities and software which ideally will be used in this project, in a collaborative effort with myself and other students enrolled in RIT's OLPC course. Ideally, this project will provide a use for our XS server as part of the ebook hosting solution.

In the long-term, I hope that the solution we end up with becomes part of the default set of Activities included on every XO.

In the far future, with a solid distribution framework in place the OLPC team could begin talking with textbook publishers to arrange for hosting of digital textbooks for use by teachers who otherwise don't have access to/can't afford printed textbooks for their students.

==People Contributing To The Discussion==
*[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:MikeDeVine Mike DeVine] - Project Lead
*[http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta] - Creator of Read Activity
*Martin Langhoff
*Samuel Klein

==Desired Features==

===On The User Side===
*An easy-to-use reader Activity which allows a user to navigate the e-books on his/her XO, open and read them. This Activity should ideally contain features similar to those found in dedicated e-reader OSes: bookmarking, annotations, chapter selection, different view options, and especially "Tablet Mode" compatibility for user input.
*An Activity which enables the user to go online, access a central repository of e-books as well as the various third-party repositories, browse and search using metadata tags for refining results, and download desired files to his/her XO.

===On The Hosting Side===
*Service should include as much metadata as possible for tagging purposes.
*Multiple file formats are available, and it seems wise to integrate compatibility for as many as possible; which formats make the most sense to integrate into our applications?
**Epub supports a large amount of metadata and has been widely adopted, it seems like a no-brainer format to include.
**PDF files are powerful and contain plenty of metadata, but can be rather large, and aren't very flexible for different resolutions (so displaying on the XO could be an issue, although several reader Activities do support them)
**Mobipocket(MOBI and PRC) is a powerful format and supports SQL queries to use with databases.
**HTML files are larger but offer the formatting capabilities of a website, and many other formats use html files for each chapter compressed into one file along with other relevant files (images, stylesheets, etc.)
**TXT files leave a very small footprint and have broad compatibility, however they contain no formatting or metadata (I might be wrong about that, though)
**Open eBook(OPF) is an XML-based format from E-book Systems. It's a legacy version of Epub.
**DJVU is designed to hold scanned images so it's ideal for e-books, but contains almost no metadata.

===Distribution===
*An easy-to-use interface that allows XO users to browse, access and download e-book files, and other parties to upload to a central location, as well as from third-party repositories.
*It has been suggested that there should be various points of entry to a central directory structure, including:
**A directory to upload e-books into via Moodle - For teachers to
upload new e-books that they may have downloaded or obtained via sneakernet.
**The XS scans USB sticks that you plug in for certain directories- and if the content matches what the XS expects, then they are imported. This works for activity bundles, etc. Adding support for an 'ebooks'
directory is easy.

==Collaborating Activities, Software & Hardware==

===Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing===
*Several existing document reader Activities contain various combinations of the desired features outlined above:
**The default [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Read Read] Activity, developed by [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta], is compatible with most e-book file formats, has support for Tablet Mode. What it lacks is a user interface which allows younger users to easily browse through their collection of e-books on their XO. It also lacks a book retrieval mechanism; its sole purpose is the viewing of documents.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Get_Internet_Archive_Books Get Internet Archive Books][http://github.com/internetarchive/bookserver (Git Repository)] is capable of retrieving books from multiple repositories, with only minor code changes.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Read_Etexts Read Etexts] is an Activity which started as a generic text file reader for Project Guttenberg files and has grown to include a built-in catalog of tens of thousands of Project Guttenberg's books.
*On the book retrieval side, could also possibly use RIT student [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Jlew Justin Lewis]' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare File Share Activity]?

===Software: File Hosting & Distribution===
*Could possibly use Justin Lewis' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare/Server File Share Server]?
*[http://code.google.com/p/openpub/wiki/OPDS OPDS] catalogs seem to be the ideal way to go when it comes to a directory system. The Get Books Activity supports OPDS, as does the Internet Archive which the Get Internet Archive books Activity uses. (Does File Share Server support OPDS?)
*Sayamindu's proposed a workflow that proceeds thusly:
**1. Have a specified directory on the file system which is crawled periodically via cron.
**2. If a new file is found, metadata is extracted either from the file, or from an external CSV file which is also found at a fixed location (CSV so that deployments can use any spreadsheet software while adding
books.)
**3. Once metadata is obtained successfully the file is added to the index. The index is then generated into OPDS catalogs, which can be queried from any XO to the XS.

===Hardware: File Storage & Hosting===
*The XS server at RIT would ideally serve as part of the e-book hosting solution

==Progress==

===Milestones===
====What To Get From Where?====
At this point, my main process has been to figure out which components in existing projects can be best utilized. On the user end, there's a lot of functionality overlap between Activities, as well as a lot of gaps in each Activity's feature-set. The hosting and distribution side are much less saturated with projects, though what options do exist seem to already be capable of being utilized for our purposes. Sweet. So the toughest questions that need to be asked concern the user-end:
*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch?
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features?

===Notes===
*(1/15/2010) Filled in most of the Wiki page; started some Discussion topics to hopefully gather more ideas. (Mike DeVine)
*(1/14/2010) As of now, still collecting feedback and gauging interest in the project. (Mike DeVine)

Talk:Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-22T19:32:04Z

MikeDeVine: /* Integration of Features From Different Activities */

== Integration of Features From Different Activities ==

*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch? [[User:MikeDeVine|Mike DeVine]]
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features? [[User:MikeDeVine|Mike DeVine]]

== File Hosting ==

*Which file format, if we decide to use only one, should the e-books be? [[User:MikeDeVine|Mike DeVine]]
*Which format has the best metadata support? [[User:MikeDeVine|Mike DeVine]]
*What's the usability look like for this side? Would it make sense to look into implementing a simple GUI, or does what's there already do the job well enough? [[User:MikeDeVine|Mike DeVine]]

== Integration with existing resources ==
*'''What's the likelihood of linking to existing online e-book archives?''' Can this be done seamlessly, or does there need to be a separate method of accessing these archives? [[User:MikeDeVine|Mike DeVine]]
**This is a big deal, IMO. Grabbing books from anywhere (Gutenberg, Google) and having it be transparent to the user is a "holy grail" we should shoot for. As I understand it, there's two parts to this puzzle: retrieving the content from different places, which are bound to have different interfaces, and then loading and/or converting whatever format it's kept in. [[User:Cheezmeister|Cheezmeister]] 18:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
**Agreed. What needs to be done is to find out the database structure for each of these repositories, then just make sure the program which accesses them can translate each database into its frontend, so that we end up with a seamless portal on the user end for accessing different sources of e-books. [[User:MikeDeVine|Mike DeVine]]

Talk:Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-22T19:31:44Z

MikeDeVine: /* File Hosting */

== Integration of Features From Different Activities ==

*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch? (Mike DeVine)
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features? (Mike DeVine)

== File Hosting ==

*Which file format, if we decide to use only one, should the e-books be? [[User:MikeDeVine|Mike DeVine]]
*Which format has the best metadata support? [[User:MikeDeVine|Mike DeVine]]
*What's the usability look like for this side? Would it make sense to look into implementing a simple GUI, or does what's there already do the job well enough? [[User:MikeDeVine|Mike DeVine]]

== Integration with existing resources ==
*'''What's the likelihood of linking to existing online e-book archives?''' Can this be done seamlessly, or does there need to be a separate method of accessing these archives? [[User:MikeDeVine|Mike DeVine]]
**This is a big deal, IMO. Grabbing books from anywhere (Gutenberg, Google) and having it be transparent to the user is a "holy grail" we should shoot for. As I understand it, there's two parts to this puzzle: retrieving the content from different places, which are bound to have different interfaces, and then loading and/or converting whatever format it's kept in. [[User:Cheezmeister|Cheezmeister]] 18:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
**Agreed. What needs to be done is to find out the database structure for each of these repositories, then just make sure the program which accesses them can translate each database into its frontend, so that we end up with a seamless portal on the user end for accessing different sources of e-books. [[User:MikeDeVine|Mike DeVine]]

Talk:Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-22T19:31:19Z

MikeDeVine: /* Integration with existing resources */

== Integration of Features From Different Activities ==

*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch? (Mike DeVine)
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features? (Mike DeVine)

== File Hosting ==

*Which file format, if we decide to use only one, should the e-books be? (Mike DeVine)
*Which format has the best metadata support? (Mike DeVine)
*What's the usability look like for this side? Would it make sense to look into implementing a simple GUI, or does what's there already do the job well enough? (Mike DeVine)
== Integration with existing resources ==
*'''What's the likelihood of linking to existing online e-book archives?''' Can this be done seamlessly, or does there need to be a separate method of accessing these archives? [[User:MikeDeVine|Mike DeVine]]
**This is a big deal, IMO. Grabbing books from anywhere (Gutenberg, Google) and having it be transparent to the user is a "holy grail" we should shoot for. As I understand it, there's two parts to this puzzle: retrieving the content from different places, which are bound to have different interfaces, and then loading and/or converting whatever format it's kept in. [[User:Cheezmeister|Cheezmeister]] 18:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
**Agreed. What needs to be done is to find out the database structure for each of these repositories, then just make sure the program which accesses them can translate each database into its frontend, so that we end up with a seamless portal on the user end for accessing different sources of e-books. [[User:MikeDeVine|Mike DeVine]]

Talk:Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-22T19:27:21Z

MikeDeVine: /* Integration with existing resources */

== Integration of Features From Different Activities ==

*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch? (Mike DeVine)
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features? (Mike DeVine)

