New Version of Mahaparinirvana Sutra

[Kyosan]

Hello everyone.

I've made a version of the complete Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra. I got the text from Dr. Tony Page's website and put it together in a form that I think is easy to read. Dr. Page was kind enough to allow me to put it on his website at

http://www.nirvanasutra.net

I would like to get feedback, especially from people using Internet Explorer. I tested it on the linux versions of both Chrome and Firefox and it seems to work well on both of them. I don't have Internet Explorer on my computer so I haven't tested it on that. Feedback is welcome, both positive and negative.

Someone else had the same idea and created a printable PDF version of the sutra also derived from the text on Dr. Pages website. I put that on Dr. Pages website also. The PDF version was produced in 2007; so it's a little older, but there haven't been much if any edits to the text of the sutra since then. You can find both versions of the sutra by going to the above web address and clicking on the '"Nirvana Sutra" Complete' link or by going to the web address at

http://www.nirvanasutra.net/nirvanasutracomplete.htm

The second link on that webpage points to my online version of the sutra and the third points to a download-able version. The download-able version is exactly the same but is zipped for easy downloading.

Thanks!

Edit: I'm sorry!, I think this post isn't clear enough and is causing confusion. To view the sutra, please disregard the links in this post, use the following link and use the icons on the right-hand-side to navigate through the sutra. Thanks.

http://www.nirvanasutra.net/convenient/preface.html

[Kyosan]

I'm surprised that no one has responded to my post after 2 days. I really would like to get feedback about by version of the Mahaparinirvana Sutra. Like I said above, I haven't tested it on Internet Explorer so I don't know for certain whether it works well on that web browser. If there are any problems, I would like to find out about them so that I can fix them.

I created this new version of the sutra because I wanted a version that is easy to read, convenient to use and easy to download and use offline. I think that I have accomplished all of these goals, so if you haven't looked at it I think you are missing out on something good. If you can't figure out how to go beyond the first page, try using the icons on the right-hand-side.

Here is a direct link to online sutra

http://www.nirvanasutra.net/convenient/preface.html

I will be grateful for any feedback. Thanks.


kyosan

[Mr. G]

Looks fine on firefox for XP and Vista

[Kyosan]

Thanks mr. gordo. It's good to know that it's working well on the Windows version of Firefox. You are using Firefox 4, I imagine.

[Mr. G]

Yes sir, firefox 4

[PadmaVonSamba]

Generally, reading a big block of of white text on a black background is hard on the eyes.
This web color finder might give you a few more options:
http://www.ficml.org/jemimap/style/color/wheel.html

[Kyosan]

Generally, reading a big block of of white text on a black background is hard on the eyes.
This web color finder might give you a few more options:
http://www.ficml.org/jemimap/style/color/wheel.html

Thanks for responding PadmaVonSamba. That's exactly the kind of feedback that I want to hear. I think that my first post in this thread wasn't focused enough and caused confusion. I think you are looking at the introductory page that has links to my version of the sutra and to the PDF version of the sutra by a person named Do. The colors you mentioned are basically the colors used in Dr. Pages website. The colors I'm using are similar to the colors used by Dharmawheel Forums. I used light khaki for the background and black for the text. Here is a direct link to my version of the sutra.

http://www.nirvanasutra.net/convenient/preface.html

I would like to know how people like the colors I've chosen. I've chosen those colors because I think the text stands out well, and those colors are easy on the eyes. Someone else might have a different opinion though and I'd like to hear it. I'd also like to hear about how the fonts look. I'm mainly concerned about the fonts of the sutra text itself, since those are the fonts that people will be reading the most.

[Kyosan]

I am the one who wrote the introductory page mentioned above. It's easy to tell because, unlike what Dr. Page writes, what I write has grammatical and punctuation errors. I'll look into how to change the background color on this webpage.

[Seishin]

Nice work Kyosan. I agree about the background, and also the different coloured fonts. That would be my only critisism.

[Kyosan]

Nice work Kyosan. I agree about the background, and also the different coloured fonts. That would be my only critisism.

Thank you very much for your feedback Seishin.

It sounds to me that you are looking at the other webpages in Dr. Pages website, not my sutra. I'm using light khaki for the background (similar to what Dharmawheel uses for posts but a little lighter) and black for the text throughout the entire sutra. Dr. Page uses a black background with different colored fonts depending on what section of the sutra you are looking at.

My sutra has a navigation panel on the right-hand-side with 3 icons. Clicking on the top icon brings you to the table-of-contents which lists the chapter numbers and titles. Every item in the table-of-contents is a link which takes you to that particular chapter. Clicking on the middle icon takes you to the previous chapter and clicking on the bottom icon takes you to the next chapter. The icons have tool-tips. When you hoover the mouse pointer over the icon without clicking it tells you where, in the sutra, clicking on that icon will take you.

