GUI Changes in the Upcoming Sigil-0.9.4
 

Hi All,

Just wanted to give people a head's up about the GUI changes coming in Sigil-0.9.4.

The first big change is in the Metadata Editor. The old editor was broken when it came to dates and was limited in what it could do. So we have completely removed the old Metadata Editor and replaced it with an interface that will work well with both Epub2 and Epub3. Given Epub3 metadata is much more flexible and extensive than the metadata allowed in Epub2, the new GUI editor allows for this flexibility by using context sensitive menus (different in Epub2 vs Epub3) to handle most of the load.

The "MetadataEditor.png" image shows the new Metadata Editing window under Epub2.

By pressing the "Add Metadata" button, a dialog of available metadata elements is presented to the user, see "MetadataElements.png".

Pressing the "Add Property" button leads to an epub version specific list of attributes and properties to attach to the currently selected metadata element. See "MetadataProperties.png" which shows the available properties for an Epub3 ebook.

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The second big change is that Epub3 supports many more Semantic Landmarks than the Guide based Epub2 version.

The way to access these semantics is the same, using a right click on a file in the BookBrowser window. See "AddSemantics.png".

A epub version specific dialog in generated to allow the user to pick the semantic meaning for that BookBrowser item. The dialog for Epub3 can be seen in "LandmarkSemantics.png".

Just as was done earlier, once these semantics are set you can toggle them off by repeating the setting or simply verify the setting by mousing over the file in the BookBrowser to see the current setting. See "BookBrowserToolTip.png" for an example in action.

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One other GUI change to note. The Nav is now a first class citizen under Epub3 and no longer dependent on the NCX. Therefore the standard tools that worked for creating the NCX for Epub2, now work as expected for creating the Nav under Epub3. This means that the "Generate Nav from NCX" menu item in the Epub3 specific tools is no longer needed (it was truly a stop-gap measure for Sigil-0.9.3) and has been removed.


Please let me know if you need or want any other clarifications. Sigil-0.9.4 should be released early this coming week.

Hope this helps!

KevinH and DiapDealer

That looks cool and I am looking forward to version 0.9.4.

A VERY BIG THANK YOU FOR ALL THE HARD WORK.

X64 tried
Looks pretty good.

:blink: How do you clear a semantic in the new UI? (other than hack it out of the OPF :p )
In the old, UI it toggled

I like to 'prep' a book with a newer cover by renaming to 'New_cvr" and flipping OFF the semantics for both the Page and Image (this does still toggle), the have Calibre (modify epub pi ) update the metadata

It still toggles in the new. Using the context menu->Add Semantics is an on/off function. If you set the cover-page semantic, "setting" it again will undo it. The tooltip when you mouse-over a file in the Book Browser will tell you if a file has a semantic set or not (or looking at the OPF, course).

In the future, we plan to implement something a little bit more "visible," with regard to semantics. Whether it's a Semantics-type report, or a widget that displays files properties of the file selected in Book View (with the ability to change properties/semantics from the widget). We're still tossing around ideas for the best way to achieve that.

Can I put in a plug for a Semantic column in Reports->Files.

One can access the Book Browser when Reports are displayed. If a file showed a wrong Semantic value in Reports, then it would be simple enough to adjust in Book Browser and hit Refresh in Reports.

Aside : ought I dare try to enter a long time ago publication date, the old version seems to think nothing was published before 1800 ;)

BR