== File Hosting ==

*Which file format, if we decide to use only one, should the e-books be? (Mike DeVine)
*Which format has the best metadata support? (Mike DeVine)
*What's the usability look like for this side? Would it make sense to look into implementing a simple GUI, or does what's there already do the job well enough? (Mike DeVine)
== Integration with existing resources ==
*'''What's the likelihood of linking to existing online e-book archives?''' Can this be done seamlessly, or does there need to be a separate method of accessing these archives? (Mike DeVine)
**This is a big deal, IMO. Grabbing books from anywhere (Gutenberg, Google) and having it be transparent to the user is a "holy grail" we should shoot for. As I understand it, there's two parts to this puzzle: retrieving the content from different places, which are bound to have different interfaces, and then loading and/or converting whatever format it's kept in. [[User:Cheezmeister|Cheezmeister]] 18:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
**Agreed. What needs to be done is to find out the database structure for each of these repositories, then just make sure the program which accesses them can translate each database into its frontend, so that we end up with a seamless portal on the user end for accessing different sources of e-books. [[User:MikeDeVine|Mike DeVine]]

Talk:Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-22T19:27:01Z

MikeDeVine: /* Integration with existing resources */

== Integration of Features From Different Activities ==

*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch? (Mike DeVine)
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features? (Mike DeVine)

== File Hosting ==

*Which file format, if we decide to use only one, should the e-books be? (Mike DeVine)
*Which format has the best metadata support? (Mike DeVine)
*What's the usability look like for this side? Would it make sense to look into implementing a simple GUI, or does what's there already do the job well enough? (Mike DeVine)
== Integration with existing resources ==
*'''What's the likelihood of linking to existing online e-book archives?''' Can this be done seamlessly, or does there need to be a separate method of accessing these archives? (Mike DeVine)
**This is a big deal, IMO. Grabbing books from anywhere (Gutenberg, Google) and having it be transparent to the user is a "holy grail" we should shoot for. As I understand it, there's two parts to this puzzle: retrieving the content from different places, which are bound to have different interfaces, and then loading and/or converting whatever format it's kept in. [[User:Cheezmeister|Cheezmeister]] 18:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
**Agreed. What needs to be done is to find out the database structure for each of these repositories, then just make sure the program which accesses them can translate each database into its frontend, so that we end up with a seamless portal on the user end for accessing different sources of e-books. [[User:MikeDeVine Mike DeVine]]

Talk:Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-22T19:21:55Z

MikeDeVine: /* Integration with existing resources */

== Integration of Features From Different Activities ==

*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch? (Mike DeVine)
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features? (Mike DeVine)

== File Hosting ==

*Which file format, if we decide to use only one, should the e-books be? (Mike DeVine)
*Which format has the best metadata support? (Mike DeVine)
*What's the usability look like for this side? Would it make sense to look into implementing a simple GUI, or does what's there already do the job well enough? (Mike DeVine)
== Integration with existing resources ==
*'''What's the likelihood of linking to existing online e-book archives?''' Can this be done seamlessly, or does there need to be a separate method of accessing these archives? (Mike DeVine)
**This is a big deal, IMO. Grabbing books from anywhere (Gutenberg, Google) and having it be transparent to the user is a "holy grail" we should shoot for. As I understand it, there's two parts to this puzzle: retrieving the content from different places, which are bound to have different interfaces, and then loading and/or converting whatever format it's kept in. [[User:Cheezmeister|Cheezmeister]] 18:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-21T23:46:03Z

MikeDeVine: /* Software: File Hosting & Distribution */

==Overview==
The overall premise of this effort is to produce a streamlined, unified system to enable XO users to access and view electronic books.

===The Idea===
It goes without saying that reading is a crucial tool for a child's development; the OLPC program provides the means to provide the world's poorest children with an infinite supply of books; I came up with this idea after realizing that there exists no easy way for a XO user to accomplish this.

===The Need===
While there are several projects related to the concept of file distribution and document reading in the works, the methods and goals between them don't totally line up eye-to-eye, and as a result there are several considerable obstacles standing in the way of the XO offering competent and feature-rich e-book accessibility.

===Goals===
The endgame here is to create a multi-lateral solution which utilizes features from numerous existing projects and software to not only allow easy access to and viewing of e-books on the user end, but to provide an infrastructure for the uploading, cataloguing and hosting of e-books for the purpose of creating clear channels of communication between online e-book sources (including XS servers and online archives) and XO users. This can best be accomplished with participation from the authors of the Activities and software which ideally will be used in this project, in a collaborative effort with myself and other students enrolled in RIT's OLPC course. Ideally, this project will provide a use for our XS server as part of the ebook hosting solution.

In the long-term, I hope that the solution we end up with becomes part of the default set of Activities included on every XO.

In the far future, with a solid distribution framework in place the OLPC team could begin talking with textbook publishers to arrange for hosting of digital textbooks for use by teachers who otherwise don't have access to/can't afford printed textbooks for their students.

==People Contributing To The Discussion==
*[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:MikeDeVine Mike DeVine] - Project Lead
*[http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta] - Creator of Read Activity
*Martin Langhoff
*Samuel Klein

==Desired Features==

===On The User Side===
*An easy-to-use reader Activity which allows a user to navigate the e-books on his/her XO, open and read them. This Activity should ideally contain features similar to those found in dedicated e-reader OSes: bookmarking, annotations, chapter selection, different view options, and especially "Tablet Mode" compatibility for user input.
*An Activity which enables the user to go online, access a central repository of e-books as well as the various third-party repositories, browse and search using metadata tags for refining results, and download desired files to his/her XO.

===On The Hosting Side===
*Service should include as much metadata as possible for tagging purposes.
*Multiple file formats are available, and it seems wise to integrate compatibility for as many as possible; which formats make the most sense to integrate into our applications?
**Epub supports a large amount of metadata and has been widely adopted, it seems like a no-brainer format to include.
**PDF files are powerful and contain plenty of metadata, but can be rather large, and aren't very flexible for different resolutions (so displaying on the XO could be an issue, although several reader Activities do support them)
**Mobipocket(MOBI and PRC) is a powerful format and supports SQL queries to use with databases.
**HTML files are larger but offer the formatting capabilities of a website, and many other formats use html files for each chapter compressed into one file along with other relevant files (images, stylesheets, etc.)
**TXT files leave a very small footprint and have broad compatibility, however they contain no formatting or metadata (I might be wrong about that, though)
**Open eBook(OPF) is an XML-based format from E-book Systems. It's a legacy version of Epub.
**DJVU is designed to hold scanned images so it's ideal for e-books, but contains almost no metadata.

===Distribution===
*An easy-to-use interface that allows XO users to browse, access and download e-book files, and other parties to upload to a central location, as well as from third-party repositories.
*It has been suggested that there should be various points of entry to a central directory structure, including:
**A directory to upload e-books into via Moodle - For teachers to
upload new e-books that they may have downloaded or obtained via
sneakernet.
**The XS scans USB sticks that you plug in for certain directories- and
if the content matches what the XS expects, then they are imported.
This works for activity bundles, etc. Adding support for an 'ebooks'
directory is easy.

==Collaborating Activities, Software & Hardware==

===Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing===
*Several existing document reader Activities contain various combinations of the desired features outlined above:
**The default [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Read Read] Activity, developed by [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta], is compatible with most e-book file formats, has support for Tablet Mode. What it lacks is a user interface which allows younger users to easily browse through their collection of e-books on their XO. It also lacks a book retrieval mechanism; its sole purpose is the viewing of documents.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Get_Internet_Archive_Books Get Internet Archive Books][http://github.com/internetarchive/bookserver (Git Repository)] is capable of retrieving books from multiple repositories, with only minor code changes.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Read_Etexts Read Etexts] is an Activity which started as a generic text file reader for Project Guttenberg files and has grown to include a built-in catalog of tens of thousands of Project Guttenberg's books.
*On the book retrieval side, could also possibly use RIT student [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Jlew Justin Lewis]' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare File Share Activity]?

===Software: File Hosting & Distribution===
*Could possibly use Justin Lewis' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare/Server File Share Server]?
*[http://code.google.com/p/openpub/wiki/OPDS OPDS] catalogs seem to be the ideal way to go when it comes to a directory system. The Get Books Activity supports OPDS, as does the Internet Archive which the Get Internet Archive books Activity uses. (Does File Share Server support OPDS?)
*Sayamindu's proposed a workflow that proceeds thusly:
**1. Have a specified directory on the file system which is crawled periodically via cron.
**2. If a new file is found, metadata is extracted either from the file, or from an external CSV file which is also found at a fixed location (CSV so that deployments can use any spreadsheet software while adding
books.)
**3. Once metadata is obtained successfully the file is added to the index. The index is then generated into OPDS catalogs, which can be queried from any XO to the XS.

===Hardware: File Storage & Hosting===
*The XS server at RIT would ideally serve as part of the e-book hosting solution

==Progress==

===Milestones===
====What To Get From Where?====
At this point, my main process has been to figure out which components in existing projects can be best utilized. On the user end, there's a lot of functionality overlap between Activities, as well as a lot of gaps in each Activity's feature-set. The hosting and distribution side are much less saturated with projects, though what options do exist seem to already be capable of being utilized for our purposes. Sweet. So the toughest questions that need to be asked concern the user-end:
*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch?
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features?

===Notes===
*(1/15/2010) Filled in most of the Wiki page; started some Discussion topics to hopefully gather more ideas. (Mike DeVine)
*(1/14/2010) As of now, still collecting feedback and gauging interest in the project. (Mike DeVine)

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-21T23:44:03Z

MikeDeVine: /* People Contributing To The Discussion */

==Overview==
The overall premise of this effort is to produce a streamlined, unified system to enable XO users to access and view electronic books.

