html tidy

[Notjohn]

I had to dig hard to find the Tidy option in 0.6.2. What is the default? When I finally found it, HTML Tidy was off, Pretty Pretty was on, and all the options were on. What do they mean?

* Open

* Save

* Replace in all files

("Notjohn" seemed like a good idea at the time. When I first set up an identity on Kindle Direct Publishing, I was mystified to go to my control panel, whatever it's called, and find that my name was shown as John. Changing my alias seemed the easiest way to clear this up.)

[meme]

@Notjohn. Have you tried the Sigil User Guide?

[Iznogood]

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

It's better than being in a position where you've broken something, don't quickly see the error, can't save but have to end the editing session and be somewhere else! Auto-fix can lose data.

This problem is easy to circumvent - comment out all erroneous parts of your code - the entire chapter if needed. You can now save it, pluss you get a valid book

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by meme

@Notjohn. Have you tried the Sigil User Guide?

Almost every day!

[meme]

Good to hear

In the user guide the Preferences chapter explains all the preference options. In addition, the options should have tooltips on them.

Stick with the default Pretty Print Tidy all options on and it should be fine.

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by meme

Stick with the default Pretty Print Tidy all options on and it should be fine.

Yes, that's what I settled on. Thanks very much!

One of these days I am going to turn HTML Tidy loose on a test book and see what happens. It would be great if it made only the DESIRABLE corrections....

[exaltedwombat]

Originally Posted by Iznogood

This problem is easy to circumvent - comment out all erroneous parts of your code - the entire chapter if needed. You can now save it, pluss you get a valid book

That's the most sensible suggestion yet, and results in exactly what is required!

No big problem entering the comment-out code. But is there a neat way of automating "Select all, comment out"?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

Yes, that's what I settled on. Thanks very much!

One of these days I am going to turn HTML Tidy loose on a test book and see what happens. It would be great if it made only the DESIRABLE corrections....

It does only make desirable changes, depending on your definition of desirable. I am sure the authors did not intend it to make undesirable changes.

Dale

[st_albert]

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

That's the most sensible suggestion yet, and results in exactly what is required!

No big problem entering the comment-out code. But is there a neat way of automating "Select all, comment out"?

Well, I have in my clips the code

<!-- \1 -->

which will comment out all selected text, but you have to beware that you can't have a comment within a comment, so "select all" followed by commenting it all out may not work if you already have comments within the selected text. (Or maybe even the string '--' (w/out quotes), for that matter.)

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

It does only make desirable changes, depending on your definition of desirable. I am sure the authors did not intend it to make undesirable changes.

Dale

That's good to know. But HTML Tidy made a dog's breakfast out of my website html when I tested it the other day! It's built with tables, to be sure, and my books are not. Still, I am going to proceed cautiously.

[DiapDealer]

GIGO.

I've limited myself to using only the Pretty Print clean-source setting since it became an option, but even before that... I never ran into a situation where HTML Tidy (in Sigil) resulted in the "loss" of any well-formed, valid, ebook-typical xhtml. Yes, I realize it's still technically possible—and as such, may be considered too risky by some. That's understandable. But unless you're feeding it the most heinously formatted xhtml (or you just don't have the requisite knowledge/experience to directly edit xhtml correctly/safely), I don't think the HTML Tidy feature in Sigil is quite the evil bugbear that many seem to want to make it out to be.

If you don't need it; then by all means, don't use it (full-blown Tidy). But if your coding skills/knowledge dictate that you might need some "help" of the automagic variety?... well then, you generally takes what you gets. *shrugs*

[exaltedwombat]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I never ran into a situation where HTML Tidy (in Sigil) resulted in the "loss" of any well-formed, valid, ebook-typical xhtml.

That's the point, surely? If you write good code, you don't need Tidy. But bad code might lose data.

Back in the dim, ancient history of EBook conversion (i.e. a year or so ago :-) when I was still kidding myself that automatic conversion from complex Word or Quark layout was feasible, I was trying to tame VERY messy code - and more than once lost text.