Sigil 0.6.0 Released

[theducks]

Originally Posted by user_none

A (hopefully) corrected x86 Windows build has been posted.

@PalingB, You can change the extension. It just doesn't default highlight it now when you select rename.

Works great (and fast)
I have beat it up and the results are

[DiapDealer]

Wouldn't you know it ... I finally nailed down the bug that was causing the "Sigil is a Multi-platform EPUB ebook editor has stopped working" error whenever closing Sigil (the latest betas), just as the new version gets released. And yes, the bug is still there in 0.6.0 (on Windows Vista 32-bit and XP 32-bit anyway).

Anyway...
I combine my Book Browser widget and my Table of Contents widget so that they are tabbed on the right side of the main Sigil window. Not "stacked"... tabbed: they occupy the exact same space and there's two tabs at the bottom that allow you to flip back and forth between the two widgets.

To reproduce: once you have the two widgets "tabbed"... simply flipping to the other widget's tab and closing Sigil will cause the crash on exit. If you never change to the other tab in that session, you won't get the crash. But if you change to the other tab at any time during that session... you get the crash on exit.

This is with the downloaded 32-bit binary installer built using Qt 4.8.3 and also with a custom built version compiled using Qt 4.8.2. The same behavior happens on Vista 32-bit and XP 32-bit. It didn't happen under the same scenarios with Sigil 0.5.3 and Qt 4.7.4. I'm guessing it's just one more Qt bugaboo (since the window/widget state appears to be successfully saved/preserved upon a Sigil restart).

I was trying to close Sigil anyway, so its not a big deal at all, but it was just bugging me that I couldn't nail it down.

Let me know if you can't reproduce it. I only discovered the "tabbing" ability of the widgets quite by accident myself a while back. It can prove a bit frustrating getting them to do it, but the window real-estate saved is worth it, in my opinion.

I'm loving this latest incarnation of Sigil, by the way. Fantastic work.

[kiwidude]

@DiapDealer - sigh... after all the months of beta testing you just *had* to wait until the day after we release to figure this out, didn't you...

I didn't even know you could do that with the Sigil (Qt) environment. And yes I can replicate it. It seems to change the order that Qt disposes of its objects and I can see where it is failing in the code. Obviously it is too late for 0.6.0 now to be fixed, but we'll try to fix it for 0.6.1 (which won't be any time soon based on how drained the devs are at this point).

[mrmikel]

This is an error message I got when I forgot the file was open in Sony Reader when I tried to save.

Error info: Cannot save file J:/Our Documents/Etexts/Unknown/Stillwell's Mission to China1.epub: C:\Users\john\Desktop\x64\src\Sigil\Exporters\Expo rtEPUB.cpp(213): Throw in function void __cdecl ExportEPUB::SaveFolderAsEpubToLocation(const class QString &,const class QString &)
Dynamic exception type: class boost::exception_detail::clone_impl<struct CannotOpenFile>
std::exception::what: Unknown exception
[struct file_fullpath * __ptr64] = J:/Our Documents/Etexts/Unknown/Stillwell's Mission to China1.epub

Sigil version: 0.6.0
Runtime Qt: 4.8.3
Compiled Qt: 4.8.3
Platform: Windows SysInfo ID 144

[user_none]

Originally Posted by Serpentine

@user_none - I just wanted to say thanks for not pushing through with the ckeditor stuff. I know I come off as a bit of a tool, but the native quality of Sigil really is something great. I also know it likely pushed you away from being very active, and it's not easy when a minority attacks already implemented improvements, not to just push it home harder. Thanks for listening

If it doesn't work it doesn't work. We won't know until we try and see how people react. The only thing lost is time. I haven't been as active due to other reasons.

Originally Posted by Serpentine

I have a few ideas that I'd like to hack in and submit as patches. Some basic table editing and fixes (they currently eat nbsps), and my pet little image manipulation time-savers (white->alpha, anyone editing textbooks knows the annoyance; as well as some resizing options). Those I just need to port from a tool of mine, need to shine them up a bit and remove kde-specific stuff.

Let me know if you need any help. I can't guarantee everything will be included but patches are welcome.

Originally Posted by PageLab

Why support for Mac OS 10.7 (Lion) and earlier was dropped in this new version?

Support for OS X <= 10.6 was dropped because Apple only supports the current and previous release. <= 10.6 SDKs are not shipped as part of XCode in 10.8 and the OS does not receive security updates. It doesn't make sense to support an OS that the manufacturer doesn't even support.

At this point I don't know why Sigil isn't working on 10.7. It's built against the 10.7 SDK. However, my laptop is having major issues. I'll look into this issue further next week once the new Macbook Pro I ordered arrives.

[user_none]

Originally Posted by mrmikel

This is an error message I got when I forgot the file was open in Sony Reader when I tried to save.

Error info: Cannot save file J:/Our Documents/Etexts/Unknown/Stillwell's Mission to China1.epub: C:\Users\john\Desktop\x64\src\Sigil\Exporters\Expo rtEPUB.cpp(213): Throw in function void __cdecl ExportEPUB::SaveFolderAsEpubToLocation(const class QString &,const class QString &)
Dynamic exception type: class boost::exception_detail::clone_impl<struct CannotOpenFile>
std::exception::what: Unknown exception
[struct file_fullpath * __ptr64] = J:/Our Documents/Etexts/Unknown/Stillwell's Mission to China1.epub

Sigil version: 0.6.0
Runtime Qt: 4.8.3
Compiled Qt: 4.8.3
Platform: Windows SysInfo ID 144

This is an OS level error. The message is misleading (I need to make them clearer) but what's happening is the file, "J:/Our Documents/Etexts/Unknown/Stillwell's Mission to China1.epub" cannot be opened for writing. The other app you have the file open in has locked the file at the OS level prevening Sigil from writing the changes to the file.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

@DiapDealer - sigh... after all the months of beta testing you just *had* to wait until the day after we release to figure this out, didn't you...