===The Idea===
It goes without saying that reading is a crucial tool for a child's development; the OLPC program provides the means to provide the world's poorest children with an infinite supply of books; I came up with this idea after realizing that there exists no easy way for a XO user to accomplish this.

===The Need===
While there are several projects related to the concept of file distribution and document reading in the works, the methods and goals between them don't totally line up eye-to-eye, and as a result there are several considerable obstacles standing in the way of the XO offering competent and feature-rich e-book accessibility.

===Goals===
The endgame here is to create a multi-lateral solution which utilizes features from numerous existing projects and software to not only allow easy access to and viewing of e-books on the user end, but to provide an infrastructure for the uploading, cataloguing and hosting of e-books for the purpose of creating clear channels of communication between online e-book sources (including XS servers and online archives) and XO users. This can best be accomplished with participation from the authors of the Activities and software which ideally will be used in this project, in a collaborative effort with myself and other students enrolled in RIT's OLPC course. Ideally, this project will provide a use for our XS server as part of the ebook hosting solution.

In the long-term, I hope that the solution we end up with becomes part of the default set of Activities included on every XO.

In the far future, with a solid distribution framework in place the OLPC team could begin talking with textbook publishers to arrange for hosting of digital textbooks for use by teachers who otherwise don't have access to/can't afford printed textbooks for their students.

==People Contributing To The Discussion==
*[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:MikeDeVine Mike DeVine] - Project Lead
*[http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta] - Creator of Read Activity
*Martin Langhoff
*Samuel Klein

==Desired Features==

===On The User Side===
*An easy-to-use reader Activity which allows a user to navigate the e-books on his/her XO, open and read them. This Activity should ideally contain features similar to those found in dedicated e-reader OSes: bookmarking, annotations, chapter selection, different view options, and especially "Tablet Mode" compatibility for user input.
*An Activity which enables the user to go online, access a central repository of e-books as well as the various third-party repositories, browse and search using metadata tags for refining results, and download desired files to his/her XO.

===On The Hosting Side===
*Service should include as much metadata as possible for tagging purposes.
*Multiple file formats are available, and it seems wise to integrate compatibility for as many as possible; which formats make the most sense to integrate into our applications?
**Epub supports a large amount of metadata and has been widely adopted, it seems like a no-brainer format to include.
**PDF files are powerful and contain plenty of metadata, but can be rather large, and aren't very flexible for different resolutions (so displaying on the XO could be an issue, although several reader Activities do support them)
**Mobipocket(MOBI and PRC) is a powerful format and supports SQL queries to use with databases.
**HTML files are larger but offer the formatting capabilities of a website, and many other formats use html files for each chapter compressed into one file along with other relevant files (images, stylesheets, etc.)
**TXT files leave a very small footprint and have broad compatibility, however they contain no formatting or metadata (I might be wrong about that, though)
**Open eBook(OPF) is an XML-based format from E-book Systems. It's a legacy version of Epub.
**DJVU is designed to hold scanned images so it's ideal for e-books, but contains almost no metadata.

===Distribution===
*An easy-to-use interface that allows XO users to browse, access and download e-book files, and other parties to upload to a central location, as well as from third-party repositories.
*It has been suggested that there should be various points of entry to a central directory structure, including:
**A directory to upload e-books into via Moodle - For teachers to
upload new e-books that they may have downloaded or obtained via
sneakernet.
**The XS scans USB sticks that you plug in for certain directories- and
if the content matches what the XS expects, then they are imported.
This works for activity bundles, etc. Adding support for an 'ebooks'
directory is easy.

==Collaborating Activities, Software & Hardware==

===Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing===
*Several existing document reader Activities contain various combinations of the desired features outlined above:
**The default [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Read Read] Activity, developed by [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta], is compatible with most e-book file formats, has support for Tablet Mode. What it lacks is a user interface which allows younger users to easily browse through their collection of e-books on their XO. It also lacks a book retrieval mechanism; its sole purpose is the viewing of documents.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Get_Internet_Archive_Books Get Internet Archive Books][http://github.com/internetarchive/bookserver (Git Repository)] is capable of retrieving books from multiple repositories, with only minor code changes.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Read_Etexts Read Etexts] is an Activity which started as a generic text file reader for Project Guttenberg files and has grown to include a built-in catalog of tens of thousands of Project Guttenberg's books.
*On the book retrieval side, could also possibly use RIT student [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Jlew Justin Lewis]' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare File Share Activity]?

===Software: File Hosting & Distribution===
*Could possibly use Justin Lewis' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare/Server File Share Server]?
*OPDS catalogs seem to be the ideal way to go when it comes to a directory system. The Get Books Activity supports OPDS, as does the Internet Archive which the Get Internet Archive books Activity uses. (Does File Share Server support OPDS?)
*Sayamindu's proposed a workflow that proceeds thusly:
**1. Have a specified directory on the file system which is crawled periodically via cron.
**2. If a new file is found, metadata is extracted either from the file, or from an external CSV file which is also found at a fixed location (CSV so that deployments can use any spreadsheet software while adding
books.)
**3. Once metadata is obtained successfully the file is added to the index. The index is then generated into OPDS catalogs, which can be queried from any XO to the XS.

===Hardware: File Storage & Hosting===
*The XS server at RIT would ideally serve as part of the e-book hosting solution

==Progress==

===Milestones===
====What To Get From Where?====
At this point, my main process has been to figure out which components in existing projects can be best utilized. On the user end, there's a lot of functionality overlap between Activities, as well as a lot of gaps in each Activity's feature-set. The hosting and distribution side are much less saturated with projects, though what options do exist seem to already be capable of being utilized for our purposes. Sweet. So the toughest questions that need to be asked concern the user-end:
*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch?
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features?

===Notes===
*(1/15/2010) Filled in most of the Wiki page; started some Discussion topics to hopefully gather more ideas. (Mike DeVine)
*(1/14/2010) As of now, still collecting feedback and gauging interest in the project. (Mike DeVine)

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-21T23:43:39Z

MikeDeVine: /* Contact */

==Overview==
The overall premise of this effort is to produce a streamlined, unified system to enable XO users to access and view electronic books.

===The Idea===
It goes without saying that reading is a crucial tool for a child's development; the OLPC program provides the means to provide the world's poorest children with an infinite supply of books; I came up with this idea after realizing that there exists no easy way for a XO user to accomplish this.

===The Need===
While there are several projects related to the concept of file distribution and document reading in the works, the methods and goals between them don't totally line up eye-to-eye, and as a result there are several considerable obstacles standing in the way of the XO offering competent and feature-rich e-book accessibility.

===Goals===
The endgame here is to create a multi-lateral solution which utilizes features from numerous existing projects and software to not only allow easy access to and viewing of e-books on the user end, but to provide an infrastructure for the uploading, cataloguing and hosting of e-books for the purpose of creating clear channels of communication between online e-book sources (including XS servers and online archives) and XO users. This can best be accomplished with participation from the authors of the Activities and software which ideally will be used in this project, in a collaborative effort with myself and other students enrolled in RIT's OLPC course. Ideally, this project will provide a use for our XS server as part of the ebook hosting solution.

In the long-term, I hope that the solution we end up with becomes part of the default set of Activities included on every XO.

In the far future, with a solid distribution framework in place the OLPC team could begin talking with textbook publishers to arrange for hosting of digital textbooks for use by teachers who otherwise don't have access to/can't afford printed textbooks for their students.

==People Contributing To The Discussion==
[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:MikeDeVine Mike DeVine] - Project Lead
[http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta] - Creator of Read Activity
Martin Langhoff
Samuel Klein

==Desired Features==

===On The User Side===
*An easy-to-use reader Activity which allows a user to navigate the e-books on his/her XO, open and read them. This Activity should ideally contain features similar to those found in dedicated e-reader OSes: bookmarking, annotations, chapter selection, different view options, and especially "Tablet Mode" compatibility for user input.
*An Activity which enables the user to go online, access a central repository of e-books as well as the various third-party repositories, browse and search using metadata tags for refining results, and download desired files to his/her XO.

===On The Hosting Side===
*Service should include as much metadata as possible for tagging purposes.
*Multiple file formats are available, and it seems wise to integrate compatibility for as many as possible; which formats make the most sense to integrate into our applications?
**Epub supports a large amount of metadata and has been widely adopted, it seems like a no-brainer format to include.
**PDF files are powerful and contain plenty of metadata, but can be rather large, and aren't very flexible for different resolutions (so displaying on the XO could be an issue, although several reader Activities do support them)
**Mobipocket(MOBI and PRC) is a powerful format and supports SQL queries to use with databases.
**HTML files are larger but offer the formatting capabilities of a website, and many other formats use html files for each chapter compressed into one file along with other relevant files (images, stylesheets, etc.)
**TXT files leave a very small footprint and have broad compatibility, however they contain no formatting or metadata (I might be wrong about that, though)
**Open eBook(OPF) is an XML-based format from E-book Systems. It's a legacy version of Epub.
**DJVU is designed to hold scanned images so it's ideal for e-books, but contains almost no metadata.

===Distribution===
*An easy-to-use interface that allows XO users to browse, access and download e-book files, and other parties to upload to a central location, as well as from third-party repositories.
*It has been suggested that there should be various points of entry to a central directory structure, including:
**A directory to upload e-books into via Moodle - For teachers to
upload new e-books that they may have downloaded or obtained via
sneakernet.
**The XS scans USB sticks that you plug in for certain directories- and
if the content matches what the XS expects, then they are imported.
This works for activity bundles, etc. Adding support for an 'ebooks'
directory is easy.

