Drag and drop text in 2.0.0

[StephV]

Hi!

I tried the latest release yesterday (2.0.0, Windows 11, 64bits) but dragging and dropping text in the code view is no longer possible. This is a big issue for me as I often have to add language tags here and there for accessibility. For convenience and speed's sake, I have snippets pre-made that I copy/paste where I want the tag to start, then drag the end tag where it should be.
Otherwise, I have to constantly come and go to copy/paste or manually write the code each and every time.

Is it a known issue, an intended behavior, or is there a know workaround other than reverting back to 1.9.30 (which I am doing for now)?

Thanks!

[DiapDealer]

That feature was never intended to be enabled. Drag and drop on QPlainTextEdit was supposed to be turned off by default. We explicitly turned it off as crashes were being reported. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=355429

[DiapDealer]

If you need that sort of full-blown html editor ability you consider using an external editor via Sigil's Open With feature.

[KevinH]

Just use Sigil's Clips feature. That is exactly what it was meant to do. Make a clip for each snippet you commonly use. You can even wrap these snippets around currently selected text. See Sigil's Users guide for more info,

Sigil also has the ability to create and inject missing end tags via the menus.

[StephV]

Thanks for the info! Sadly, it means that I have to change the way I work, or I need to stay on 1.9.30, because I often have dozens upon dozens of tags to add. Not being able to drag and drop is a major hurdle for my workflow in general, but using an external html editor will also be a bit of a time loss (albeit lesser than going back and forth constantly to copy and past start and end tags).
I mostly review and enrich files post conversion.
While I understand Sigil was never meant to be a full-blown html editor, it was still agile and versatile enough that I could do everything I needed to do within the same software, and that meant saving a lot of time in general, because I don't have to go back and forth between editors to do x specialized thing, then back in Sigil for x other more specialized thing, then another software for x and y, and back to Sigil...
Please know that I'm not telling you all that because I'm angry, but just so you understand the needs and maybe (maybe!) re-enable it in the future once it become safe to do again.

[StephV]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Just use Sigil's Clips feature. That is exactly what it was meant to do. Make a clip for each snippet you commonly use. You can even wrap these snippets around currently selected text. See Sigil's Users guide for more info,

Sigil also has the ability to create and inject missing end tags via the menus.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll definitely check that out!

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by StephV

While I understand Sigil was never meant to be a full-blown html editor, it was still agile and versatile enough that I could do everything I needed to do within the same software, and that meant saving a lot of time in general, because I don't have to go back and forth between editors to do x specialized thing, then back in Sigil for x other more specialized thing, then another software for x and y, and back to Sigil...

Have you tried Sigil's Open With feature? Once you have configured an editor (or a couple). It's as simple as right-clicking a file in Book Browser and selecting the editor to open it in. Then when you are done, the file will be reloaded in Sigil with the changes. It's not really "going back and forth" between Sigil and another editor--closing/reopening, etc... It's merely substituting another html editor for Sigil's built-in one.

[StephV]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Have you tried Sigil's Open With feature? Once you have configured an editor (or a couple). It's as simple as right-clicking a file in Book Browser and selecting the editor to open it in. Then when you are done, the file will be reloaded in Sigil with the changes. It's not really "going back and forth" between Sigil and another editor--closing/reopening, etc... It's merely substituting another html editor for Sigil's built-in one.

Yeah, I programmed Notepad++ into it, until 2.0.0 I didn't see the need to use it much if at all. I'll try different things today and see what works best between the clips and the external editor.
It's just that I usually do more than just code review in one go, because we convert a lot of files from PDF, and that introduces typos... So Sigil has the big perk of allowing me to review and enrich code + at a glance find a few typos (and more using the spellcheck tool later in my process).
I also have co-workers that I will need to teach whatever alternative I decide on se we're all on the same page. But that part is a me-problem!

[DiapDealer]

Understood. Everyone's workflow is different.

[KevinH]

As a compromise, we had added code to allow drop in CodeView, but only if a specific environment variable is set by the user.

This will be an entirely unsupported feature (meaning no bug reports concerning it will be accepted).

So starting with the quickly forthcoming (maybe tonight) Sigil-2.0.1 release:

setting the following environment variable:

SIGIL_ALLOW_CODEVIEW_DROP

to have the value 1 before launching Sigil should allow your old workflow to continue.

Hope this helps.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Just use Sigil's Clips feature. That is exactly what it was meant to do. Make a clip for each snippet you commonly use.

Yep! Exactly!

Using the Clips Editor

You can add/edit all your clips by pressing:

• Tools > Clips Editor (Ctrl+Alt+C)

Then you can create multiple Clips to help mark up languages like:

- - -

Name: English
Text: <span class="english" lang="en" xml:lang="en">\1</span>

Name: French
Text: <span class="french" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">\1</span>

Name: German
Text: <span class="german" lang="de" xml:lang="de">\1</span>

- - -

Side Note: See the \1? In Clips, that means Sigil will insert "whatever you have highlighted" in that spot!

