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I’ve been focused on developing standard CSS for epubs as well as statically generated websites. Also, I hope to write an XML schema and write some XSLT transformations.
Epub / CSS
AI: Troubleshooting vertical gaps between HTML Elements.
Two tools for creating/reading books with synced narration: Storyteller Platform and EPUB Media Overlay Editor (epub-moe) (Background).
WordPress / Blogging / Webmastering
Wow, i just realized that the default 2025 WP theme uses a font-style which is much too light for most readers. It’s somewhat hard to figure out where to make global changes to font in the theme.
In WP-Admin, choose Appearance –> Editor –> Styles (under DESIGN) –> Typography.
Then under Elements, select Text (or Headings, etc).
Under the dropdown option, you can choose the variant of the font family which appeals to you for the font.
Most WordPress themes come with two or three installed fonts (usually from Google Fonts). I’m not 100% sure, but I’m 98% sure that the installed fonts in WP themes are variable fonts (which can be customized on the fly — and are supported on most browsers, though not on ebook reading systems).
For the 2025 theme, I was using Manrope font for text, but I was using the Regular variant (which is too light). All I had to do was switch from Regular to Medium and voila! That would change the variant of the font family globally to a darker and nicer Medium.
AI Queries
Here is Gemini’s answer about non-Kindle ebook platforms globally.
Here is Gemini’s infuriating answer about why Google Play Books does not support break CSS (drives me crazy!)
XML / XSLT
Graphics/Multimedia
YT dlp, a utility to help you download vids and audio from Youtube. There’s a web-based interface you can use, but I downloaded the command line program, used the presets to write my request and downloaded it locally fairly easily.
I have been making some more literary elevator pitch vids.
Are they better than when I started making them? Unsure, but I’m getting faster at making them.
Up until now I spent a lot of time learning how to use Vegas Pro 19 and troubleshooting the idiosyncracies of the software on my middle-aged PC.
I also used to spend a lot of time editing and moving clips into the right position so that the transitions didn’t look too terrible. You have to have a sense of timing and rhythm. Strangely, it’s easy to overedit out the pauses and breaks. I have to force myself to let things naturally. But you also have to sense which parts of the sequence is not accomplishing anything or dragging down the rest of the video.
(Correction: While I generally agree that editing out the pauses of video looks awkward, you can easily edit the pauses of audio, and the resulting talk will be cleaner, cleaner and easier to follow Audio edits of speech are barely noticeable).
I’m past that. Sure, occasionally I have problems, but I usually don’t spend much time on that. Here is what I spend a lot more time on:
Writing the script. These elevator pitches have to be carefully scripted. First, they need to be reasonably interesting and succinct. Second, I usually am integrating several audio/video files into a single coherent script. It can be hard to do this and still keep the message coherent.
Preparing the graphics. Perhaps other video editors make it easy to create graphics within the program. Eventually I realized that this was extremely tedious with Vegas Pro 19. It was much easier and faster to make slides using my preferred graphic program (Gimp for me) and then just import the finished graphic into Vegas Pro. For my last two vids, I ramped up my skill level a lot on Gimp (especially for the first and last slides). I do the credits almost entirely in Gimp. Sure, it may be nice to have video effects or animation, but is it really providing that much value?
Selecting graphics to use as inserts. I learned quickly that the videos of myself are laughably bad and erratic. I need to do multiple takes and edit until I have the best take. Sure, I can edit out the crappy parts and if you juxtapose two clips together, it doesn’t look awful. But even though audio edits are almost invisible, video edits are still noticeable, and you should avoid these juxtapositions whenever possible. Instead, it’s better to go from a full size image to the start of the next clip. For that reason, it’s important to collect as many graphic inserts as you can.
The challenge has to do with permissions and rights. I basically have no budget for clearance. If I put an image on my video for less than 2 seconds, a fair use case can plausibly be made. On the other hand, the last thing I need is a legal headache after production. Obviously it’s better to find no-cost media which are free to use in commercial contexts. But some kinds of media are highly unlikely to bring legal scrutiny. I’m almost at the point where I’d start subscribing to royalty-free media just to avoid the possibility of headaches.
Decorations for Talking Heads. I use a lot of talking head shots of myself, and that quickly becomes tiresome unless you have inserts or cuts to something with more animation or motion.
But you can liven a static video somewhat by adding graphics or text to the images. Vegas Pro has a Picture in Picture (PIP)video effect which allows you to add smaller graphics inside videos, and believe me, I have used this effect to the max! (By the way, I use this effect so much that I wonder why there isn’t an easier way to add it). Sometimes these PIPs are the only interesting thing about the video.
Using/Making Transparent Images. Once you decide to overlay a lot of images over video, you face the problem of having to slice out the image out of the original graphic. You can’t be constantly overlaying rectangles of photos onto videos when all you need is a single element inside the rectangle.
