Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer
I agree with this for the most part. Not because I'm anti-epub3 or anything. The fact of the matter is: changing Sigil into an ePub3 editor probably wouldn't be an insurmountable task. Difficult and very time-consuming, surely, but not insurmountable. I even think there's already a fork out there somewhere doing exactly that. The problem is that to remain truly useful, Sigil would have to be able to create, open, edit and save BOTH ePub2 and ePub3. You'd need to be able do all that as well as being able to convert between the specs (at least the direction of epub2 to epub3). Accomplishing that AND maintaining all the features we've come to know and love is where things would probably get a little too daunting to be practical (not to mention likely).
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Yes...I see this as the looming issue. Sigil is really quite excellent as it is for ePUB2. What user_none and the gang have done this past year or so is not short of amazing. Many of the newer tools are just...spiffy. (The reports. I love those, really). The clip editor, etc.
But...as a pro, I see an increasing number of requests for all sorts of books that won't work for ePUB2. "Create your own adventure" books, and books with video and audio (yes, ePUB2 now on iBooks, but how much you want to bet that Apple abandons everything that runs on the first and second-gen iPad, and push up to ePUB3 for their ebooks shortly? I mean, it's not like they are big on supporting anything older than a year, much less 2-3); ditto for Kindle books that do "more," and the like. I fear that despite the general loathing for "immersedition"-type volumes, the demand will grow greater, particularly amongst the reading group with the attention span of gerbils.
Particularly as this type of book (I refer to the dreaded Amanda Havard "The Survivors" Immersedition app/book) can be used to create very useful Cliff's Notes type of books, for those that want the gist or data without the work of actually reading the damned things. I already have a client pushing this type of book to teachers, school administrators, and the like--it can be done (sort of) in ePUB2 and Kindle, but to get all the goodies (pop-ups with Google Maps, Wikipedia pages with information about geographical locations or historical data, etc.), you'll need ePUB3. I fear this type of educational demand alone will push ePUB3 forward.
Because honestly, aside from bells and whistles, and what I personally consider a lot of sizzle and very little steak, I don't see a lot of advancement in ePUB3, not really. Maybe I'm short-sighted. It wouldn't be the first time.
However, back OT: If this happens, most of us will have to either make 'em by hand, or use Sigil to get halfway there, then rip them open and make the rest by hand. OR...find another product. I imagine that Blue Griffon, all things considered, will stay near ePUB3, and upgrade that product shortly. I've never tried it, as they don't seem to want to tell you a bloody thing about it pre-purchase, and there's no trial. Some people seem to love it.
Julian will probably try to bring Jutoh up to spec for ePUB3...but I don't see a lot of MR'ers using Jutoh, myself. AWP? Well...I haven't tried that, either, but based upon what Diap said recently, I might give it a go, if indeed it outputs clean code, if for no other reason than to look for fallbacks, if I can't find a forker. (No...I couldn't resist). But what most of use love Sigil for, and use it for,
is that "finishing touch;" most of us clean our HTML elsewhere, using something else, then drop it in, finish it up, and let Sigil make the NCX and OPF for us, which is massively time-saving. Dragging and dropping files, being able to edit images now on the fly...a lot of this is extremely time-saving and handy. Sigil now does a lot of time-consuming heavy lifting...and that has value to anyone.
It's not today I'm worried about. It's ePUB3 and the ever-increasing silly-buggers stuff that keeps showing up in eBooks that has me worried. As is, Sigil is pretty damned wonderful and I think we could even fix the few bits in-house that are still a little tweaky right now; but as we all know, the future comes, eventually.
I remember a wonderful little kluged-together CMS...wish I could think of the name (Article-something, I think), I still have the source around here somewhere, that put together a membership forum, an article CMS, RSS Feeds and something else, almost seamlessly, long before its time...and it was abandoned by its donation-ware creator after the demands for frippery tweaks drove him daft. That, and a lot of others all of us could name, that went the way of the dodo. Tons of 'em.
{sigh}
Hitch