Side Note #2: If you constantly find yourself copying/pasting/inserting large "templates" of code, Clips are great for that too!

- - -

Setting Up the Clips Window/Toolbar

Now, if you press:

• View > Clips

you can show an easy-to-click window of all your Clips. For example, I set mine up in Sigil's lower-left corner:



Or, if you prefer toolbars, you can:

• View > Toolbars > Clips Bar
• View > Toolbars > Clips Bar2

to enable extra toolbars up top:



Actually Using The Clips!

Now, if you had text like:

<p>This is an example of English.</p>
<p>This is an example of François.</p>
<p>This is an example of Deutsch.</p>

you can:

• Highlight your word/sentence/text/code.
• Click on a Clip.

and Sigil will insert that Clip code (around your highlighted text):

<p>This is an example of <span class="english" lang="en" xml:lang="en">English</span>.</p>
<p>This is an example of <span class="french" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">François</span>.</p>
<p>This is an example of <span class="german" lang="de" xml:lang="de">Deutsch</span>.</p>

- - -

Originally Posted by StephV

It's just that I usually do more than just code review in one go, because we convert a lot of files from PDF, and that introduces typos... So Sigil has the big perk of allowing me to review and enrich code + at a glance find a few typos (and more using the spellcheck tool later in my process).

You'll probably want to read a ton of all my tips/tricks.

I've written 2200 posts since 2012 all about this PDF->ebook + ebook conversion + ebook cleaning stuff.

For example, you can probably type this into your favorite search engine:

Sigil clips Tex2002ans site:mobileread.com
language markup Tex2002ans site:mobileread.com

and come across many of my explanations/tutorials, like:

• 2021: "Add xml:lang to ePub"
• 2021: "Japanese characters not showing up on some devices"

On PDF->EPUB itself... you may be interested in my recent posts in:

• 2023: "From print to ePub - how I did it."

Originally Posted by StephV

I also have co-workers that I will need to teach whatever alternative I decide on se we're all on the same page. But that part is a me-problem!

Oh? What's the project? Do you work for a publisher?

[StephV]

Originally Posted by KevinH

As a compromise, we had added code to allow drop in CodeView, but only if a specific environment variable is set by the user.

This will be an entirely unsupported feature (meaning no bug reports concerning it will be accepted).

So starting with the quickly forthcoming (maybe tonight) Sigil-2.0.1 release:

setting the following environment variable:

SIGIL_ALLOW_CODEVIEW_DROP

to have the value 1 before launching Sigil should allow your old workflow to continue.

Hope this helps.

I understand the risks. Thank you tons!

[KevinH]

And I agree with Tex2002ans as he explained, Clips is a better/safer way of handling/inserting commonly used strings (tags, attributes, etc).

You might want to also look into SavedSearches and Find&Replace lists that can even be automated. See the Sigil User's Guide for more info.

[StephV]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Oh? What's the project? Do you work for a publisher?

I work for an aggregator/distributor and we offer a conversion service for our customers (publishers). We handle reflowable, FXL, accessible and non-accessible titles. I handle the review/corrections/adjustments parts so I learned to do a little bit of everything from coding to dabbling a little in minor graphic editing. Let's just say I'm the do-it-all person of eBooks at my job

Thank you for the tips, I'll take a look at them for sure!

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by KevinH

And I agree with Tex2002ans as he explained, [...]

You might want to also look into SavedSearches and Find&Replace lists that can even be automated. See the Sigil User's Guide for more info.

Yes, and don't forget the awesome "Saved Searches" trick using Groups to run multiple find/replaces in a row:

• 2022: "Multiple changes in batch"

That's one of the ultimate time-savers.

Like I just have a big ol' list of search/replaces that cleans up Finereader output + common OCR issues:

• 2020: "Optimize PDFs from archive.org for E-Ink devices"

within a few minutes, I'd have a reasonably clean file—at least compared to the raw output—(see the Archive.org "EPUB" vs. my quickly-OCRed+cleaned EPUB).

Originally Posted by StephV

I work for an aggregator/distributor and we offer a conversion service for our customers (publishers). We handle reflowable, FXL, accessible and non-accessible titles. I handle the review/corrections/adjustments parts so I learned to do a little bit of everything from coding to dabbling a little in minor graphic editing. Let's just say I'm the do-it-all person of eBooks at my job

You will be very interested in this post + the articles/talks I linked to:

• 2023: "Semantic markup question!"

That links to fantastic stuff describing the reality of updating/maintaining the ebook backlist.