Please welcome John, the new maintainer

[user_none]

Originally Posted by Pablo

I think a more important enhancement would be something like BookDesigner's "Element Browser", where you can search for broken paragraphs, bad line ends, etc, without resorting to regular expressions.

I have not used book designer myself. Is this feature similar to Firebug or Chrome's developer tools?

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by user_none

I have not used book designer myself. Is this feature similar to Firebug or Chrome's developer tools?

The "Element Browser" is a small pop up window with a list selector at the top where you choose what you want to review, for example: titles, subtitles, broken sentences, bad sentence ends, short paragraphs, empty paragraphs, pictures, etc.

In the body of the window there's a box that shows the results (one line per match). Clicking on a line takes you to it in the main window, so that you can fix the text, for example, merging a sentence that has incorrectly been split in two. You can also select multiple elements and convert them to something else (selected in the bottom list selector). For example, you can change several titles to subtitles, etc.

This is the most useful feature of Book Designer and the main reason why I still process my ebooks with it before loading them in Sigil.

I would like to see something like this implemented in Sigil, working in Code View. I would use the same window structure and the choices could be: headings, italics, bold, CSS class selectors, broken paragraphs, bad paragraph ends, empty paragraphs, pictures, tables, links.

Another useful thing would be to be able to move the inline styles created by Sigil (sgc-1, etc) to a CSS stylesheet.

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by Pablo

This is the most useful feature of Book Designer and the main reason why I still process my ebooks with it before loading them in Sigil.

That is also one of the reasons that Book Designer is always the first phase of any book processing that I do on the way to Sigil.

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

That is also one of the reasons that Book Designer is always the first phase of any book processing that I do on the way to Sigil.

Then you might like my HTML02HTML utility (see my signature).

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by Pablo

Then you might like my HTML02HTML utility (see my signature).

Thanks Pablo, I think that I did try that sometime last year. However, my usual method is to save as FB2 out of Book Designer and then convert to EPUB with the FB2EPUB tool. FB2EPUB creates an error free spec compliant EPUB from an error free FB2 file, and so only usually needs some minor tweaks in in Sigil to get me what I want.

[charleski]

Welcome, John. I wish you all the best.

One thing I would suggest, since everyone seems to be rushing to advocate their favourite addition, is that you freeze the Sigil feature set at the 0.4.0 version and aim to squash the lingering bugs and get it as solid as possible. Some of the problems are related to defects in the Qt framework, and it might be worth considering work-arounds for them. The process of introducing new features has also brought along new bugs, which is inevitable, but I think at this point it would be best to devote energies towards squashing these rather than expanding the feature set still further. I'm certainly happy to help with the coding, it's been a while since I did anything in C++, but I should be able to resurrect my skills.

[user_none]

Originally Posted by charleski

One thing I would suggest, since everyone seems to be rushing to advocate their favourite addition, is that you freeze the Sigil feature set at the 0.4.0 version and aim to squash the lingering bugs and get it as solid as possible.

Some time ago I read an
article by Joel Spolsky.

Originally Posted by Joel Spolsky

With six years of experience running my own software company I can tell you that nothing we have ever done at Fog Creek has increased our revenue more than releasing a new version with more features. Nothing. The flow to our bottom line from new versions with new features is absolutely undeniable. It's like gravity. When we tried Google ads, when we implemented various affiliate schemes, or when an article about FogBugz appears in the press, we could barely see the effect on the bottom line. When a new version comes out with new features, we see a sudden, undeniable, substantial, and permanent increase in revenue.

While Sigil is not a comercial product and increasing revenu is not the aim there is a clear lesson here. People want new features and people only care when there are new features. I want to have at least three major new features for each release. So far I've committed to spell check, a hyper link editor and I'm still trying to figure out number three.

Bug fixes will always be a priority and I plan to spend most of my time working on 0.5 fixing bugs. However, I don't want to put out a bug fix only release.

[charleski]

Well, I suspect people care when the program hangs and they lose their work from the past 2 hours. So maybe make auto-save the third feature .

Sigil used to be rock-solid, which was a major bonus, but I've experienced a number of crashes in 0.3.4 (which I suspect are related to Qt behaving badly, but I'll probably need to run it in the debugger to see what's happening, since they're quite random), and while 0.4.0RC1 has some nice features it's just too unstable to use.

[Rand Brittain]

Originally Posted by user_none

So far I've committed to spell check, a hyper link editor and I'm still trying to figure out number three.

A function that replaces straight quotation marks with curly ones! (Calibre does this, but it would be nice to have the option available without converting all my styles into Calbre's format.)

Oh, and congratulations on your ascension!

[Jabby]

Simplicity:
Take the automobile as an example. Many would say that the automobile is a simple device. Not so. It is a very complex piece of machinery. What is simple is the user interface that controls the complex device.

I have noted, many times, that there is a direct correlation between a simple and intuitive user interface and user satisfaction. How many times have you heard the phrase "as easy to use as a toaster".? 'Nuff said.

The trick is to balance the effort between features and ease of use. Not always trivial.

Regards - John

[user_none]

Originally Posted by Jabby

How many times have you heard the phrase "as easy to use as a toaster".? 'Nuff said.

A toaster that can't make toast isn't useful. A toaster that can toast bread but not bagels is only useful to some people. A toaster that can toast both bread and bagels, well I wish I had one that could do that.