==Collaborating Activities, Software & Hardware==

===Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing===
*Several existing document reader Activities contain various combinations of the desired features outlined above:
**The default [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Read Read] Activity, developed by [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta], is compatible with most e-book file formats, has support for Tablet Mode. What it lacks is a user interface which allows younger users to easily browse through their collection of e-books on their XO. It also lacks a book retrieval mechanism; its sole purpose is the viewing of documents.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Get_Internet_Archive_Books Get Internet Archive Books][http://github.com/internetarchive/bookserver (Git Repository)] is capable of retrieving books from multiple repositories, with only minor code changes.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Read_Etexts Read Etexts] is an Activity which started as a generic text file reader for Project Guttenberg files and has grown to include a built-in catalog of tens of thousands of Project Guttenberg's books.
*On the book retrieval side, could also possibly use RIT student [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Jlew Justin Lewis]' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare File Share Activity]?

===Software: File Hosting & Distribution===
*Could possibly use Justin Lewis' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare/Server File Share Server]?
*OPDS catalogs seem to be the ideal way to go when it comes to a directory system. The Get Books Activity supports OPDS, as does the Internet Archive which the Get Internet Archive books Activity uses. (Does File Share Server support OPDS?)
*Sayamindu's proposed a workflow that proceeds thusly:
**1. Have a specified directory on the file system which is crawled periodically via cron.
**2. If a new file is found, metadata is extracted either from the file, or from an external CSV file which is also found at a fixed location (CSV so that deployments can use any spreadsheet software while adding
books.)
**3. Once metadata is obtained successfully the file is added to the index. The index is then generated into OPDS catalogs, which can be queried from any XO to the XS.

===Hardware: File Storage & Hosting===
*The XS server at RIT would ideally serve as part of the e-book hosting solution

==Progress==

===Milestones===
====What To Get From Where?====
At this point, my main process has been to figure out which components in existing projects can be best utilized. On the user end, there's a lot of functionality overlap between Activities, as well as a lot of gaps in each Activity's feature-set. The hosting and distribution side are much less saturated with projects, though what options do exist seem to already be capable of being utilized for our purposes. Sweet. So the toughest questions that need to be asked concern the user-end:
*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch?
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features?

===Notes===
*(1/15/2010) Filled in most of the Wiki page; started some Discussion topics to hopefully gather more ideas. (Mike DeVine)
*(1/14/2010) As of now, still collecting feedback and gauging interest in the project. (Mike DeVine)

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-21T23:24:57Z

MikeDeVine: /* Software: File Hosting & Distribution */

==Overview==
The overall premise of this effort is to produce a streamlined, unified system to enable XO users to access and view electronic books.

===The Idea===
It goes without saying that reading is a crucial tool for a child's development; the OLPC program provides the means to provide the world's poorest children with an infinite supply of books; I came up with this idea after realizing that there exists no easy way for a XO user to accomplish this.

===The Need===
While there are several projects related to the concept of file distribution and document reading in the works, the methods and goals between them don't totally line up eye-to-eye, and as a result there are several considerable obstacles standing in the way of the XO offering competent and feature-rich e-book accessibility.

===Goals===
The endgame here is to create a multi-lateral solution which utilizes features from numerous existing projects and software to not only allow easy access to and viewing of e-books on the user end, but to provide an infrastructure for the uploading, cataloguing and hosting of e-books for the purpose of creating clear channels of communication between online e-book sources (including XS servers and online archives) and XO users. This can best be accomplished with participation from the authors of the Activities and software which ideally will be used in this project, in a collaborative effort with myself and other students enrolled in RIT's OLPC course. Ideally, this project will provide a use for our XS server as part of the ebook hosting solution.

In the long-term, I hope that the solution we end up with becomes part of the default set of Activities included on every XO.

In the far future, with a solid distribution framework in place the OLPC team could begin talking with textbook publishers to arrange for hosting of digital textbooks for use by teachers who otherwise don't have access to/can't afford printed textbooks for their students.

==Contact==
[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:MikeDeVine Mike DeVine] - Project Lead

==Desired Features==

===On The User Side===
*An easy-to-use reader Activity which allows a user to navigate the e-books on his/her XO, open and read them. This Activity should ideally contain features similar to those found in dedicated e-reader OSes: bookmarking, annotations, chapter selection, different view options, and especially "Tablet Mode" compatibility for user input.
*An Activity which enables the user to go online, access a central repository of e-books as well as the various third-party repositories, browse and search using metadata tags for refining results, and download desired files to his/her XO.

===On The Hosting Side===
*Service should include as much metadata as possible for tagging purposes.
*Multiple file formats are available, and it seems wise to integrate compatibility for as many as possible; which formats make the most sense to integrate into our applications?
**Epub supports a large amount of metadata and has been widely adopted, it seems like a no-brainer format to include.
**PDF files are powerful and contain plenty of metadata, but can be rather large, and aren't very flexible for different resolutions (so displaying on the XO could be an issue, although several reader Activities do support them)
**Mobipocket(MOBI and PRC) is a powerful format and supports SQL queries to use with databases.
**HTML files are larger but offer the formatting capabilities of a website, and many other formats use html files for each chapter compressed into one file along with other relevant files (images, stylesheets, etc.)
**TXT files leave a very small footprint and have broad compatibility, however they contain no formatting or metadata (I might be wrong about that, though)
**Open eBook(OPF) is an XML-based format from E-book Systems. It's a legacy version of Epub.
**DJVU is designed to hold scanned images so it's ideal for e-books, but contains almost no metadata.

===Distribution===
*An easy-to-use interface that allows XO users to browse, access and download e-book files, and other parties to upload to a central location, as well as from third-party repositories.
*It has been suggested that there should be various points of entry to a central directory structure, including:
**A directory to upload e-books into via Moodle - For teachers to
upload new e-books that they may have downloaded or obtained via
sneakernet.
**The XS scans USB sticks that you plug in for certain directories- and
if the content matches what the XS expects, then they are imported.
This works for activity bundles, etc. Adding support for an 'ebooks'
directory is easy.

==Collaborating Activities, Software & Hardware==

===Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing===
*Several existing document reader Activities contain various combinations of the desired features outlined above:
**The default [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Read Read] Activity, developed by [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta], is compatible with most e-book file formats, has support for Tablet Mode. What it lacks is a user interface which allows younger users to easily browse through their collection of e-books on their XO. It also lacks a book retrieval mechanism; its sole purpose is the viewing of documents.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Get_Internet_Archive_Books Get Internet Archive Books][http://github.com/internetarchive/bookserver (Git Repository)] is capable of retrieving books from multiple repositories, with only minor code changes.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Read_Etexts Read Etexts] is an Activity which started as a generic text file reader for Project Guttenberg files and has grown to include a built-in catalog of tens of thousands of Project Guttenberg's books.
*On the book retrieval side, could also possibly use RIT student [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Jlew Justin Lewis]' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare File Share Activity]?

===Software: File Hosting & Distribution===
*Could possibly use Justin Lewis' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare/Server File Share Server]?
*OPDS catalogs seem to be the ideal way to go when it comes to a directory system. The Get Books Activity supports OPDS, as does the Internet Archive which the Get Internet Archive books Activity uses. (Does File Share Server support OPDS?)
*Sayamindu's proposed a workflow that proceeds thusly:
**1. Have a specified directory on the file system which is crawled periodically via cron.
**2. If a new file is found, metadata is extracted either from the file, or from an external CSV file which is also found at a fixed location (CSV so that deployments can use any spreadsheet software while adding
books.)
**3. Once metadata is obtained successfully the file is added to the index. The index is then generated into OPDS catalogs, which can be queried from any XO to the XS.

===Hardware: File Storage & Hosting===
*The XS server at RIT would ideally serve as part of the e-book hosting solution

==Progress==

===Milestones===
====What To Get From Where?====
At this point, my main process has been to figure out which components in existing projects can be best utilized. On the user end, there's a lot of functionality overlap between Activities, as well as a lot of gaps in each Activity's feature-set. The hosting and distribution side are much less saturated with projects, though what options do exist seem to already be capable of being utilized for our purposes. Sweet. So the toughest questions that need to be asked concern the user-end:
*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch?
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features?

===Notes===
*(1/15/2010) Filled in most of the Wiki page; started some Discussion topics to hopefully gather more ideas. (Mike DeVine)
*(1/14/2010) As of now, still collecting feedback and gauging interest in the project. (Mike DeVine)

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-21T23:20:54Z

MikeDeVine: /* Goals */

==Overview==
The overall premise of this effort is to produce a streamlined, unified system to enable XO users to access and view electronic books.

===The Idea===
It goes without saying that reading is a crucial tool for a child's development; the OLPC program provides the means to provide the world's poorest children with an infinite supply of books; I came up with this idea after realizing that there exists no easy way for a XO user to accomplish this.

===The Need===
While there are several projects related to the concept of file distribution and document reading in the works, the methods and goals between them don't totally line up eye-to-eye, and as a result there are several considerable obstacles standing in the way of the XO offering competent and feature-rich e-book accessibility.

===Goals===
The endgame here is to create a multi-lateral solution which utilizes features from numerous existing projects and software to not only allow easy access to and viewing of e-books on the user end, but to provide an infrastructure for the uploading, cataloguing and hosting of e-books for the purpose of creating clear channels of communication between online e-book sources (including XS servers and online archives) and XO users. This can best be accomplished with participation from the authors of the Activities and software which ideally will be used in this project, in a collaborative effort with myself and other students enrolled in RIT's OLPC course. Ideally, this project will provide a use for our XS server as part of the ebook hosting solution.

In the long-term, I hope that the solution we end up with becomes part of the default set of Activities included on every XO.

