Beta testing calibre 4

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

@eschwartz: Given that all plugins will need to be ported to python3, it will be a long time before calibre is ready for py3. But yes, my next painful job after v4 is done is to work on getting betas ready with py3 so the plugin developers can start work on porting their plugins.

Yeah, I just thought it might be nice for a python3 port to be available post-2020, which did not require webengine. Essentially because of the fact that some Linux distros do not make webengine available (I discussed the topic recently in the Sigil subforum if you recall).

Either way a python3 beta coming soon sounds quite nice.

[kovidgoyal]

@eschwartz I highly doubt these distros will remain recalcitrant forever. webengine is going to be used in more and more software over time, if they refuse to package it they will find themselves reduced to even greater obscurity. And as far as I can tell their issue with webengine is not that they dislike the license but that they have not verified the licensing, seems like they just need to do the work for that.

So while a nice thought, I wouldn't worry too much about it. python2 is going to be maintained for some years yet, so they can freeze on 3.47.1 if they feel the need to.

[theengine]

Hi Kovid,

I'm on macOS 10.14.6 and Calibre 3.99.1
I've noticed two things with the beta.
1. When in Edit Book and I change the indent setting, the Live Preview does not update like it did in the stable versions.
2. My Mac is in Dark Mode, and I like Calibre in this mode too. Thanks for implementing it. However, the dark blueish colour for the font in the Book Details section for author, tags, format, path etc is hard to read against the black background. I've searched on how to change this font colour only but can't find anything. Can anything be done to fix this?
Thanks for Calibre, it is wonderful.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by latepaul

Also I changed the font size to something comfortable for reading and it made the fonts for the interface (preferences etc) comicly large. Can I change them independently?

In the next beta the viewer will use the same font/size for its interface as the main calibre program, so you can control it via the main calibre settings.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

In the next beta the viewer will use the same font/size for its interface as the main calibre program, so you can control it via the main calibre settings.

Thanks!

[kovidgoyal]

@theengine: Which indent setting? Regarding the link color, you can overrideit by overriding the book_details.css template, see https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/cus...ates-et-cetera

[theengine]

Kovid, the Styles.css file, namely changing "text-indent 1.25em". After doing this previous versions changed the live preview to immediately alter the indent. Now it doesn't.
Successfully changed the font colour. Thanks.

[thiago.eec]

Hi!

I've just downloaded the x32 version for windows. Just got this error when trying to change the icons theme:

Spoiler:

calibre, version 3.99.1
ERROR: Unhandled exception: <b>NameError</b>:global name 'unicode_type' is not defined

calibre 3.99.1 Portable embedded-python: True is64bit: False
Windows-10-10.0.18362-SP0 Windows ('32bit', 'WindowsPE')
32bit process running on 64bit windows
('Windows', '10', '10.0.18362')
Python 2.7.16+
Windows: ('10', '10.0.18362', 'SP0', u'Multiprocessor Free')
Interface language: None
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\preferences\look_feel.py", line 577, in choose_icon_theme
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\icon_theme.py", line 581, in __init__
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\widgets2.py", line 172, in __init__
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\icon_theme.py", line 628, in setup_ui
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\icon_theme.py", line 616, in add_row
NameError: global name 'unicode_type' is not defined

[kovidgoyal]

@thiago.eec that will be fixed in the next beta

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by theengine

Kovid, the Styles.css file, namely changing "text-indent 1.25em". After doing this previous versions changed the live preview to immediately alter the indent. Now it doesn't.
Successfully changed the font colour. Thanks.

This will be fixed in the next beta

[theengine]

Thank you

[kovidgoyal]

Released 3.99.2 with fixes for all reported bugs. Note that the viewr interface font has now been set to be the same as the calibre interface font, not sure how well that will work on all systems, so let me know if it gives any issues.

[thiago.eec]

The new viewer looks great. Really clean. Kind of a chock on the first glance... but very nice.

Now, my observations:

1) I really miss the scroll bar on the right side. Maybe it could be hidden? I really miss being able to fast scan the book.