Originally Posted by Jabby

The trick is to balance the effort between features and ease of use. Not always trivial.

Indeed. That is the hard part.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by user_none

A toaster that can't make toast isn't useful. A toaster that can toast bread but not bagels is only useful to some people. A toaster that can toast both bread and bagels, well I wish I had one that could do that.



Indeed. That is the hard part.

John:

Welcome, sincerely. My wish for the third item? (n.b.--couldn't care less about a hyperlink editor, myself, nor a spellchecker [c'mon, folks, use a spellchecker in your html editor first! Real wonks have html editors])...PCRE, please. And my numero uno Christmas wish is that Sigil 0.4 stabilizes, 'cuz I do love the ability to tweak the ncx & OPF as needed.

Hitch

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by user_none

A toaster that can toast both bread and bagels, well I wish I had one that could do that.

I have one that does! It has a button to press so it only toasts the flat side of the bagel. I love it.

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by Hitch;

(n.b.--couldn't care less about a hyperlink editor, myself, nor a spellchecker [c'mon, folks, use a spellchecker in your html editor first! Real wonks have html editors])...PCRE, please. And my numero uno Christmas wish is that Sigil 0.4 stabilizes, 'cuz I do love the ability to tweak the ncx & OPF as needed.

Some of us do not want to have to have yet another tool and complication in our workflow, as we are not commercial users like yourself. We just want to cleanup a bad OCR scan or PDF conversion for our own usage. So spellchecking is one of the most long requested and desired features for our section of the user base.

However as you will know much more than i about available and recommended tools... can you tell me of an HTML editor that can split and merge files in a way that Sigil attempts to? And that can open an ePub directly? If so then I will quite happily stop using Sigil until it stabilises? As multiline find replace regexes, split and merge are all I use Sigil for.

Welcome John and thanks from me too for taking this on. If you can squeeze out some of the worst bugs and turn 0.4 into something people can download with confidence that would be a much appreciated start, best wishes for taking this forward.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

Some of us do not want to have to have yet another tool and complication in our workflow, as we are not commercial users like yourself. We just want to cleanup a bad OCR scan or PDF conversion for our own usage. So spellchecking is one of the most long requested and desired features for our section of the user base.

However as you will know much more than i about available and recommended tools... can you tell me of an HTML editor that can split and merge files in a way that Sigil attempts to? And that can open an ePub directly? If so then I will quite happily stop using Sigil until it stabilises? As multiline find replace regexes, split and merge are all I use Sigil for.

Welcome John and thanks from me too for taking this on. If you can squeeze out some of the worst bugs and turn 0.4 into something people can download with confidence that would be a much appreciated start, best wishes for taking this forward.

@kiwidude:

I guess my perspective is different; every competent html editor (I mean the software, not the human operator) has a spellchecker already in it. My workflow, no matter the source material, is pretty simple stuff; we do all the primary editing in NoteTab Pro, which is probably the best html editor available, IMHO. I don't use it for merging and splitting, myself; but it has a clip editor that could probably do something equivalent--we used it to write a "clip" that converts epubs into mobi-ready epubs to drop on MobiGen/KG to create fully-compliant mobis. So I won't say it doesn't have merge/split; I simply don't know if it does. We run spellcheck in it BEFORE we export cleaned html to Sigil. I just don't see Sigil as a workhorse tool at this time; it's more of a finishing tool, IMHO. I don't care if someone's using it for one book or 100; my point about PCRE was about making it more of a workhorse and less of a finishing tool.

To me, adding a spellchecker in Sigil, and a hyperlink editor--both being freely and wonderfully well-done and available in html editors that run the gamut from free to cheap--seems like "another tool and complication in [our] workflow" that we certainly don't need. I like to see Sigil to those things that the fundamental, necessary tools can't--as opposed to reinventing the wheel by adding bells and whistles to Sigil that aren't actually necessary as they're widely available already. Sigil's regex is rough, and could use some work--and regex, or at LEAST, basic 'search and replace' is something that everyone who uses Sigil really uses, whether one is a dilettante or a commercial producer. Cleaning up a "bad OCR scan" is surely one of the best reasons to have PCRE, regardless of user-type.

And when you say, "open an epub directly," if you mean, in a WYSIWYG fashion, akin to Sigil--no. Even Bookbin is some whole other deal; but opening an epub in an html editor isn't difficult, and rezipping it is easy.

Would "spellcheck" be a nice addition? Sure. I think it sitting at the top of the next-in-line list is rather...frivolous, myself, but nobody asked me. Hyperlink editor? Again, handy, but...{shrug}. But a rock-solid regex would be nice. I get a lot of books back where a global change, for whatever reason, never changed that last item found, repeatedly--so I'd like the regex to be PCRE and reliable, and for 0.4x to be rock-solid, too, long before we get to niceties and/or what is essentially gingerbread.

BTW, FWIW, for anyone who doesn't want to work in html, or really use CSS, Jutoh has spell-check and you can split and merge "chapters" just as easily, if not easier than, Sigil (and it is pretty stable). I've played with it--I like to keep up on what's out there, and while it's not my personal kettle of fish (I always want to see what's behind the curtain), it works, pretty decently, to make epubs and mobis.

Not trying to be snarky, or what-have-you; just my $.02 and my perspective, and as Schember is the maintainer, it's his call--and he's already made it; you guys will get your spellchecker and your hyperlink editor. So, my whingeing isn't affecting anything, anyway.

Hitch