In the far future, with a solid distribution framework in place the OLPC team could begin talking with textbook publishers to arrange for hosting of digital textbooks for use by teachers who otherwise don't have access to/can't afford printed textbooks for their students.

==Contact==
[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:MikeDeVine Mike DeVine] - Project Lead

==Desired Features==

===On The User Side===
*An easy-to-use reader Activity which allows a user to navigate the e-books on his/her XO, open and read them. This Activity should ideally contain features similar to those found in dedicated e-reader OSes: bookmarking, annotations, chapter selection, different view options, and especially "Tablet Mode" compatibility for user input.
*An Activity which enables the user to go online, access a central repository of e-books as well as the various third-party repositories, browse and search using metadata tags for refining results, and download desired files to his/her XO.

===On The Hosting Side===
*Service should include as much metadata as possible for tagging purposes.
*Multiple file formats are available, and it seems wise to integrate compatibility for as many as possible; which formats make the most sense to integrate into our applications?
**Epub supports a large amount of metadata and has been widely adopted, it seems like a no-brainer format to include.
**PDF files are powerful and contain plenty of metadata, but can be rather large, and aren't very flexible for different resolutions (so displaying on the XO could be an issue, although several reader Activities do support them)
**Mobipocket(MOBI and PRC) is a powerful format and supports SQL queries to use with databases.
**HTML files are larger but offer the formatting capabilities of a website, and many other formats use html files for each chapter compressed into one file along with other relevant files (images, stylesheets, etc.)
**TXT files leave a very small footprint and have broad compatibility, however they contain no formatting or metadata (I might be wrong about that, though)
**Open eBook(OPF) is an XML-based format from E-book Systems. It's a legacy version of Epub.
**DJVU is designed to hold scanned images so it's ideal for e-books, but contains almost no metadata.

===Distribution===
*An easy-to-use interface that allows XO users to browse, access and download e-book files, and other parties to upload to a central location, as well as from third-party repositories.
*It has been suggested that there should be various points of entry to a central directory structure, including:
**A directory to upload e-books into via Moodle - For teachers to
upload new e-books that they may have downloaded or obtained via
sneakernet.
**The XS scans USB sticks that you plug in for certain directories- and
if the content matches what the XS expects, then they are imported.
This works for activity bundles, etc. Adding support for an 'ebooks'
directory is easy.

==Collaborating Activities, Software & Hardware==

===Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing===
*Several existing document reader Activities contain various combinations of the desired features outlined above:
**The default [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Read Read] Activity, developed by [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta], is compatible with most e-book file formats, has support for Tablet Mode. What it lacks is a user interface which allows younger users to easily browse through their collection of e-books on their XO. It also lacks a book retrieval mechanism; its sole purpose is the viewing of documents.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Get_Internet_Archive_Books Get Internet Archive Books][http://github.com/internetarchive/bookserver (Git Repository)] is capable of retrieving books from multiple repositories, with only minor code changes.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Read_Etexts Read Etexts] is an Activity which started as a generic text file reader for Project Guttenberg files and has grown to include a built-in catalog of tens of thousands of Project Guttenberg's books.
*On the book retrieval side, could also possibly use RIT student [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Jlew Justin Lewis]' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare File Share Activity]?

===Software: File Hosting & Distribution===
*Could possibly use Justin Lewis' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare/Server File Share Server]?
*OPDS catalogs seem to be the ideal way to go when it comes to a directory system. The Get Books Activity supports OPDS, as does the Internet Archive which the Get Internet Archive books Activity uses. (Does File Share Server support OPDS?)

===Hardware: File Storage & Hosting===
*The XS server at RIT would ideally serve as part of the e-book hosting solution

==Progress==

===Milestones===
====What To Get From Where?====
At this point, my main process has been to figure out which components in existing projects can be best utilized. On the user end, there's a lot of functionality overlap between Activities, as well as a lot of gaps in each Activity's feature-set. The hosting and distribution side are much less saturated with projects, though what options do exist seem to already be capable of being utilized for our purposes. Sweet. So the toughest questions that need to be asked concern the user-end:
*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch?
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features?

===Notes===
*(1/15/2010) Filled in most of the Wiki page; started some Discussion topics to hopefully gather more ideas. (Mike DeVine)
*(1/14/2010) As of now, still collecting feedback and gauging interest in the project. (Mike DeVine)

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-21T23:18:51Z

MikeDeVine: /* On The Hosting Side */

==Overview==
The overall premise of this effort is to produce a streamlined, unified system to enable XO users to access and view electronic books.

===The Idea===
It goes without saying that reading is a crucial tool for a child's development; the OLPC program provides the means to provide the world's poorest children with an infinite supply of books; I came up with this idea after realizing that there exists no easy way for a XO user to accomplish this.

===The Need===
While there are several projects related to the concept of file distribution and document reading in the works, the methods and goals between them don't totally line up eye-to-eye, and as a result there are several considerable obstacles standing in the way of the XO offering competent and feature-rich e-book accessibility.

===Goals===
The endgame here is to create a multi-lateral solution which utilizes features from numerous existing projects and software to not only allow easy access to and viewing of e-books on the user end, but to provide an infrastructure for the uploading, cataloguing and hosting of e-books for the purpose of creating clear channels of communication between online e-book sources (including XS servers and online archives) and XO users. This can best be accomplished with participation from the authors of the Activities and software which ideally will be used in this project, in a collaborative effort with myself and other students enrolled in RIT's OLPC course. Ideally, this project will provide a use for our XS server as part of the ebook hosting solution.

In the long-term, I hope that the solution we end up with becomes part of the default set of Activities included on every XO.

==Contact==
[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:MikeDeVine Mike DeVine] - Project Lead

==Desired Features==

===On The User Side===
*An easy-to-use reader Activity which allows a user to navigate the e-books on his/her XO, open and read them. This Activity should ideally contain features similar to those found in dedicated e-reader OSes: bookmarking, annotations, chapter selection, different view options, and especially "Tablet Mode" compatibility for user input.
*An Activity which enables the user to go online, access a central repository of e-books as well as the various third-party repositories, browse and search using metadata tags for refining results, and download desired files to his/her XO.

===On The Hosting Side===
*Service should include as much metadata as possible for tagging purposes.
*Multiple file formats are available, and it seems wise to integrate compatibility for as many as possible; which formats make the most sense to integrate into our applications?
**Epub supports a large amount of metadata and has been widely adopted, it seems like a no-brainer format to include.
**PDF files are powerful and contain plenty of metadata, but can be rather large, and aren't very flexible for different resolutions (so displaying on the XO could be an issue, although several reader Activities do support them)
**Mobipocket(MOBI and PRC) is a powerful format and supports SQL queries to use with databases.
**HTML files are larger but offer the formatting capabilities of a website, and many other formats use html files for each chapter compressed into one file along with other relevant files (images, stylesheets, etc.)
**TXT files leave a very small footprint and have broad compatibility, however they contain no formatting or metadata (I might be wrong about that, though)
**Open eBook(OPF) is an XML-based format from E-book Systems. It's a legacy version of Epub.
**DJVU is designed to hold scanned images so it's ideal for e-books, but contains almost no metadata.

===Distribution===
*An easy-to-use interface that allows XO users to browse, access and download e-book files, and other parties to upload to a central location, as well as from third-party repositories.
*It has been suggested that there should be various points of entry to a central directory structure, including:
**A directory to upload e-books into via Moodle - For teachers to
upload new e-books that they may have downloaded or obtained via
sneakernet.
**The XS scans USB sticks that you plug in for certain directories- and
if the content matches what the XS expects, then they are imported.
This works for activity bundles, etc. Adding support for an 'ebooks'
directory is easy.

==Collaborating Activities, Software & Hardware==

===Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing===
*Several existing document reader Activities contain various combinations of the desired features outlined above:
**The default [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Read Read] Activity, developed by [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta], is compatible with most e-book file formats, has support for Tablet Mode. What it lacks is a user interface which allows younger users to easily browse through their collection of e-books on their XO. It also lacks a book retrieval mechanism; its sole purpose is the viewing of documents.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Get_Internet_Archive_Books Get Internet Archive Books][http://github.com/internetarchive/bookserver (Git Repository)] is capable of retrieving books from multiple repositories, with only minor code changes.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Read_Etexts Read Etexts] is an Activity which started as a generic text file reader for Project Guttenberg files and has grown to include a built-in catalog of tens of thousands of Project Guttenberg's books.
*On the book retrieval side, could also possibly use RIT student [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Jlew Justin Lewis]' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare File Share Activity]?

===Software: File Hosting & Distribution===
*Could possibly use Justin Lewis' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare/Server File Share Server]?
*OPDS catalogs seem to be the ideal way to go when it comes to a directory system. The Get Books Activity supports OPDS, as does the Internet Archive which the Get Internet Archive books Activity uses. (Does File Share Server support OPDS?)

===Hardware: File Storage & Hosting===
*The XS server at RIT would ideally serve as part of the e-book hosting solution

==Progress==

===Milestones===
====What To Get From Where?====
At this point, my main process has been to figure out which components in existing projects can be best utilized. On the user end, there's a lot of functionality overlap between Activities, as well as a lot of gaps in each Activity's feature-set. The hosting and distribution side are much less saturated with projects, though what options do exist seem to already be capable of being utilized for our purposes. Sweet. So the toughest questions that need to be asked concern the user-end:
*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch?
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features?

===Notes===
*(1/15/2010) Filled in most of the Wiki page; started some Discussion topics to hopefully gather more ideas. (Mike DeVine)
*(1/14/2010) As of now, still collecting feedback and gauging interest in the project. (Mike DeVine)

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-21T23:18:28Z

MikeDeVine: /* On The Hosting Side */

==Overview==
The overall premise of this effort is to produce a streamlined, unified system to enable XO users to access and view electronic books.

