Sigil, the ePub editor

[Valloric]

OK, here we go...

As some of you may already know, I have been working on an ePub editor for quite some time now. And after about six months of development time, I come to you with the current, initial version of Sigil. It’s still rough around the edges (to say the least), so consider it an alpha build at best (version 0.1.0). It can crash, it can bug out on you. It has nowhere near the features I want it to have, but it will get there. I consider this to be a multi-year project for me, so this is just the start.

Now what does it have to offer…

• Free and open source software under GPLv3
• Multi-platform: runs on Windows, Linux and Mac
• Full Unicode support: everything you see in Sigil is in UTF-16
• Full EPUB spec support
• WYSIWYG editing
• Multiple Views: Book View, Code View and Split View
• Metadata editor with full support for all possible metadata entries (more than 200) with full descriptions for each
• Table Of Contents editor
• Multi-level TOC support
• Book View fully supports the display any XHTML document possible under the OPS spec
• SVG support
• Basic XPGT support
• Advanced automatic conversion of all imported documents to Unicode
• Currently imports TXT, HTML and EPUB files; more will be added with time
• Currently exports EPUB and SGF (Sigil native format); more will be added with time
• Embedded HTML Tidy; all imported documents are thoroughly cleaned; changing views cleans the document so no matter how much you screw up your code, it will fix it (usually )
• An actually usable user interface
• Native C++ application
• Bugs
• And a lot more...

It can be downloaded here: http://code.google.com/p/sigil/. There is currently no documentation, so don’t waste your time looking for some (it will be added with time, don’t worry).

Installation instructions can be found here.

Report any bugs on the issue tracker on Sigil’s website (search the threads and the tracker first, please; also, read this wiki page). Be sure to include any and all relevant information. The more info you give me, the better and sooner will I be able to help you. Feel free to give any suggestions on how Sigil can be improved. My TODO list of features and improvements fills up a book (literally), but I’m certainly more than willing to hear what other people think.

This is open source software, and it will hopefully be open source development. I want the community to say what should be changed, updated, improved and in what way. MobileRead is by far the most awesome community I’ve ever been a part of and I know we’ll be able to come up with some great ideas.

Request for documentation writers can be found here.

For those who want more up-to-date information on Sigil's development, you can always see the live ChangeLog here. That file is linked directly from the repository, and it is updated as bugs are fixed and features are added. You can also subscribe to RSS and Atom feeds here.

Also feel free to check out Sigil's development blog.

[zelda_pinwheel]

WOO HOO !!!!

yeah baby, sigil in alpha release !!! excellent work valloric, thank you so much ! i know sigil is going to end up the killer epub editing app, with a little help from our friends. karma coming your way !!

all right all you book maker people, let's hear what you have to say !

[crutledge]

Valloric,
This is the beginning of the end of Book Designer. A lot of BD can be emulated and used as a go-by.

You have my best wishes and any help I can provide.

Charlie

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by crutledge

Valloric,
This is the beginning of the end of Book Designer.

That was certainly one of my primary objectives. I have set my own personal "finish line" for Sigil when I get HarryT (who shall henceforth be referred to by me as The Great Producer of Ebooks) to completely switch to it and stop using BD.

Admittedly, there's a long way to go.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Valloric

That was certainly one of my primary objectives.

[Valloric]

There is one problem caused by a bug in the Qt Framework that Sigil uses and that users need to be aware of... currently Sigil supports loading of books with embedded fonts. But if you specify several versions of the font (like for instance bold and italic versions) with @font-face rules, the other versions usually won't be displayed. Sometimes they will, sometimes the won't. It's rather random. And when you close Sigil after loading such an EPUB book, Sigil will crash with a segfault.

This happens less often on Mac and Linux versions than on Windows. On windows it's pretty constant. As I've said, it's a bug in the Qt framework (I've replicated it directly in their example applications) and I can't fix it. I've reported the bug to Nokia and hopefully they'll fix it by the next release of Qt (which should be a couple of months away).

That being said, you can still edit such books without a problem. The crash happens on application exit. And even though the italic and bold version won't show up in Book View, they will be shown in ADE. Again, this only applies to books with embedded fonts. All other books are unaffected.

BTW this can be replicated in Calibre's ebook viewer too, since it uses the Qt framework as well.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Valloric

That was certainly one of my primary objectives. I have set my own personal "finish line" for Sigil when I get HarryT (who shall henceforth be referred to by me as The Great Producer of Ebooks) to completely switch to it and stop using BD.

Admittedly, there's a long way to go.

HarryT won't switch unless Sigil outputs Mobipocket format.

[JSWolf]

Well done BTW!

Does Sigil generate mobile ADE compatible ePub? Can we specify page breaks other than at ToC points?

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

HarryT won't switch unless Sigil outputs Mobipocket format.

I know. Mobipocket output is on my TODO list. Probably not anytime soon though.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Does Sigil generate mobile ADE compatible ePub?

Sigil gives you power to design your ePub any way you want. If you make sure to specify page breaks every 300kb, then it will work on mobile ADE too. It won't do it automatically though. That would mean inserting breaks into your code where you didn't specify them. That's great for an automatic converter, but not for an editor.

That being said, I do plan on implementing a feature that tells you if the ePub you're exporting will not work on mobile ADE.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Can we specify page breaks other than at ToC points?

You can specify page breaks anywhere you want. You have full access to the XHTML code! The Sigil WYSIWYG action "Insert Chapter Break" places a "marker" (that red double line) where your want your XHTML source to be split into multiple files.

The TOC is built from heading tags (<h#>, where # is from 1 to 6). These too you can place wherever you want. If you put a heading tag within 1000 characters after a chapter break, the entry in the TOC for that heading will lead to the begining of that XHTML file. If your heading is further away from a chapter break, the TOC entry will lead directy to that heading (using fragment identifiers).

This is unlike Calibre. Calibre (I think) just links all entries in the TOC with fragment identifiers and this slows down TOC display on mobile devices a great deal. There was a discussion about this somewhere around here. Can't find it now. Anyway, try to put your headings after chapter breaks so you get fast NCX files.

It's 4 AM where I'm sitting so I'm off to bed.

[kovidgoyal]

Cool, glad to see you finally got it off the drawing board. Congratulations!

[Jellby]

Great! I can't wait trying this! (Though I'll have to install Qt 4.5 somehow.)

Just a question. Does it allow full control on the source (class names, indentations, line wraps...) or does it try to be "too smart"?

Originally Posted by JSWolf

HarryT won't switch unless Sigil outputs Mobipocket format.

HarryT has an Opus with ePUB support now, he might choose to switch to ePUB (when it has bookmarks and dictionary)

[EowynCarter]

Cool !
I wanted someting to edit epub, here it is

Only drawback. I can't open calibre generated ePubs. Zips get in the way. "Fix" being to unzip and re--zip.
I'm using calibre and sigil on linux.

Does Sigil generate mobile ADE compatible ePub?

Works fine with my opus.

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Just a question. Does it allow full control on the source (class names, indentations, line wraps...) or does it try to be "too smart"?

Well, what does "too smart" mean? I don't see why you would need to control indentation or line wrapping (Sigil will pretty-print your XHTML source), but your class names will certainly be respected. WYSIWYG actions will add their own classes ("sgc-#") which you can of course also edit if you wish.

With time, you will be able to tweak the options for the embedded Tidy (or turn it off for that matter). So if you really want to indent you code just the you want to, you will be able to.

Just some quick information to all interested parties... Sigil has a task tracker here. Use it for reporting bugs or requesting features. Even if you don't have anything to report, check it out from time to time and star the issues you're interested in. Starring an issue will send you email updates on it (you can turn that off) but more importantly, I will use the number of stars on an issue to judge how much the community cares about it. The more stars it has, the sooner will it be implemented/fixed.

As I've said, my TODO list is a mile long, and I'll be transferring some issues from it to the tracker so you can follow them if you wish.

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Only drawback. I can't open calibre generated ePubs. Zips get in the way. "Fix" being to unzip and re--zip.
I'm using calibre and sigil on linux.

I'm opening Calibre epubs just fine on Linux (running Ubuntu Jaunty). You'll have to provide some more information.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Valloric

I know. Mobipocket output is on my TODO list. Probably not anytime soon though.

I'm not so concerned for direct Mobipocket output, but output of files that work nicely with the current Mobipocket Creator.

Anyway... off to have a look at 0.1.0

Thanks!