if you could pick a standard format for a purpose what would it be and why?
e.g. flac for lossless audio because…
(yes you can add new categories)
summary:
- photos .jxl
- open domain image data .exr
- videos .av1
- lossless audio .flac
- lossy audio .opus
- subtitles srt/ass
- fonts .otf
- container mkv (doesnt contain .jxl)
- plain text utf-8 (many also say markup but disagree on the implementation)
- documents .odt
- archive files (this one is causing a bloodbath so i picked randomly) .tar.zst
- configuration files toml
- typesetting typst
- interchange format .ora
- models .gltf / .glb
- daw session files .dawproject
- otdr measurement results .xml
MKV It supports high-quality video and audio codecs, allowing for lossless compression and high-definition content. Also MKV supports chapter and menu functionality, making it suitable to rip DVD to MKV and store DVDs and Blu-ray discs.
.nix for software packaging.
i hate to be that guy, but pick the right tool for the right job. use markdown for a readme and latex for a research paper. you dont need to create ‘the ultimate file format’ that can do both, but worse and less compatible
I agree with your assertion that there isn’t a perfect format. But the example you gave - markdown vs latex has a counter example - org mode. It can be used for both purposes and a load of others. Matroska container is similarly versatile. They are examples that carefully designed formats can reach a high level of versatility, though they may never become the perfect solution.
Markdown for all rich text that doesn’t need super fancy shit like latex
asciidoc lost me because it’s not a markdown superset. Why invent yet another way of marking headlines?
Also GitLab/Hub markdown is the standard and I don’t think we need another.
That’s a weird way of thinking. I could make the reverse argument.
Markdown lost me because it’s not a subset to asciidoc, why invent yet another way of marking headlines?
Also asciidoc is the standard and I don’t think we need another.
This whole thread is discussing ideal standards.
I’d setup a working group to invent something new. Many of our current formats are stuck in the past, e.g. PDF or ODF are still emulating paper, even so everybody keeps reading them on a screen. What I want to see is a standard document format that is build for the modern day Internet, with editing and publishing in mind. HTML ain’t it, as that can’t handle editing well or long form documents, EPUB isn’t supported by browsers, Markdown lacks a lot of features, etc. And than you have things like Google Docs, which are Internet aware, editable, shareable, but also completely proprietary and lock you into the Google ecosystem.
EPubs are just websites bound in xhtml or something. Could we just not make every browser also an epub reader? (I just like epubs).
That’s the idea, and while at it, we could also make .zip files a proper Web technology with browser support. At the moment ePub exists in this weird twilight where it is build out of mostly Web technology, yet isn’t actually part of the Web. Everything being packed into .zip files also means that you can’t link directly to the individual pages within an ePub, as HTTP doesn’t know how to unpack them. It’s all weird and messy and surprising that nobody has cleaned it all up and integrated it into the Web properly.
So far the original Microsoft Edge is the only browser I am aware of with native ePub support, but even that didn’t survive when they switched to Chrome’s Bink.
Microsoft Edge’s ePub reader was so good! I would have used it all the time for reading if it hadn’t met its demise. Is there no equivalent fork or project out there? The existing epub readers always have these quirks that annoy me to the point where I’ll just use Calibre’s built in reader which works well enough.
Epub isn’t supported by browsers
So you want EPUB support in browser and you have the ultimate document file format?
It would solve the long-form document problem. It wouldn’t help with the editing however. The problem with HTML as it is today, is that it has long left it’s document-markup roots and turned into an app development platform, making it not really suitable for plain old documents. You’d need to cut it down to a subset of features that are necessary for documents (e.g. no Javascript), similar to how PDF/A removes features from PDF to create a more reliable and future proof format.
Weasyprint kinda is that, except that it’s meant to be rendered to PDF.