===The Idea===
It goes without saying that reading is a crucial tool for a child's development; the OLPC program provides the means to provide the world's poorest children with an infinite supply of books; I came up with this idea after realizing that there exists no easy way for a XO user to accomplish this.

===The Need===
While there are several projects related to the concept of file distribution and document reading in the works, the methods and goals between them don't totally line up eye-to-eye, and as a result there are several considerable obstacles standing in the way of the XO offering competent and feature-rich e-book accessibility.

===Goals===
The endgame here is to create a multi-lateral solution which utilizes features from numerous existing projects and software to not only allow easy access to and viewing of e-books on the user end, but to provide an infrastructure for the uploading, cataloguing and hosting of e-books for the purpose of creating clear channels of communication between online e-book sources (including XS servers and online archives) and XO users. This can best be accomplished with participation from the authors of the Activities and software which ideally will be used in this project, in a collaborative effort with myself and other students enrolled in RIT's OLPC course. Ideally, this project will provide a use for our XS server as part of the ebook hosting solution.

In the long-term, I hope that the solution we end up with becomes part of the default set of Activities included on every XO.

==Contact==
[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:MikeDeVine Mike DeVine] - Project Lead

==Desired Features==

===On The User Side===
*An easy-to-use reader Activity which allows a user to navigate the e-books on his/her XO, open and read them. This Activity should ideally contain features similar to those found in dedicated e-reader OSes: bookmarking, annotations, chapter selection, different view options, and especially "Tablet Mode" compatibility for user input.
*An Activity which enables the user to go online, access a central repository of e-books as well as the various third-party repositories, browse and search using metadata tags for refining results, and download desired files to his/her XO.

===On The Hosting Side===
*Service should include as much metadata as possible for tagging purposes.
*Multiple file formats are available, and it seems wise to integrate compatibility for as many as possible; which formats make the most sense to integrate into our applications?
**Epub supports a large amount of metadata and has been widely adopted, it seems like a no-brainer format to include.
**PDF files are powerful and contain plenty of metadata, but can be rather large, and aren't very flexible for different resolutions (so displaying on the XO could be an issue, although several reader Activities do support them)
**Mobipocket(MOBI and PRC) is a powerful format and supports SQL queries to use with databases.
**HTML files are larger but offer the formatting capabilities of a website, and many other formats use html files for each chapter compressed into one file along with other relevant files (images, stylesheets, etc.)
**TXT files leave a very small footprint and have broad compatibility, however they contain no formatting or metadata (I might be wrong about that, though)
**Open eBook(OPF) is an XML-based format from E-book Systems. It's a legacy version of Epub.
**DJVU is designed to hold scanned images so it's ideal for e-books, but contains almost no metadata.
*In the far future, with a solid distribution framework in place the OLPC team could begin talking with textbook publishers to arrange for hosting of digital textbooks for use by teachers who otherwise don't have access to/can't afford printed textbooks for their students.

===Distribution===
*An easy-to-use interface that allows XO users to browse, access and download e-book files, and other parties to upload to a central location, as well as from third-party repositories.
*It has been suggested that there should be various points of entry to a central directory structure, including:
**A directory to upload e-books into via Moodle - For teachers to
upload new e-books that they may have downloaded or obtained via
sneakernet.
**The XS scans USB sticks that you plug in for certain directories- and
if the content matches what the XS expects, then they are imported.
This works for activity bundles, etc. Adding support for an 'ebooks'
directory is easy.

==Collaborating Activities, Software & Hardware==

===Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing===
*Several existing document reader Activities contain various combinations of the desired features outlined above:
**The default [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Read Read] Activity, developed by [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta], is compatible with most e-book file formats, has support for Tablet Mode. What it lacks is a user interface which allows younger users to easily browse through their collection of e-books on their XO. It also lacks a book retrieval mechanism; its sole purpose is the viewing of documents.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Get_Internet_Archive_Books Get Internet Archive Books][http://github.com/internetarchive/bookserver (Git Repository)] is capable of retrieving books from multiple repositories, with only minor code changes.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Read_Etexts Read Etexts] is an Activity which started as a generic text file reader for Project Guttenberg files and has grown to include a built-in catalog of tens of thousands of Project Guttenberg's books.
*On the book retrieval side, could also possibly use RIT student [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Jlew Justin Lewis]' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare File Share Activity]?

===Software: File Hosting & Distribution===
*Could possibly use Justin Lewis' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare/Server File Share Server]?
*OPDS catalogs seem to be the ideal way to go when it comes to a directory system. The Get Books Activity supports OPDS, as does the Internet Archive which the Get Internet Archive books Activity uses. (Does File Share Server support OPDS?)

===Hardware: File Storage & Hosting===
*The XS server at RIT would ideally serve as part of the e-book hosting solution

==Progress==

===Milestones===
====What To Get From Where?====
At this point, my main process has been to figure out which components in existing projects can be best utilized. On the user end, there's a lot of functionality overlap between Activities, as well as a lot of gaps in each Activity's feature-set. The hosting and distribution side are much less saturated with projects, though what options do exist seem to already be capable of being utilized for our purposes. Sweet. So the toughest questions that need to be asked concern the user-end:
*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch?
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features?

===Notes===
*(1/15/2010) Filled in most of the Wiki page; started some Discussion topics to hopefully gather more ideas. (Mike DeVine)
*(1/14/2010) As of now, still collecting feedback and gauging interest in the project. (Mike DeVine)

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-21T23:14:28Z

MikeDeVine: /* On The User Side */

==Overview==
The overall premise of this effort is to produce a streamlined, unified system to enable XO users to access and view electronic books.

===The Idea===
It goes without saying that reading is a crucial tool for a child's development; the OLPC program provides the means to provide the world's poorest children with an infinite supply of books; I came up with this idea after realizing that there exists no easy way for a XO user to accomplish this.

===The Need===
While there are several projects related to the concept of file distribution and document reading in the works, the methods and goals between them don't totally line up eye-to-eye, and as a result there are several considerable obstacles standing in the way of the XO offering competent and feature-rich e-book accessibility.

===Goals===
The endgame here is to create a multi-lateral solution which utilizes features from numerous existing projects and software to not only allow easy access to and viewing of e-books on the user end, but to provide an infrastructure for the uploading, cataloguing and hosting of e-books for the purpose of creating clear channels of communication between online e-book sources (including XS servers and online archives) and XO users. This can best be accomplished with participation from the authors of the Activities and software which ideally will be used in this project, in a collaborative effort with myself and other students enrolled in RIT's OLPC course. Ideally, this project will provide a use for our XS server as part of the ebook hosting solution.

In the long-term, I hope that the solution we end up with becomes part of the default set of Activities included on every XO.

==Contact==
[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:MikeDeVine Mike DeVine] - Project Lead

==Desired Features==

===On The User Side===
*An easy-to-use reader Activity which allows a user to navigate the e-books on his/her XO, open and read them. This Activity should ideally contain features similar to those found in dedicated e-reader OSes: bookmarking, annotations, chapter selection, different view options, and especially "Tablet Mode" compatibility for user input.
*An Activity which enables the user to go online, access a central repository of e-books as well as the various third-party repositories, browse and search using metadata tags for refining results, and download desired files to his/her XO.

===On The Hosting Side===
*Service should include as much metadata as possible for tagging purposes.
*Multiple file formats are available, and it seems wise to integrate compatibility for as many as possible; which formats make the most sense to integrate into our applications?
**Epub supports a large amount of metadata and has been widely adopted, it seems like a no-brainer format to include.
**PDF files are powerful and contain plenty of metadata, but can be rather large, and aren't very flexible for different resolutions (so displaying on the XO could be an issue, although several reader Activities do support them)
**Mobipocket(MOBI and PRC) is a powerful format and supports SQL queries to use with databases.
**HTML files are larger but offer the formatting capabilities of a website, and many other formats use html files for each chapter compressed into one file along with other relevant files (images, stylesheets, etc.)
**TXT files leave a very small footprint and have broad compatibility, however they contain no formatting or metadata (I might be wrong about that, though)
**Open eBook(OPF) is an XML-based format from E-book Systems. It's a legacy version of Epub.
**DJVU is designed to hold scanned images so it's ideal for e-books, but contains almost no metadata.

===Distribution===
*An easy-to-use interface that allows XO users to browse, access and download e-book files, and other parties to upload to a central location, as well as from third-party repositories.
*It has been suggested that there should be various points of entry to a central directory structure, including:
**A directory to upload e-books into via Moodle - For teachers to
upload new e-books that they may have downloaded or obtained via
sneakernet.
**The XS scans USB sticks that you plug in for certain directories- and
if the content matches what the XS expects, then they are imported.
This works for activity bundles, etc. Adding support for an 'ebooks'
directory is easy.

==Collaborating Activities, Software & Hardware==

===Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing===
*Several existing document reader Activities contain various combinations of the desired features outlined above:
**The default [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Read Read] Activity, developed by [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta], is compatible with most e-book file formats, has support for Tablet Mode. What it lacks is a user interface which allows younger users to easily browse through their collection of e-books on their XO. It also lacks a book retrieval mechanism; its sole purpose is the viewing of documents.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Get_Internet_Archive_Books Get Internet Archive Books][http://github.com/internetarchive/bookserver (Git Repository)] is capable of retrieving books from multiple repositories, with only minor code changes.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Read_Etexts Read Etexts] is an Activity which started as a generic text file reader for Project Guttenberg files and has grown to include a built-in catalog of tens of thousands of Project Guttenberg's books.
*On the book retrieval side, could also possibly use RIT student [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Jlew Justin Lewis]' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare File Share Activity]?