Here is a direct link to the table-of-contents for the sutra (this does have different colors for the fonts because they are links).

http://www.nirvanasutra.net/convenient/contents.html

Here is a direct link to "Chapter One" of the sutra.

http://www.nirvanasutra.net/convenient/ch01.html

My version of the sutra consists of 48 sections (preface + contents + 46 chapters). The web address for all of these sections begin with "http://www.nirvanasutra.net/convenient/". I'm using the exact same text Dr. Page uses, repackaged in a form that I think is more convenient and easier to read.

[Seishin]

Ah yes much better. Sorry for any confusion.

[Kyosan]

Ah yes much better. Sorry for any confusion.

Well, you weren't the only one confused. You know how it is. You work on something and all the details are exceedingly clear to you. When you try to communicate some of the details to others, it may not be so clear to them because they are not familiar with your work. That's something I need to keep in mind when writing posts.

[Kyosan]

Hi everyone.

I have made some changes to the sutra. I think the text column width was too wide before so I narrowed it for easier reading. I have also made some changes to make it work better on smaller computer screens and would like to know how it works on people's netbook computers, like 10 inch screens or less.

If you are using Internet Explorer, I'd like to know how it works on that, whether it looks right to you. If you don't know what Internet Explorer is, if you click on an icon that looks something like this

Internet Explorer Icon

ie.aspx.jpeg (3.97 KiB) Viewed 817 times

to access the Internet you are using Internet Explorer. That's what most people use to access the Internet, at least in the US. Here is a link to the table-of-contents

http://www.nirvanasutra.net/convenient/contents.html

Don't anyone be shy. I don't bite. At least I usually don't.

[Seishin]

Excellent! Easy to read and easy to use. Well done!

[Kyosan]

Excellent! Easy to read and easy to use. Well done!

Thanks Seishin. That's great to hear. Do you know what Internet software (web browser) you are using? Is it Internet Explorer, Firefox or something else? I'm asking because I'd would like to confirm that it works properly on all types of Internet software.

[Kunga Lhamo]

Good job, Kyosan!

It looks great in Firefox 4, Chrome 12 (latest) and IE8. Very comfortable to read and easy navigate. Good choice of colours. The text font looks nice, crisp and clear, especially in Chrome and the pages load very fast in all browsers. Excellent!

Some very trivial things you may want to check. The picture at the beginning, at >512K it may take too long to render with a slow connection. It would work better and clearer with a smaller size image file (optimised for web). The Button / icon for 'Contents' is one generally used for "Help", it might be better to change it to one without the big "?"

In my Firefox setup, the printed page would miss the end part of the right hand side of the text (even using 'shrink to fit', which doesn't always work for me) The pages come out perfect by reducing the print to 80% of original size. This is probably due to my screen resolution setup - forced to suit my short-sightedness , you may want to check 'print preview' with a standard screen and browser setup.


Lucy

[Kyosan]

Thanks so much Lucy. Your post is really helpful. I'm glad to get this kind of feedback. I have a background in computer science and am able to handle a job like this but am not a web designer so I need all the help I can get.

I think it's a good idea to reduce the size of the Gifu Buddha image file. I'll reduce the image size somewhat and resample it. I was uncertain about what to use for the contents icon and am glad to get feedback on that. Since 'CONTENTS' is a table, what do you think about an icon that shows a table, maybe something like this?

Windows-Table-icon.png (4.51 KiB) Viewed 744 times

I wasn't expecting anyone to try it out on a printer. When I first started working on this project, I was giving a lot of thought into making it printable. But when half way through working on it, I discovered that someone has already done this PDF

http://www.nirvanasutra.net/convenient/ ... e_2007.pdf

which is excellent for printing on A4 paper and has page numbers. So, after that, I just focused on optimizing the sutra for computer viewing. I didn't worry about page numbers or having everything scaled for printing or the use of graphics. The column width I'm using is about 7.75 inches so it makes sense that you would need to reduce it to 80% to get the standard column width of 6.5 inches for printing on paper.

Thanks again Lucy.

[Seishin]

I'm using Internet Explorer

[Kyosan]

I'm using Internet Explorer

Thanks Seishin. That's good to hear. I now have several reports for each of the major web browsers. It's looking good.

[Kyosan]

Lucy;
That Buddha image that I was using is a nice image but the photograph sucks. I've been looking on flicker and found a much higher quality image that is legal to use (CC licensed). It's a Buddha statue inside the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya India. The file is about 160KB, less than one third the size of the old image file, after trimming it down a bit. That's great because the "PREFACE" page loads much faster and and the ZIP file containing the entire sutra is now 0.96MB. Before it was 1.35MB, so that will load faster also.

Thanks for the feedback on that. It turned out to be a major improvement.