Including an *.ibooks file in an OPDS catalog

[Frank Lowney]

I realize that there are only two clients capable of rendering an *.ibooks file (iBook for MacOS X and iBooks for iOS) and that neither of them directly  support OPDS but I don't see the door to these eReaders as completely closed.  Already, the iOS freemium app, eBook Search is capable of browsing/searching OPDS catalogs and sending ePubs to iBooks to be read.  So, what would prevent a person from including an *.ibooks file in an OPDS catalog? What would happen to clients that have no instructions on how to handle an *.ibooks file?

[Hadrien Gardeur]

*.ibooks files are just an Apple-specific profile of EPUB. 

From an OPDS perspective:

• we don't care at all about file extensions, only media types
• I suspect that *.ibooks file still use the EPUB media type
• nothing prevents you from using whatever media type you'd like to use in an OPDS catalog
• the only limitation is: will the client actually display that link and/or be able to open the publication ?

[Ori Idan]

On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 12:36 AM, Hadrien Gardeur <hadrien...@feedbooks.com> wrote:

*.ibooks files are just an Apple-specific profile of EPUB. 

As much as I know .ibooks is a different file format, we have created several such books for client. It is a zip file, however it does not contain META-INF or opf file.

 

From an OPDS perspective:

• we don't care at all about file extensions, only media types
• I suspect that *.ibooks file still use the EPUB media type
• nothing prevents you from using whatever media type you'd like to use in an OPDS catalog
• the only limitation is: will the client actually display that link and/or be able to open the publication ?

I think that iBooks will be used to open any link with this file type. What should be the mime type I don't know.

-- 

Ori Idan

Helicon Books

[Frank Lowney]

I think that iBooks will be used to open any link with this file type. What should be the mime type I don't know.

-- 

Ori Idan

Helicon Books

The MIME Type for *.ibooks is application/x-ibooks+zip whereas the MIME Type for *.epub is application/epub+zip 

[Frank Lowney]

The OPDS option in Calibre server now supports the iBooks file type. The RSS app, Vienna will read Calibre's OPDS, see and list the iBooks file type and enable the user to open it in the iBooks.app.

I think that it is important that free *.ibooks files have alternative ways of being discovered and disseminated so these developments are good progress. The ePub Search app has always performed this function on iOS and there may be other similar iOS apps that I don't know about.

[Hadrien Gardeur]

OK that's good to know. Using the media type to identify that these are iBooks specific files is the way to go, and I'm glad that multiple apps on iOS are adding that feature.