MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Is there a tool like Sigil to edit mobi ebooks?

KevinH · 08-19-2014, 09:48 AM

Hi All,

Just to add fuel to the fire ... we now have a very rough but working python 2.7 plugin capability already added to Sigil (look for an alpha in two or three weeks or so) that will support "edit", "input", and "output" python plugins and has many of the features of the calibre edit style plugins.

The python interpreter itself will not come as part of Sigil (how many python interpreters does one machine really need ... ;-) , but will rely on the user installing ActiveState's Active Python 2.7 release on his machine if they already do not have a working python 2.7 version (Most Mac OS X and Linux users already have python 2.7 installed by default).

Once plugins are working, our first order of business will be to add a Sigil KindleUnpack plugin to give Sigil the capability to read non-drm'd Kindle ebooks directly. This is easy to do as it pretty much already exists for calibre. The idea is Sigil KindleUnpack plugin will load the "source" if the source is included in the mobi, otherwise the default epub created from the KF8/AZW3 side of the mobi will be used, but if no KF8, it will decode the old mobi html into more modern xhtml and allow it to be imported.

Similarly, using python, we can create an gui interface to kindlegen and run kindlegen as part of an output plugin for Sigil and have it purposefully include the source archive so that nothing is lost in the cycle (mobi -> epub -> mobi).

As time allows, there will also be a Python 3 plugin capability and a Lua plugin capability added to Sigil.

Our long term plan is to add support to Sigil for as many of the epub 3 features (and metadata) that are supported by current level of WebKit/WebView in Qt 5.

So as user_none (the maintainer of Sigil) has said .. development is not dead, it was dormant .... it just needed some volunteers to move it forward. Now development has started again but is moving forward slowly. Hopefully we can gather Cpp volunteers and Python Plugin developers to continue improving it.

Hope this will heat up the flames of the debate!

Take care,

KevinH

08-19-2014, 09:48 AM	#73
KevinH Sigil Developer Posts: 8,883 Karma: 6120478 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: many	Hi All, Just to add fuel to the fire ... we now have a very rough but working python 2.7 plugin capability already added to Sigil (look for an alpha in two or three weeks or so) that will support "edit", "input", and "output" python plugins and has many of the features of the calibre edit style plugins. The python interpreter itself will not come as part of Sigil (how many python interpreters does one machine really need ... ;-) , but will rely on the user installing ActiveState's Active Python 2.7 release on his machine if they already do not have a working python 2.7 version (Most Mac OS X and Linux users already have python 2.7 installed by default). Once plugins are working, our first order of business will be to add a Sigil KindleUnpack plugin to give Sigil the capability to read non-drm'd Kindle ebooks directly. This is easy to do as it pretty much already exists for calibre. The idea is Sigil KindleUnpack plugin will load the "source" if the source is included in the mobi, otherwise the default epub created from the KF8/AZW3 side of the mobi will be used, but if no KF8, it will decode the old mobi html into more modern xhtml and allow it to be imported. Similarly, using python, we can create an gui interface to kindlegen and run kindlegen as part of an output plugin for Sigil and have it purposefully include the source archive so that nothing is lost in the cycle (mobi -> epub -> mobi). As time allows, there will also be a Python 3 plugin capability and a Lua plugin capability added to Sigil. Our long term plan is to add support to Sigil for as many of the epub 3 features (and metadata) that are supported by current level of WebKit/WebView in Qt 5. So as user_none (the maintainer of Sigil) has said .. development is not dead, it was dormant .... it just needed some volunteers to move it forward. Now development has started again but is moving forward slowly. Hopefully we can gather Cpp volunteers and Python Plugin developers to continue improving it. Hope this will heat up the flames of the debate! Take care, KevinH