Quote:
Originally Posted by KevinH
Most standalone xml/html editors understand nothing about epub structure, the opf,and guide, the nav, toc generation, index generation, semantic setting, embedding fonts, etc, nor allow global file name changes with automatic link and opf updating. This is Sigil's main reason for being.
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As one who got my start in creating/editing epubs before Sigil was much more than a gleam in Valloric's eye (and what an eye that was!), I can authoritatively say that the above quote is a serious understatement.
As for creating
content, my preferred path is LibreOffice, using a predefined set of custom styles and no direct formatting; conversion to epub via the ODT import plugin, carefully configured with a matching set of customized config.xml and epub.css files (which match the LO custom styles to the corresponding CSS styles in the epub. Then, only tweaking of the epub is required in Sigil. Typically, adding more complete metadata, applying semantics, adding dropcaps and smallcaps to certain paragraphs, maybe changing the fonts, etc.
For those of you who swing in the direction of MS Word, there are similar plugins to import from docx itself, or filtered Word HTML, or
Toxaris' Word macros (which do lots of good stuff besides epub export).
Hitch's post above mentioned several other good options. So there are many good workflows for those who wish to compose in a WYSIWYG environment, and end up with an epub that preserves the "look and feel" of the document, without suffering the slings and arrows imposed by Sigil's (actually, QtWebkit) book view .
[asseverator] An artist needs to understand his tools. If you desire to create ebooks with a certain "look and feel," you need to determine what that "look and feel" looks and feels like,
and also how to achieve it in the several formats you will want to produce. This latter requires a certain minimal knowledge of html and css and what goes on under the hood of an epub or mobi file. In other words, you can't escape code view completely. [/asseverator]
Now, that said, @tetrault, you are not alone. There have been several users here in this forum who have insisted that they (for various reasons) really, really prefer to edit/compose in Sigil Book View. I do not judge them. I do, however suggest that complaining about The Way Book View Works in this forum is generally unproductive.
IMHO, YMMV, et cetera.
Albert