HELP with Sigil
 

I've downloaded the latest update to Sigil. The problem is that no everything is in HTML format. How do I correct it bACK to the regular format so that I can complete my Ebook? What steps do I take? What am I missing? I really need help!!!

I'm sorry but your message doesn't make that much sense. The update to Sigil would not have changed your ebook. If you mean that BookView is no longer available, you can try installing PageEdit and set it as the default external XHTML editor or you can use Preview (use F10 to launch Preview) which I use on a second monitor.

However, editing an epub using BookView has never been a good idea. Sigil was not designed as a WYSIWYG editor and you can get some very strange additions to the book code when using BookView to edit.

I would suggest moving this thread to the Sigil forum.

You might also want to browse a couple of threads in that forum: Where's Book View?, Sigil-0.9.17 Released and PageEdit-0.8.0 Released.

Or just go back to a previous version of Sigil.

Yes, if you are not comfortable editing xhtml while seeing the result immediately in Preview, should should probably install an earlier version of Sigil.

I thought that I had posted to the Forum page.
 

Please excuse my ignorance on this matter. New to the forum and trying to get the structure. I was not trying to view my eBook with anything else. I understand that it's a WYSIWYG program. After I updated the software and opened it with my eBook in it...it was in an HTML format. I'm simply trying to get back to the WYSIWYG format. Should I delete ALL of my versions and reinstall a particular one?

Thanks in advance for your patience...

You have two choices:

1. Continue with using Sigil-0.9.18 and use the View menu to enable the Preview Window. Then edit the html and see the Preview window reflect your changes. If you want to do minor WYSIWYG editing, then install PageEdit.app and learn how to launch it and use it from Sigil

or

2. If you do not know html, you will need to install Sigil-0.9.14 which is the last version to have BookView (WYSIWYG editing).

But it's not. We removed all references to the word WYSIWYG from Sigil quite a while ago.

You probably only have one version of Sigil installed. You can uninstall it, or you install the older version over top of it. It really doesn't make a difference. The last version of Sigil to have the Book View you're wanting is 0.9.14.

The release notes for version 0.9.14 clearly indicated that it would be the last version to support QtWebKit, and the last version to support editing with Book View.

https://github.com/Sigil-Ebook/Sigil...ses/tag/0.9.14

Beyond all the problems of "updating software without looking at changes", Sigil has been for years presented as THE WYSIWYG solution to create an ePub.
It will still take years for software comparison sites to stop talking about Sigil as such. So we're going to hear about BookView for quite some time.
This is also why I don't understand why PageEdit is not integrated as a module in Sigil. Currently, installing and using PageEdit is not easy. He is the son of BookView who was what set Sigil apart from other ePub publishers.

This is the first time I've heard that.

Yep. From my Day One dabbling in epub formatting I remember being warned that Sigil isn't a WYSIWYG editor. I must admit that I don't really frequent any software comparison sites, so I couldn't say what they tell you there.

I'm uncertain why you're having such a hard time grasping this concept. Book View didn't go away because we don't like it. It went away because it caused massive issues. We've been trying to do away with it for a long time. And now that we have, why on earth would we we reintegrate many of those exact same issues by incorporating PageEdit right back into Sigil? Why would we sacrifice the ability to update either independently of each other? Including the potential to require different versions of Qt for each on Windows/Mac? And why would we bloat the the Sigil installer with the PageEdit overhead when many won't need it (or create more work for ourselves to create a Sigil installer with PageEdit and one without)?

As for installing and using PageEdit not being "easy" ... Well that's just hogwash. Installing PageEdit is just as easy as installing Sigil. If not more so (less questions/choices on Windows--just double-click it and say "yes").

PageEdit is not the "son" of Book View. It's not the next iteration of Book View. It will never be what Book View was--it was never intended to be. And it will certainly never be incorporated back into Sigil. If you need/want it; install it separately.

As to Book View being what "set Sigil apart from the rest" ... more hogwash. Book View can't simultaneously be an application's defining feature AND be unused by a significant portion of its user-base. No. What sets Sigil off from the rest is that it allows you to actually edit an epub. The rest (with the exception of calibre's editor) are word processors (or word processor add-ons) that allow you to export an epub (but don't actually support opening and editing the epubs they export).

We could have dumped Book View with absolutely no alternative and said "tough sh!t". But we didn't. Funny how those who only want to carp never seem to appreciate that.

Ummm... For the most part, the CodeView portion is what was discussed as it allowed you to get down and dirty with the code. Given the known issues with Book View when used for editing, I have trouble understanding why anyone in a possession of a moiety of their senses would ever edit in Book View. For me, the Preview pane open on a second monitor gives me the best of both worlds.

PageEdit may look and act a lot like Book View. It may feel almost as integrated into Sigil as Book View was - particularly with the new 'open the OPF file' trick. And I wouldn't be surprised if the integration gets even more seamless in future versions. But it is very important to the developers that you realise it is a Completely Separate Program. As, indeed, it is.

Don't argue. Essentially, you've got Book View back. If you really want to use Sigil as a bad WYSIWYG word processor rather than a good epub editor (and that's not really fair, Book View had its uses even for those of us who worked mostly in Code View) you can. Enjoy!

That was my expectation.

BR

Kevin talked me down. :D