Where do I go from here?
 

I loaded a book into Sigil, changed it to how I wanted it to look and tried to save it. I tried saving it as an epub but it just saved it as .sgf.
Do I just rename this with an epub extension or what?

Incidentally I'll be changing from windows xp 32 bit to vista/windows 7 64 bit in a few weeks, anyone know if I'm likely to have any trouble running sigil or book designer on it.

Just do a Save As in Sigil and select ePub as file type.

I did, but it has the sgf extension not epub

Hmm, hopefully someone will have an idea. When I save and select epub from the drop down (as opposed to the sgf default) I get an epub.

It's very simple and quite standard on Windows: the file type you save depends on the extension. You can either add the extension yourself, or you can let the dialog add it for you.

EDIT: Let me clarify: if you type in "name.sgf" as the filename to be saved to, it will be saved as SGF regardless of the type you selected in the dropdown box. The type you select merely adds the extension if you haven't added one yourself, but it will not append a new one if you typed one in manually. So "name.sgf" will not become "name.sgf.epub" if you selected epub.

So Sigil sees that you want to save a file of type SGF and saves it in that format. This is the standard way of doing things on Windows. Other platforms AFAIK behave differently, and Sigil uses native save dialogs on each, so it follows platform conventions.

So either don't type the extension manually and use the dropdown, or ignore the dropdown and type in the extension yourself.

Sigil is developed on Win7 x64. BD is a different matter.

as a slightly side question Valloric why not get the routine to automatically save both formats simultaneously ?

Because I've never heard of a "Save As" dialog saving two different versions of a file at the same time. It's also a bad idea because it would go completely against the law of least surprise.

...shame ....

plus i think it would be very inefficient for ressources and in fact bizarre ; i save in sgf regularly, every few minutes, because i don't want to lose my work if anything happens (you never know). but i only save as epub when i am done with my file, or maybe occasionally i make an export to check something in ade but that is rare. i wouldn't want to have constantly two different files created every time i save, particularly as to me, usually, the existence of the epub means "it's done" (at least for the moment), it would be confusing to have it created from the start.

i appreciate the sentiment about needing to save frequently (yes I do know!!!!) - but I have had some problems with output from the ePub necessitating a return to edit, and then had issues with not being able to re-save the ePub version (since cured by Valloric).

admittedly it is over 10 years since I've done any programming, but then we had to program for users who were not too au-fait with computer software etc.

Once a file name was entered in a dialog, the routine would then create a default file (i.e. in WORD - or in this case sgf) and then simultaneously create other versions/formats (also in other directories) for FAX/email/telex etc....[there was no 'save as' option]

since windows 95 I've become one of those users rapidly falling by the wayside .... :rofl: