Why, Sigil, Why? And can I change you?

[fdwojo]

Does anyone know why Sigil uses <b> for bold/strong and <i> for italics/emphasis?

<b> is identical to <strong> and <i> is identical to <em>, and everything I read indicates that <strong> and <em> are the preferred way to do it. And so, I try to be consistent with the recommended way.

Why does Sigil do it the older, original way? Or are all the HTML publishing guides wrong and we should use <b> and <i> instead of the longer variants? (and if it DOESN"T matter, why are all the style guides wrong?)

And lastly, if I wanted to, can I modify Sigil to use <strong> and <em> when I bold or italicize text?

P.S. Granted, with all the posts here on the forum, I suppose it's possible to look through them all, or search them all, but I didn't find anything addressing this issue. (Sorry if I missed an existing question about this!)

Frank
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Using Win10 Pro and Samsung Note20

[KevinH]

Semantic meaning is what differentiates when to use one or the other of them and it has waffled back and forth repeatedly given changes in the living html spec. Some tags like u have even gone away and then brought back.

(From the Mozilla Development Network)
It is often confusing to new developers why there are so many ways to express the same thing on a rendered website. <b> and <strong> are perhaps one of the most common sources of confusion, causing developers to ask "Should I use <b> or <strong>? Don't they both do the same thing?"

Not exactly. The <strong> element is for content that is of greater importance, while the <b> element is used to draw attention to text without indicating that it's more important.

It may help to realize that both are valid and semantic elements in HTML5 and that it's a coincidence that they both have the same default styling (boldface) in most browsers (although some older browsers actually underline <strong>). Each element is meant to be used in certain types of scenarios...

Since Sigil can not guess what semantic you want it defaults to the more generic tags.
Sigil will not be changing the tags based on current "fashion" once again.

You can do either of:

- Use Find and replace to swap those tags to anything you want

- Set up Clips to create the tags you prefer and assign them to clip icons so they can used just as easily as italic and bold icons now.

[DiapDealer]

Why, oh why, do people who don't want to bother writing their own html code get so overly dramatic about the way valid html code gets generated for them?

And to answer your second question: of course you can change it. You're welcome to write your own html with whatever tags you prefer.

[theducks]

Because we are the Dog being wagged by the HTML spec writers?

How about all the render engines that choose to ignore one way or another? Why o Why

[KevinH]

All browser based versions handle both so what render engine/e-reader requires strong and does not recognize b?

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by fdwojo

Does anyone know why Sigil uses <b> for bold/strong and <i> for italics/emphasis?

<b> is identical to <strong> and <i> is identical to <em>, and everything I read indicates that <strong> and <em> are the preferred way to do it. And so, I try to be consistent with the recommended way.

Why does Sigil do it the older, original way? Or are all the HTML publishing guides wrong and we should use <b> and <i> instead of the longer variants? (and if it DOESN"T matter, why are all the style guides wrong?)

Do I have the topic for you:

2020: "<i>, <em> or <span> for italics ?"

Especially see my Posts #67+.

<i> vs. <em> + <strong> vs. <b> was discussed to death, with detailed examples.

Originally Posted by fdwojo

And lastly, if I wanted to, can I modify Sigil to use <strong> and <em> when I bold or italicize text?

You can easily swap between <span class="italics">/<i>/<em> + <b>/<strong> using Diap's "TagMechanic" Sigil plugin (or "Diap's Editing Toolbag" if Calibre).

Again, see 2020: "How do I change italic <i> shortcut to use <em> instead?" where I give instructions how.

[fdwojo]

Well, I thank you all for the quick response. Because I create my own eBooks, I want them to be as compatible and consistent as possible. (as if that's even possible). For that reason, (as I mentioned before), since I keep hearing about using <em> instead of <i> and <strong> instead of <b>, I had (mistakenly) thought that SIGIL would go with what was the presumed standard (if it really even is a standard).

With regards to "can I change it", I was referring to the way that SIGIL responds when you choose to BOLD, ITALICS, or UNDERLINE with just a click of the mouse or a keypress of CTRL-B or CTRL-I or CTRL-U. Granted, if I was a programmer I'm sure I could edit the source code, and generate my own custom version of SIGIL, but sadly, I can't and I'm guessing the source code isn't available even if I could.

So, I'll keep using SIGIL as I have been, (and wishing...)

Again, thank you all for your help!

;-)

Frank
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Using Win10 Pro and Samsung Note20

[KevinH]

Or do as I said and create an "em" and "strong" clips, view the clips toolbar and highlight what you want have one click set them.

Try reading the clips.xhtml chapter of the latest Sigil User Guide which will show you how to create them.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by fdwojo

With regards to "can I change it", I was referring to the way that SIGIL responds when you choose to BOLD, ITALICS, or UNDERLINE with just a click of the mouse or a keypress of CTRL-B or CTRL-I or CTRL-U. Granted, if I was a programmer I'm sure I could edit the source code, and generate my own custom version of SIGIL, but sadly, I can't and I'm guessing the source code isn't available even if I could.

As KevinH has already mentioned, you could easily change the behavior of CTRL+B and CTRL+I by creating two clips. This'll take less than 5 minutes.

1. Right-click the toolbar and check Clip Bar, if it isn't already checked.
2. In the Clip Editor, create two clips with the following contents
<strong>\1</strong>
<em>\1</em>
(They must be the first two clips.)



3. Change the keyboard shortcuts for clips 1 & 2 to CTRL+B and CTRL+I

[Sarmat89]

<em> is a logical tag, so it can be used with foreign scripts to make text bold, or smaller, or add a line or accent dots.

[fdwojo]

Thanks, Doitsu. I've used Clips the older way (right-click, choose CLIPS, and choose my desired Clip), but I wasn't aware you could associate them with a hotkey. That might do the trick for me.

Perfect answer!

[Binchen]

<em> and <i> is something completly different. <i> sets the fontstyle to italic. <em> is emphasized is a semantic thing. Most browserstylesheet are displaying the emphasized text in italics, but thats just a usual representation.
<em> is neither better. nor more modern, nor more compatible than <i>. Exactly the same with <b> and <strong>.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by Binchen

<em> and <i> is something completly different. <i> sets the fontstyle to italic. <em> is emphasized is a semantic thing. Most browserstylesheet are displaying the emphasized text in italics, but thats just a usual representation.
<em> is neither better. nor more modern, nor more compatible than <i>. Exactly the same with <b> and <strong>.

True - as the thread linked by Tex mentions, there are many reasons why you might want <em> instead of <i>. Aside from the visual styling, because you can use identical css with either tag to make the look the same, the <em> is used by accessibility programs to treat the word/phrase differently - eg. different stress on a word in tts.

So… if you only need a visual italic (like in a list of references) then <i> works fine. But if it is supposed to mean something then you want the semantically correct <em>.

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

<em> is a logical tag, so it can be used with foreign scripts to make text bold, or smaller, or add a line or accent dots.

<em> is no more “logical” than <i>.
You can redefine either or both to be expressed however you like in css.
Anyway, I don’t see <i> or <b> not working anytime soon, so I will keep using them. One of the first things I do when I check over a book is convert em and strong to i and b. I hate longwinded code that clutters up text. The same reason we use figures to do maths and not words. Simpler notation makes for more clarity.

When I use <i> it’s because I want italics. So <i>is more logical for me. If someone wants to convert that to flashing green or whatever, that’s fine. They can add a line to the css.

[Turtle91]

Sorry, I thought I had linked to the Accessibility Publishing Database website in my previous post. Here it is for anyone who cares.

They have a nice explanation on what the differences are between i/b/em/strong and when each should be used...they also talk about the html5 specs briefly.

The CSS properties for bolding and italics should be used whenever the use of bolding and italics is presentational (for example, on headings and lead-in words). CSS formatting carries no semantics, so the emphasis will not be noted by assistive technologies.
(emphasis added)