===Software: File Hosting & Distribution===
*Could possibly use Justin Lewis' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare/Server File Share Server]?
*OPDS catalogs seem to be the ideal way to go when it comes to a directory system. The Get Books Activity supports OPDS, as does the Internet Archive which the Get Internet Archive books Activity uses. (Does File Share Server support OPDS?)

===Hardware: File Storage & Hosting===
*The XS server at RIT would ideally serve as part of the e-book hosting solution

==Progress==

===Milestones===
====What To Get From Where?====
At this point, my main process has been to figure out which components in existing projects can be best utilized. On the user end, there's a lot of functionality overlap between Activities, as well as a lot of gaps in each Activity's feature-set. The hosting and distribution side are much less saturated with projects, though what options do exist seem to already be capable of being utilized for our purposes. Sweet. So the toughest questions that need to be asked concern the user-end:
*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch?
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features?

===Notes===
*(1/15/2010) Filled in most of the Wiki page; started some Discussion topics to hopefully gather more ideas. (Mike DeVine)
*(1/14/2010) As of now, still collecting feedback and gauging interest in the project. (Mike DeVine)

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-21T23:13:44Z

MikeDeVine: /* Distribution */

==Overview==
The overall premise of this effort is to produce a streamlined, unified system to enable XO users to access and view electronic books.

===The Idea===
It goes without saying that reading is a crucial tool for a child's development; the OLPC program provides the means to provide the world's poorest children with an infinite supply of books; I came up with this idea after realizing that there exists no easy way for a XO user to accomplish this.

===The Need===
While there are several projects related to the concept of file distribution and document reading in the works, the methods and goals between them don't totally line up eye-to-eye, and as a result there are several considerable obstacles standing in the way of the XO offering competent and feature-rich e-book accessibility.

===Goals===
The endgame here is to create a multi-lateral solution which utilizes features from numerous existing projects and software to not only allow easy access to and viewing of e-books on the user end, but to provide an infrastructure for the uploading, cataloguing and hosting of e-books for the purpose of creating clear channels of communication between online e-book sources (including XS servers and online archives) and XO users. This can best be accomplished with participation from the authors of the Activities and software which ideally will be used in this project, in a collaborative effort with myself and other students enrolled in RIT's OLPC course. Ideally, this project will provide a use for our XS server as part of the ebook hosting solution.

In the long-term, I hope that the solution we end up with becomes part of the default set of Activities included on every XO.

==Contact==
[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:MikeDeVine Mike DeVine] - Project Lead

==Desired Features==

===On The User Side===
*An easy-to-use reader Activity which allows a user to navigate the e-books on his/her XO, open and read them. This Activity should ideally contain features similar to those found in dedicated e-reader OSes: bookmarking, annotations, chapter selection, different view options, and especially "Tablet Mode" compatibility for user input.
*An Activity which enables the user to go online, access a central repository of e-books, browse and search using metadata tags for refining results, and download desired files to his/her XO.

===On The Hosting Side===
*Service should include as much metadata as possible for tagging purposes.
*Multiple file formats are available, and it seems wise to integrate compatibility for as many as possible; which formats make the most sense to integrate into our applications?
**Epub supports a large amount of metadata and has been widely adopted, it seems like a no-brainer format to include.
**PDF files are powerful and contain plenty of metadata, but can be rather large, and aren't very flexible for different resolutions (so displaying on the XO could be an issue, although several reader Activities do support them)
**Mobipocket(MOBI and PRC) is a powerful format and supports SQL queries to use with databases.
**HTML files are larger but offer the formatting capabilities of a website, and many other formats use html files for each chapter compressed into one file along with other relevant files (images, stylesheets, etc.)
**TXT files leave a very small footprint and have broad compatibility, however they contain no formatting or metadata (I might be wrong about that, though)
**Open eBook(OPF) is an XML-based format from E-book Systems. It's a legacy version of Epub.
**DJVU is designed to hold scanned images so it's ideal for e-books, but contains almost no metadata.

===Distribution===
*An easy-to-use interface that allows XO users to browse, access and download e-book files, and other parties to upload to a central location, as well as from third-party repositories.
*It has been suggested that there should be various points of entry to a central directory structure, including:
**A directory to upload e-books into via Moodle - For teachers to
upload new e-books that they may have downloaded or obtained via
sneakernet.
**The XS scans USB sticks that you plug in for certain directories- and
if the content matches what the XS expects, then they are imported.
This works for activity bundles, etc. Adding support for an 'ebooks'
directory is easy.

==Collaborating Activities, Software & Hardware==

===Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing===
*Several existing document reader Activities contain various combinations of the desired features outlined above:
**The default [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Read Read] Activity, developed by [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta], is compatible with most e-book file formats, has support for Tablet Mode. What it lacks is a user interface which allows younger users to easily browse through their collection of e-books on their XO. It also lacks a book retrieval mechanism; its sole purpose is the viewing of documents.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Get_Internet_Archive_Books Get Internet Archive Books][http://github.com/internetarchive/bookserver (Git Repository)] is capable of retrieving books from multiple repositories, with only minor code changes.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Read_Etexts Read Etexts] is an Activity which started as a generic text file reader for Project Guttenberg files and has grown to include a built-in catalog of tens of thousands of Project Guttenberg's books.
*On the book retrieval side, could also possibly use RIT student [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Jlew Justin Lewis]' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare File Share Activity]?

===Software: File Hosting & Distribution===
*Could possibly use Justin Lewis' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare/Server File Share Server]?
*OPDS catalogs seem to be the ideal way to go when it comes to a directory system. The Get Books Activity supports OPDS, as does the Internet Archive which the Get Internet Archive books Activity uses. (Does File Share Server support OPDS?)

===Hardware: File Storage & Hosting===
*The XS server at RIT would ideally serve as part of the e-book hosting solution

==Progress==

===Milestones===
====What To Get From Where?====
At this point, my main process has been to figure out which components in existing projects can be best utilized. On the user end, there's a lot of functionality overlap between Activities, as well as a lot of gaps in each Activity's feature-set. The hosting and distribution side are much less saturated with projects, though what options do exist seem to already be capable of being utilized for our purposes. Sweet. So the toughest questions that need to be asked concern the user-end:
*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch?
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features?

===Notes===
*(1/15/2010) Filled in most of the Wiki page; started some Discussion topics to hopefully gather more ideas. (Mike DeVine)
*(1/14/2010) As of now, still collecting feedback and gauging interest in the project. (Mike DeVine)

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-21T23:13:03Z

MikeDeVine: /* On The Hosting Side */

==Overview==
The overall premise of this effort is to produce a streamlined, unified system to enable XO users to access and view electronic books.

===The Idea===
It goes without saying that reading is a crucial tool for a child's development; the OLPC program provides the means to provide the world's poorest children with an infinite supply of books; I came up with this idea after realizing that there exists no easy way for a XO user to accomplish this.

===The Need===
While there are several projects related to the concept of file distribution and document reading in the works, the methods and goals between them don't totally line up eye-to-eye, and as a result there are several considerable obstacles standing in the way of the XO offering competent and feature-rich e-book accessibility.

===Goals===
The endgame here is to create a multi-lateral solution which utilizes features from numerous existing projects and software to not only allow easy access to and viewing of e-books on the user end, but to provide an infrastructure for the uploading, cataloguing and hosting of e-books for the purpose of creating clear channels of communication between online e-book sources (including XS servers and online archives) and XO users. This can best be accomplished with participation from the authors of the Activities and software which ideally will be used in this project, in a collaborative effort with myself and other students enrolled in RIT's OLPC course. Ideally, this project will provide a use for our XS server as part of the ebook hosting solution.

In the long-term, I hope that the solution we end up with becomes part of the default set of Activities included on every XO.

==Contact==
[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:MikeDeVine Mike DeVine] - Project Lead

==Desired Features==

===On The User Side===
*An easy-to-use reader Activity which allows a user to navigate the e-books on his/her XO, open and read them. This Activity should ideally contain features similar to those found in dedicated e-reader OSes: bookmarking, annotations, chapter selection, different view options, and especially "Tablet Mode" compatibility for user input.
*An Activity which enables the user to go online, access a central repository of e-books, browse and search using metadata tags for refining results, and download desired files to his/her XO.

===On The Hosting Side===
*Service should include as much metadata as possible for tagging purposes.
*Multiple file formats are available, and it seems wise to integrate compatibility for as many as possible; which formats make the most sense to integrate into our applications?
**Epub supports a large amount of metadata and has been widely adopted, it seems like a no-brainer format to include.
**PDF files are powerful and contain plenty of metadata, but can be rather large, and aren't very flexible for different resolutions (so displaying on the XO could be an issue, although several reader Activities do support them)
**Mobipocket(MOBI and PRC) is a powerful format and supports SQL queries to use with databases.
**HTML files are larger but offer the formatting capabilities of a website, and many other formats use html files for each chapter compressed into one file along with other relevant files (images, stylesheets, etc.)
**TXT files leave a very small footprint and have broad compatibility, however they contain no formatting or metadata (I might be wrong about that, though)
**Open eBook(OPF) is an XML-based format from E-book Systems. It's a legacy version of Epub.
**DJVU is designed to hold scanned images so it's ideal for e-books, but contains almost no metadata.