I didn't even know you could do that with the Sigil (Qt) environment. And yes I can replicate it. It seems to change the order that Qt disposes of its objects and I can see where it is failing in the code. Obviously it is too late for 0.6.0 now to be fixed, but we'll try to fix it for 0.6.1 (which won't be any time soon based on how drained the devs are at this point).

I know, I know. Terrible timing, right?. But I truly just now nailed down the steps and wanted to make sure it was documented and "out there". Now mark it down and forget it about for a good long while. v0.6.0 is an amazing piece of collaborative work, and I—in no way—intended to "harsh your mellow" on its release day. It (the bug) won't slow me down in the least and it doesn't sound like many people use the functionality that exposes it anyway.

[jugaor]

Congrats! The new version seems very robust and nice!

However, I must complaint about
Implement issue 1610: Use html instead of xhtml as the default extension for new blank HTML files.

Please, reconsider this issue.
Case: If we open a previous document (properly numbered xhtmls inside) and add/divide a section, it starts over with "Section0001.html"!
And bulk renaming isn't a help, bc it doesn't touch the extensions…


*
BTW, I belong to a small community of editors. We make books using templates (created with previous versions, as usual, all with .xhtml).
With 0.60, we will have to update all of them!

In addition, we have external collaborators who continue using previous versions of Sigil (even 0.34, with old PCs)... Can you imagine the problem of working between versions?

Please, please, at least put an option to choose the new/split sections' extension! It would be perfect for us!

TIA
jugaor
(sorry for my bad English)

[meg1212]

Are you sure you can't make this version compatible with earlier versions of Mac OS? Im still running 10.6.8, and would love to be able to use the latest version of Sigil.

[mtg]

Originally Posted by user_none

A (hopefully) corrected x86 Windows build has been posted.

The new x86 build works well. Thanks.

[meme]

Originally Posted by jugaor

Case: If we open a previous document (properly numbered xhtmls inside) and add/divide a section, it starts over with "Section0001.html"!
And bulk renaming isn't a help, bc it doesn't touch the extensions…


*
BTW, I belong to a small community of editors. We make books using templates (created with previous versions, as usual, all with .xhtml).
With 0.60, we will have to update all of them!

In addition, we have external collaborators who continue using previous versions of Sigil (even 0.34, with old PCs)... Can you imagine the problem of working between versions?

Please, please, at least put an option to choose the new/split sections' extension! It would be perfect for us!

We'll consider how to address this in a future version.

However, whether your files end in .xhtml or .html do not affect how they are displayed by ereaders, so you do not need to change the extension (although I understand that you might want the extension to be the same for all files).

When creating a new section, Section001.html is always created if it doesn't already exist. You can of course rename it or bulk rename all files (but as you said this just changes their name not the extension).

[Oldpilot]

I don't mean to rain on the parade, what with Hurricane Sandy and all, but I thought I should report that 6.0 goes non-responsive when I open an html file on my XP desktop, just as Beta and Beta-Beta did (though the behavior seems a bit different each time: Beta just vanished in an augenblick, and Beta-Beta crashed like a normal Windows failure, and 6.0 just goes dead in the water, as it were).

But I am perfectly happy with 5.3. I'm not whining, just reporting.

(And no, I haven't tried 6.0 on a different computer. Too many books, too little time!)

[ronaldl]

In the past, I made a donation to the Sigil development effort because I could envision where this could be a great program for "epub" writers. You guys have not disappointed me with this issue. Keep coming up with new features for Sigil.

Ronald L.

[Doitsu]

@Oldpilot:
Sigil 0.6.0 runs just fine on my XP machine. Most likely your .html file contains some serious syntax errors. Try cleaning it up with HTML Tidy Online before opening it with Sigil.
Also select Help > About to check the Qt version that Sigil uses. (It's 4.8.3 on my machine.)

@user_none & meme
I tried to add a new spell check dictionary by copying it to the \dictionaries folder, but it didn't work. Apparently spell-check dictionaries now need to be copied to:

...\Local Settings\Application Data\sigil-ebook\sigil\hunspell_dictionaries

instead of the \dictionaries folder.

Even though very few users will ever need to install their own spell-check dictionaries, it'd be nice if you included instructions on how to add dictionaries for other languages in the online help.

Alternatively, future Sigil versions could simply mimic the behavior of Sigil 0.5.3 by moving all non-standard dictionaries found in the \dictionaries folder to the \hunspell_dictionaries folder.

[PageLab]

Originally Posted by user_none

At this point I don't know why Sigil isn't working on 10.7. It's built against the 10.7 SDK. However, my laptop is having major issues. I'll look into this issue further next week once the new Macbook Pro I ordered arrives.

Unfortunatelly, there's a lot of macs out there stuck on OSX 10.7, and some are still very capable machines, like the oldest MacPro. It would be awesome if you could make it work under 10.7.