2) There are some inconsistencies with SVG covers:

This is my cover:

Spoiler:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" lang="pt-BR" xml:lang="pt-BR">
	<head>
		<title>Capa</title>
		<link href="css/Frontmatter.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
	</head>
	<body id="idParaDest-a">
    <section epub:type="cover" role="doc-cover" aria-label="Capa">
      <div class="Cover">
        <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" version="1.1" width="100%" height="100%" preserveAspectRatio="xMidYMid meet" viewBox="0 0 451 720">
          <image height="720" width="451" xlink:href="image/cover.jpg"/>
        </svg>
      </div>
    </section>
	</body>
</html>

/*Cover*/
@page {
  padding: 0;
  margin: 0;
  }
body {
  padding: 0;
  margin: 0;
}
div.Cover {
  text-align: center;
  padding: 0;
  margin: 0;
  height: 100vh;
}

2.1) Looks like the cover shown on the viewer is actually the IMAGE set as cover. It does not show the XHTML cover, even if it is marked as linear on my opf. This way, I have no control on how the cover is displayed. Small images are shown centered at the top. Bigger images behaves like it has a SVG wrapper with 'preserveAspectRatio=xMidYMid meet' and fills the whole page.
(See the image attached, old viewer and new viewer rendering the same book).

2.2) On another case, my XHTML cover has a SVG with title and desc elements. This one does show on the viewer. But now I have two covers: one of the image file, other of the XHTML file. Nonetheless, the preserveAspectRatio property is still ignored on the rendered image. At least it does seem to use "xMidYMid meet" as default.

Spoiler:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" lang="pt-BR" xml:lang="pt-BR">
	<head>
		<title>Capa</title>
		<link href="../Styles/Frontmatter.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
	</head>
	<body lang="pt-BR" xml:lang="pt-BR">
    <section epub:type="frontmatter cover" aria-labelledby="capa_do_livro" aria-describedby="desc_capa" id="id-a">
      <div class="Cover">
        <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" version="1.1" width="100%" height="100%" preserveAspectRatio="xMidYMid meet" viewBox="0 0 811 1200" role="img">
          <title id="capa_do_livro">Capa do livro A Viagem de Théo</title>
          <desc id="desc_capa">Fundo preto com faixa amarela no topo com vários desenhos de templos religiosos um ao lado do outro.</desc>
          <image width="811" height="1200" xlink:href="../Images/cover.jpg"/>
        </svg>
      </div>
    </section>
	</body>
</html>

[jackie_w]

I've noticed quite a big difference between the old and new Viewer in how full page images are displayed when they are coded using <svg> tags like, or very similar to, a calibre cover.

The attached image shows what I mean. I opened the same epub 4 times in a similar size window. All 4 used Flow mode, but changing to Paged mode in the new Viewer didn't appear to change the visuals for these 2 images..

The 2 on the left are the old Viewer and the 2 on the right the new Viewer.

The top row shows the cover page - a typical calibre svg-style cover with preserveAspectRatio="none"

Spoiler:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">

<head>
  <meta name="calibre:cover" content="true"/>
  <title>Cover</title>
  <style type="text/css" title="override_css">
  @page {
      padding: 0;
      margin: 0;
  }
  body {
      text-align: center;
      padding: 0;
      margin: 0;
  }
  </style>
</head>

<body>

  <div>

    <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" version="1.1" width="100%" height="100%" viewBox="0 0 1374 2100" preserveAspectRatio="none">
      <image width="1374" height="2100" xlink:href="../images/cover.jpeg"/>
    </svg>

  </div>

</body>

</html>

The bottom row shows what is supposed to be a full page map with similar svg-style code with preserveAspectRatio="xMidYMid meet" and no inline CSS in <head>.

Spoiler:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<head>
  <title>The Lions of Al-Rassan</title>
  <link href="../template.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
</head>

<body>

  <div id="map01">

    <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" version="1.1" width="100%" height="100%" viewBox="0 0 580 1015" preserveAspectRatio="xMidYMid meet">
      <image width="580" height="1015" xlink:href="../images/map.jpg"/>
    </svg>

  </div>

</body>

</html>

The old Viewer seems to give a more predictable visual result. Is this "just the way QWebEngine rendering is" or is it possible to make old and new more similar?

ETA: Oops! Didn't see thiago.eec's post before posting this.

[kovidgoyal]

Covers are no longer displayed based on book markup they are displayed standalone, so you (the book creator) cannot control how they are displayed. The user instead has that control, at least in theory if I make a setting for it.

As for aspect ratio on normal full screen images not working, I'll have to look into that, can somebody attach a sample eub showing the problem. Will save me some time.