I’m new, but I’ve tried to follow the latest PB rules and put the front matter tags where they belong. But after exporting there is neither a T/C nor a figure list in the output. My chapter headings aren’t called “chapters” but they’re formatted as such (it’s an anthology of stories and not meant as chapters). And my figures are appropriately labeled as such.
Help??
Jack T.
Well, Jay, my lad, nobody home, I guess, or you’re being shunned. Maybe the PB world demands old-fashioned lurking for a month before talking at you. I guess PB ain’t all the library said it was… . Back to Smashwords; they ain’t cool but at least they’re helpful…
Hi @Jay_P_T this is a community forum where answers usually come from other users. Looks like no one had a good answer for you. It’s possible that it’s because your original post was light on specifics. Often good technical support can be facilitated with a URL or example of the problem you’re running into, to help folks who want to help better understand/replicate the issue and propose potential solutions. Where is your book hosted – is this an open source Pressbooks install, a version of Pressbooks provided by a public library, pressbooks.com, an enterprise Pressbooks instance hosted by a university, etc.? Can you provide sample files or screenshots of what’s not working the way you expected?
Mr. Wagstaff
If specifics of some sort are helpful, so would be a boilerplate suggestion as to what specifics to include to save us both time. My comment on T/C’s and Figure info. not being exported are general comments likely affecting all users from my viewpoint.
You ask, “where is my book hosted…”? On Pressbooks???
“The problem I’m running into”?..geez, I dunno…I thought saying NOT ABLE TO EXPORT A T/C OR FIGURE LIST ON AN EPUB OR PDF EXPORT pretty much said it.
And if I had been aware that this kind of issue was going to become a “group grope” kind of approach to a solution, I wouldn’t have troubled the group with the issue. I naively thought there was expertise behind fixing these things…but then, being a library patron and not one of your monthly indie subscribers, it’s clear I expected too much.
I thank the people like Cara at Biblioboard for a more congenial approach to authoring issues because judging alone by the dates on unresolved postings, it certainly isn’t going to come from here.
J. in Pressbooks limbo, CO
Hi @Jay_P_T Pressbooks is free and open source software, which means that anyone anywhere can install it on a server they run and use it to publish books. When users have problems with their publishing projects, the reason could be 1) a bug in our software, 2) user error or ignorance, 3) incorrect installation or configuration. We want to help people accomplish their publishing goals, but the solution to their problem is usually very different in each of these cases. You seem to believe that there’s a bug in Pressbooks. No one else has reported this bug, so I asked you for more information so that we could attempt to replicate the issue. You have not provided it, which means that we cannot replicate your issue. You can complain and continue posting innuendo based on inaccurate assumptions, or you can help us determine if your issue is a real bug by giving others who want to help you the information they need to replicate your problem. I asked for the URL of your book so I could determine whether you’re running a self-hosted open source instance, an instance provided through Bibliolabs (a third party reseller who works with public libraries), Pressbooks.pub, or one of our hosted enterprise instances. Other information we would need are the theme you are using, and any steps we should take to reproduce the issue you’re encountering. This is basic bug reporting behavior.
For example, our basic issue template in GitHub asks for info to reproduce: Sign in to GitHub · GitHub as does the report a bug page on our website: Report a bug | Pressbooks
Mr. Wagstaff
From your description of what you term “basic bug reporting behavior”, the allusion to the fact that Pressbooks is not who I’m dealing with directly but in fact Biblioboard via my local library, and now introducing yet again another entity, “Github”, it’s clear that I should be addressing issues like p
… e.g., specifying front matter inclusion like List of Illustrations, etc. and not having them appear, to the good people at Biblioboards and not Pressbooks.
After 13 years of using a relatively simple Smashwords, I’ve now been told to take my open domain-derived books elsewhere by B2B/Coker and Co. So I innocently signed on with this Biblioboard thing at my local library (which provides 0 expertise) thinking Pressbooks was an integral part of same. Clearly not. As I’m a bit encumbered by macular degeneration and so am limited in daily authoring time by my vision aid equipment, I was probably remiss in thinking the Pressbooks/Biblioboard/public library combine had Smashwords-like simplicity. Again, clearly not.
One thing Smashwords does do which I’ll miss: they assume authors are not tech wizards with an innate understanding of “basic bug reporting”, etc., as you seem to do. A lot of Pressbooks interface seemsw to ignore what might be to us less adept types “accessibility” and “ease of use”. Involving things like Github or whatever appears to imply a “don’t ask Pressbooks – go over there…” approach to user support.
In the future, I’ll try to keep that in mind and not bother you with my ignorance of “basic bug reporting” protocols. And once I find whatever obscure thing like a book URL is and where it’s at, I’ll remember to throw that in. It’s not a readily apparent part of Pressbooks “book info” that I cqn see…ah, wait. Right-clicking on the book title, I find something Firefox–not Pressbooks–says as “save link”. Could it be this?
– or this?
Hmmm, well, thank you Firefox for giving me what Pressbooks doesn’t…sometimes I almost get the impression from the “wp-admin” tag that Pressbooks has something to do with another evil entity who bounced my subscription, claiming with nary a bit of evidence that I was sending out extraneous mean-spirited missives I never sent – Wordpress? And if memory serves, Wordpress sent me down a laborious appeals process gauntlet thru…Github?? Things are becoming clearer now…
Hello “WordPressBooks”, you mean-spirited lying
Oops, my vision service says time’s up for my daily authoring.
J. in CO
hi @Jay_P_T i’m sorry this has been frustrating for you. That’s really not our intention. I’m just trying to understand where you’re having the problem and what environment you’re having the problem in so that I can have our developers try to reproduce it and get it resolved. It looks from the links you shared like your book is on a Pressbooks network hosted at this UR: jeffcolibrary.pressbooks.pub. That’s a great place for me to start. Your book URL would be whatever appears in the browser navigation bar when you’re logged in and editing your book. If you’re not able to find that easily and are willing to send me a direct message with the title of your book and/or the email address you used for your account there, we can probably work with Cara Eakes to find your book and try to reproduce the issue you’re having from there.