Overview
This software files your photo files and related contexts into an EPUB file in a convenient way. The file format to storing your memories must meet two needs: first, the files must be re-opened normally by the future software and hardware. Second, the highest resolution and metadata of photos must be reserved as possible. To satisfy the first requirement, the file format must be an international open standard, so that they can be read platform-independently. To satisfy the second requirement, the file format should not be a lossy compression one. This software chooses EPUB file format.
What's an EPUB File?
EPUB is an open standard of electronic book brought by International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). An EPUB book will be typeset automatically on all devices of various sizes. As shown in the figure, an EPUB file is basically a zipped file consists of XHTML pages. In the zipped container, container.xml is the first file that points out the locations of content.opf and toc.ncx. The former contains the metadata and manifest of the book, including the XTHML files, CSS files, and images of the chapters. The latter provides the table of contents that specifies the order of chapter reading.
It is easy to make a web page auto-fit various screen sizes. Also, web browsers are implemented on almost all platforms. So an EPUB file based on XHTML pages is easy to reach the goal of automatic typesetting. Furthermore, zipping is a lossless document compression, so the images inside the zip are not coarsen. In conclusion, EPUB is an ideal format for album files.
What's an Album EPUB File?
Based on EPUB file format, this software adds some album-editing files into it. The result file can be read by all EPUB readers, and furthermore, it can be edited by this software. As the read parts shown in the figure, in addition to content.opf, an album EPUB file stores the album info such as the date range, locations, and the introduction of the album in album.xml. Also, an album EPUB file stores the raw photo files in sub-directories together with files chapter.xml that stores the dates, locations, and the labels of photos.
The user does not edit the files manually. The software provides the user-interface for the user to add paragraphs via the way similar to posting a message on a social website. Once the user creates a new blank album and adds a new blank chapter by this software, he fills a description, picks the photo date and location, and drags some photo files into a new paragraph. Repeating the chapter and paragraph creation steps, the album is completed.
