My Journey in Writing, Ranting, and Woodworking

I almost glued up the ikebana today.  But upon inspection found some imperfections.  Each level had one corner which had some bubbles dried into the shellac.  This is a little bit frustrating, as I really thought I had checked all around each piece, as I applied the last coat.  I even rememered finding some bubbles and going over them with the foam brush.

As I learn more, from doing, applying finish becomes less frightening.  But just like cutting dovetails, one must not be hasty during the process.  Bubbles aren’t a problem while wipping on tung oil, but they love shellac.  Those little buggers seem to want to pop up everywhere.  On the up side, bubbles are easy to fix.  I just need to sand them down and apply some more shellac.  So that is what I did.  I will glue it up tomorrow.

The Henry Wood goes well. I figured out how to write the NCX code, for the TOC (Table of Contents).  It is not terribly complex code, but I did have some troubles finding a good example.  Why is it important to have NCX code, instead of just typing up the TOC, one might ask.  The NCX code is what allows a Kindle user to click on the table of contents and jump immediately to the chapter they wish to read.  Now I assume that anyone starting Henry Wood, will, upon getting into the first chapter, be so enthralled, as to prefer death to stopping reading.  So it may never come up.

I still wanted to add it, because, like everything on this journey, I like to learn.  The next book may be about photography tips.  This would be a perfect example of a book, which a reader would want to jump to a specific chapter of interest.  Now I realize that most of you may not be interested in ever publishing to a Kindle or other epub format, but for those who are, let me show you the code I have for Henry Wood.

NCX Table of Contents Code

The first line is important.  I don’t know why, but I imagine it tells the Kindle something important.  The second line, h3 is a heading type, the alignment is to the center, and the the word ‘Contents’ is displayed, followed by the closed /h3 tag.  Then the 3rd line starts by aligning the chapter in the center too, adds the identifyer for the anchor, and then the portion which will be displayed ‘January 1955′

<div name=”toc”>
<h3 align=”center”>Contents</h3>
<p align=”center”>1 – <a href=”#chapter1″>January 1955</a></p>

After one has created a line for each chapter heading, one must then add the anchor to space before each chapter.  It looks like this. 
<div id=”chapter1″>

And I placed it right before the chapter heading  <p><b>Chapter 1</b></p>.

It all looks pretty confusing, but it is important to include.  I want Henry Wood to be of the best quality possible, much like I want the ikebana to be bubble free.  So now I need to create a jpg file for the Title Page, and figure out how to include a photo.  Then I will be ready to hit publish.  I would imagine that by the time I do figure this out, the repair coat will be dry, and I can glue up the ikebana.