===Distribution===
*An easy-to-use interface that allows XO users to browse, access and download e-book files, and other parties to upload to a central location

==Collaborating Activities, Software & Hardware==

===Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing===
*Several existing document reader Activities contain various combinations of the desired features outlined above:
**The default [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Read Read] Activity, developed by [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta], is compatible with most e-book file formats, has support for Tablet Mode. What it lacks is a user interface which allows younger users to easily browse through their collection of e-books on their XO. It also lacks a book retrieval mechanism; its sole purpose is the viewing of documents.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Get_Internet_Archive_Books Get Internet Archive Books][http://github.com/internetarchive/bookserver (Git Repository)] is capable of retrieving books from multiple repositories, with only minor code changes.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Read_Etexts Read Etexts] is an Activity which started as a generic text file reader for Project Guttenberg files and has grown to include a built-in catalog of tens of thousands of Project Guttenberg's books.
*On the book retrieval side, could also possibly use RIT student [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Jlew Justin Lewis]' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare File Share Activity]?

===Software: File Hosting & Distribution===
*Could possibly use Justin Lewis' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare/Server File Share Server]?
*OPDS catalogs seem to be the ideal way to go when it comes to a directory system. The Get Books Activity supports OPDS, as does the Internet Archive which the Get Internet Archive books Activity uses. (Does File Share Server support OPDS?)

===Hardware: File Storage & Hosting===
*The XS server at RIT would ideally serve as part of the e-book hosting solution

==Progress==

===Milestones===
====What To Get From Where?====
At this point, my main process has been to figure out which components in existing projects can be best utilized. On the user end, there's a lot of functionality overlap between Activities, as well as a lot of gaps in each Activity's feature-set. The hosting and distribution side are much less saturated with projects, though what options do exist seem to already be capable of being utilized for our purposes. Sweet. So the toughest questions that need to be asked concern the user-end:
*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch?
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features?

===Notes===
*(1/15/2010) Filled in most of the Wiki page; started some Discussion topics to hopefully gather more ideas. (Mike DeVine)
*(1/14/2010) As of now, still collecting feedback and gauging interest in the project. (Mike DeVine)

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-21T23:12:34Z

MikeDeVine: /* On The Hosting Side */

==Overview==
The overall premise of this effort is to produce a streamlined, unified system to enable XO users to access and view electronic books.

===The Idea===
It goes without saying that reading is a crucial tool for a child's development; the OLPC program provides the means to provide the world's poorest children with an infinite supply of books; I came up with this idea after realizing that there exists no easy way for a XO user to accomplish this.

===The Need===
While there are several projects related to the concept of file distribution and document reading in the works, the methods and goals between them don't totally line up eye-to-eye, and as a result there are several considerable obstacles standing in the way of the XO offering competent and feature-rich e-book accessibility.

===Goals===
The endgame here is to create a multi-lateral solution which utilizes features from numerous existing projects and software to not only allow easy access to and viewing of e-books on the user end, but to provide an infrastructure for the uploading, cataloguing and hosting of e-books for the purpose of creating clear channels of communication between online e-book sources (including XS servers and online archives) and XO users. This can best be accomplished with participation from the authors of the Activities and software which ideally will be used in this project, in a collaborative effort with myself and other students enrolled in RIT's OLPC course. Ideally, this project will provide a use for our XS server as part of the ebook hosting solution.

In the long-term, I hope that the solution we end up with becomes part of the default set of Activities included on every XO.

==Contact==
[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:MikeDeVine Mike DeVine] - Project Lead

==Desired Features==

===On The User Side===
*An easy-to-use reader Activity which allows a user to navigate the e-books on his/her XO, open and read them. This Activity should ideally contain features similar to those found in dedicated e-reader OSes: bookmarking, annotations, chapter selection, different view options, and especially "Tablet Mode" compatibility for user input.
*An Activity which enables the user to go online, access a central repository of e-books, browse and search using metadata tags for refining results, and download desired files to his/her XO.

===On The Hosting Side===
*Service should include as much metadata as possible for tagging purposes.
*Multiple file formats are available, and it seems wise to integrate compatibility for as many as possible; which formats make the most sense to integrate into our applications?
**Epub supports a large amount of metadata and has been widely adopted, it seems like a no-brainer format to include.
**PDF files are powerful and contain plenty of metadata, but can be rather large, and aren't very flexible for different resolutions (so displaying on the XO could be an issue, although several reader Activities do support them)
**Mobipocket(MOBI and PRC) is a powerful format and supports SQL queries to use with databases.
**HTML files are larger but offer the formatting capabilities of a website, and many other formats use html files for each chapter compressed into one file along with other relevant files (images, stylesheets, etc.)
**TXT files leave a very small footprint and have broad compatibility, however they contain no formatting or metadata (I might be wrong about that, though)
**Open eBook(OPF) is an XML-based format from E-book Systems. It's a legacy version of Epub.
**DJVU is designed to hold scanned images so it's ideal for e-books, but contains almost no metadata.
*It has been suggested that there should be various points of entry to a central directory, including:
**A directory to upload e-books into via Moodle - For teachers to
upload new e-books that they may have downloaded or obtained via
sneakernet.
**The XS scans USB sticks that you plug in for certain directories- and
if the content matches what the XS expects, then they are imported.
This works for activity bundles, etc. Adding support for an 'ebooks'
directory is easy.

===Distribution===
*An easy-to-use interface that allows XO users to browse, access and download e-book files, and other parties to upload to a central location

==Collaborating Activities, Software & Hardware==

===Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing===
*Several existing document reader Activities contain various combinations of the desired features outlined above:
**The default [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Read Read] Activity, developed by [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ Sayamindu Dasgupta], is compatible with most e-book file formats, has support for Tablet Mode. What it lacks is a user interface which allows younger users to easily browse through their collection of e-books on their XO. It also lacks a book retrieval mechanism; its sole purpose is the viewing of documents.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Get_Internet_Archive_Books Get Internet Archive Books][http://github.com/internetarchive/bookserver (Git Repository)] is capable of retrieving books from multiple repositories, with only minor code changes.
**[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Read_Etexts Read Etexts] is an Activity which started as a generic text file reader for Project Guttenberg files and has grown to include a built-in catalog of tens of thousands of Project Guttenberg's books.
*On the book retrieval side, could also possibly use RIT student [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Jlew Justin Lewis]' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare File Share Activity]?

===Software: File Hosting & Distribution===
*Could possibly use Justin Lewis' [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/FileShare/Server File Share Server]?
*OPDS catalogs seem to be the ideal way to go when it comes to a directory system. The Get Books Activity supports OPDS, as does the Internet Archive which the Get Internet Archive books Activity uses. (Does File Share Server support OPDS?)

===Hardware: File Storage & Hosting===
*The XS server at RIT would ideally serve as part of the e-book hosting solution

==Progress==

===Milestones===
====What To Get From Where?====
At this point, my main process has been to figure out which components in existing projects can be best utilized. On the user end, there's a lot of functionality overlap between Activities, as well as a lot of gaps in each Activity's feature-set. The hosting and distribution side are much less saturated with projects, though what options do exist seem to already be capable of being utilized for our purposes. Sweet. So the toughest questions that need to be asked concern the user-end:
*What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch?
*If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features?

===Notes===
*(1/15/2010) Filled in most of the Wiki page; started some Discussion topics to hopefully gather more ideas. (Mike DeVine)
*(1/14/2010) As of now, still collecting feedback and gauging interest in the project. (Mike DeVine)

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-21T22:48:10Z

MikeDeVine: /* Software: File Hosting & Distribution */

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-21T22:47:35Z

MikeDeVine: /* Software: File Hosting & Distribution */

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-21T22:43:44Z

MikeDeVine: /* Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing */

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-21T22:38:08Z

MikeDeVine: /* Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing */

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T19:40:36Z

MikeDeVine: /* Notes */

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T19:40:06Z

MikeDeVine: /* Notes */

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T19:37:47Z

MikeDeVine: /* Distribution */

Talk:Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T19:36:56Z

MikeDeVine: /* File Hosting */

Talk:Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T19:36:24Z

MikeDeVine: /* Integration of Features From Different Activities */

Talk:Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T19:34:57Z

MikeDeVine: /* Integration of Features From Different Activities */

Talk:Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T19:34:31Z

MikeDeVine: /* File Hosting */ new section

== Integration of Features From Different Activities ==

What's the best way to integrate the desired features from each of these Activities? Attempt to splice some code or start from scratch? If we're not starting from scratch, which Activitie(s) will be the ones chosen to receive the code "updates"? In other words, which Activity is farthest along already and is most malleable in terms of adding features? - Mike DeVine

== File Hosting ==

*Which file format, if we decide to use only one, should the e-books be?
*Which format has the best metadata support?
*What's the usability look like for this side? Would it make sense to look into implementing a simple GUI, or does what's there already do the job well enough?
*What's the likelihood of linking to existing online e-book archives? Can this be done seamlessly, or does there need to be a separate method of accessing these archives?

Talk:Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T19:29:10Z

MikeDeVine: /* Integration of Features From Different Activities */

Talk:Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T19:28:43Z

MikeDeVine: Integration of Features From Different Activities

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T19:22:12Z

MikeDeVine: /* Milestones */

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T19:09:58Z

MikeDeVine: /* Activities: E-Book Accessibility & Viewing */

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T18:51:47Z

MikeDeVine: /* On The User Side */

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T18:46:49Z

MikeDeVine:

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T06:15:44Z

MikeDeVine: /* On The Hosting Side */

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T00:48:59Z

MikeDeVine:

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T00:44:13Z

MikeDeVine: /* Progress */

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T00:41:26Z

MikeDeVine: /* Progress */

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T00:39:47Z

MikeDeVine: /* Collaborating Activities, Software & Hardware */

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T00:37:20Z

MikeDeVine: /* Desired Features */

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T00:34:48Z

MikeDeVine: /* Goals */

Ebook Reading And Distribution

2010-01-15T00:32:22Z

MikeDeVine: /* Overview */