The end goal is to produce an image where only the element is visible and the rest of the picture is transparent. That means when you overlay the image onto the video, only the selected element will appear over the video. Note that images cannot be transparent if a)the image is a .jpg file or b)if the image in your editor lacks an alpha channel. So if you are manipulating the image in gimp, you probably need to be using an .xcf file (gimp’s native format) or a .png or .webp file.
Therefore, I have had to learn a lot about how to slice portions of an image and add it to a video (or another graphic). Learning how to do this has probably been the hardest and most time-consuming part of using Gimp (my graphics tool). Here is the sequence of steps I have to do to slice an image out of a picture.
- Add an alpha channel to the original graphic.
- Figure out how to isolate/select the element you want from the original image. (More on that below)
- In Gimp, Turn on the Selection Window (under Windows) so that it appears in a dockable window.
- Use your selection method to select only the parts of the image that you want. (You may need to choose Select –> Invert to achieve that).
- Highlight the delete button to suck out the rest of the picture and leave it as transparent.
- Use Crop to reduce the size of your edited image even further.
Selecting by Color. Probably the most common use case is removing the background of an image. If you are lucky, the contrast between the background and main element is clear. (If you generate the image from scratch using AI, all you need to tell AI to make the background of the image a certain solid color which you can easily remove).
To do this, click the area of the background with the color, Select by Color and then press Delete. You might need to invert the colors.
Alternatively, you can use the Path tool to draw around the borders of the element you want to select.
- Start adding a series of dots to surround the region you want to enclose. Be sure to add them consecutively (and right click to delete extra ones). Eventually the last place you want to place a dot is the first place you put a dot, so that will cause the region to be enclosed. (If it doesn’t connect smoothly, or if the dot goes off somewhere wild, you may need to delete dots or just start over). Press enter within the tool.
- Click delete (or Invert –> Delete) to delete the part outside the connected shape.
In one case I had several regions which needed to be deleted. So I had to delete the regions one at a time. After you use the path tool to draw another shape around your second region, in path options, click SELECT FROM PATH.
The key thing was making sure that the Selection Window is visible so you can verify that the second region is in fact highlighted along with the primary region. The selection window confirms which regions are being selected for deletion.
Update: Select by Path is still a very clumsy way to make things transparent. But I found some of the paint tools like CLONE help smooth out imperfections of photographs.
Removing a strip from the middle of an image and connecting everything back:
- Select the segment: Use the Rectangle Select Tool (
R) to select the entire right segment. - Cut it: Press
Ctrl + X (or Cmd + X on Mac). - Paste it: Press
Ctrl + V (or Cmd + V on Mac). This creates a Floating Selection. - Move it: Press
M to activate the Move Tool. Click inside your pasted segment and drag it to the left until it abuts the left segment. - Anchor it: Press
Ctrl + H (or click the green anchor icon at the bottom of your Layers panel) to lock it back down into the main layer.
In GIMP 3.2 for Windows 11, pressing Control + H acts as a toggle for your selection boundaries. It hides or shows the “marching ants” (the dotted lines) that outline your active selection. This lets you view your image clearly without those lines blocking your design.
Honestly I have a hard time moving just the selected segment and then doing other functions (crop, clone, etc.). Some things I have noticed. If you are connecting two segments, one exists on a layer above the other; that may interfere with the ability to edit/overwrite portions of it. You can fix this by reordering the layer and/or checking the Sample merged option on Clone tool.
Here’s another way to do it with Zealous Crop (I haven’t tried this before, but it makes sense)
If the empty space between the segments is completely transparent (shows a gray checkerboard pattern), GIMP can do this instantly for you.
- Remove any active selections by pressing
Shift + Ctrl + A. - Go to the top menu and select Image > Zealous Crop.
- GIMP will automatically slice out the empty transparent strip and seamlessly snap the left and right segments together. [1, 2]
I have noticed that despite cropping gimp will “remember” the deleted/hidden parts of the original image. I could not figure out why, so I ended up exporting from .xcf file to a .png file and/or flattening the image.
Tips on Using Gimp’s Clone Tool
- After hitting the Clone tool, you should control-click on the region you want to start cloning.
- You can adjust the clone brush size to suit your needs (or even choose a different brush), but you can also change the angle of the clone tool. This makes it easier and smoother to overwrite diagonals.
- Sometimes Clone doesn’t work. To fix, Select None and/or change layer order.
Set Up Your Target Layer (Best Practice)
To keep your edit clean and non-destructive, you should clone onto a fresh, blank layer so you don’t overwrite your original artwork.
- Step 1: Open your Layers Dialog (
Ctrl + L). - Step 2: Click the Create a new layer icon at the bottom of the panel, name it “Cloned Elements”, and make sure it is filled with Transparency.
- Step 3: Click this new blank layer to make it your active target layer. [1]
3. Perform the Clone Action