Considering the demise of BookView

[BetterRed]

There has been some discussion of late regarding the exorcising of Book View. I thought it might b worthwhile to have somewhere users can document any concerns.

BR

[Turtle91]

Bookview?!?! What's that?

[BetterRed]

I don't use Book View very often, hardly at all in fact, but there's one feature I have used to good effect and that's Format->Remove Formatting. In Book View it only removes styling tags (bold, italics etc) within the selected text (e.g. an entire html file), but retains paragraph, division, etc tags as-is. In Code View it removes all tags.

Maybe Remove Formatting could have two options when used in Code View - All Tags, and Styling Tags Only.

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Bookview?!?! What's that?

That which you love to hate, what on earth will you do without it

BR

[theducks]

The only reason I use BV is when I try and save and get an error warning and I have no clue WHICH TAB(s) it is coming from.
I switch to BV and start closing Tabs. When I hit the error, the editor switches to CV and asks (I always choose the manual mode fix. I have seen Auto make worse hash outa mile pile of dodo ) what to do?

If there was a summary of all the (malformed) error locations (the same info that shows in the pink boxes) that would satisfy my reason for hanging on.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by theducks

The only reason I use BV is when I try and save and get an error warning and I have no clue WHICH TAB(s) it is coming from.
I switch to BV and start closing Tabs. When I hit the error, the editor switches to CV and asks (I always choose the manual mode fix. I have seen Auto make worse hash outa mile pile of dodo ) what to do?

If there was a summary of all the (malformed) error locations (the same info that shows in the pink boxes) that would satisfy my reason for hanging on.

Just hit F7. It gives you the list of bad pages, if any. You can even double click on the list item and it will take you (roughly) to the location...it's not always exact, but it gets you close enough that the discerning eye can easily pick up the problem.

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by theducks

The only reason I use BV is when I try and save and get an error warning and I have no clue WHICH TAB(s) it is coming from.
I switch to BV and start closing Tabs. When I hit the error, the editor switches to CV and asks (I always choose the manual mode fix. I have seen Auto make worse hash outa mile pile of dodo ) what to do?

If there was a summary of all the (malformed) error locations (the same info that shows in the pink boxes) that would satisfy my reason for hanging on.

That would be nice and very useful.

WHEN BV goes I would like to see Preview being assigned the '<>' icon.

If Preview was invoked by the '<>' icon and the Preview screen replaced the CV tab (as BV does now). BV could then be invoked by F10 and appear in a separate window like Preview is currently.

If this was done I think the use of BV would diminish dramatically while allowing the people use it for very minor corrections to do so.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I don't use Book View very often, hardly at all in fact,

I only use it in two cases:

One: When I'm working on some absolutely spaghettified/mangled HTML and want to manually split chapters.

In Book View, you can easily see where the cursor is located, and then you can press Edit > Split at Cursor or Ctrl+Enter.

Preview is missing the cursor + Code View is sometimes not human-readable (think InDesign mess where every word is wrapped in a hundred-character <span>).

Two: When I go through a book and want to quickly add/tweak <h1-h5> to text. I can scroll through and visually see what text should be what heading. Then I can click on it + Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+5 to give it the proper heading level.

Book View changes instantly.

With Preview there is a very long delay, and sometimes when syncing between Code/Preview, it jumps to other locations (Book View doesn't have that problem).

And Code View, it's very hard to visually see the code should actually be (many times blog posts accidentally have stuff like <p><strong>Subheading</strong></p>).

[Maui]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Just hit F7. It gives you the list of bad pages, if any. You can even double click on the list item and it will take you (roughly) to the location...it's not always exact, but it gets you close enough that the discerning eye can easily pick up the problem.

I need to admit that this is not working sometimes. As i cant create a reliable and consistent epub i didnt mentioned here.

But: as soon as the current master found his way to a release i dont need BV any more (clickable links). Pink error boxes are shown in Preview as well.

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Just hit F7. It gives you the list of bad pages, if any. You can even double click on the list item and it will take you (roughly) to the location...it's not always exact, but it gets you close enough that the discerning eye can easily pick up the problem.

Thanks for the info Powican (Filipino dialect word for Turtle).

That is something new I have learnt today.

[un_pogaz]

For me "BookView" edition is the big advantage of Sigil compared to other ePub editor.

For small text changes (without formatting, just added and deleted plain text) has the best for this function (Caliber, wordy ; Jutoh, not quickly ; and there's not many others I know)

In "BookView" we look at and read quickly our book, we locate the elements to be modified.
Another very easy thing in "BookView": add separation marks, to quickly separate the pages of the book if needed.
In clear, all simple operation, which requires quick and visual feedback for certain ease of operation, which would be incredibly more complicated in "CodeView"

And if the modification is a little more subtle => go "CodeView"

Okay it's not optimized, okay it's buggy. A lot for some. But, for answer the Thread title :
Demise the BookView would be a biggest mistakes and a big loss for Sigil.

One good thing to do is to explain to users that "BookView" is only an "interactive preview", but "incomplete". A quick editing aid, not the main tool. Useful for text editing, not the formatting.

@Thasaidon Switch "BookView" and "Preview", why not. But a practical and quick access solution would be to put "BookView" in a "Preview" submenu, or have the 3 buttons "Preview", "CodeView", "BookView".

[Toxaris]

I never use Bookview, I do everything in Codeview with the preview window activated. Based on all the discussions in the past, Bookview is holding back Sigil in its developments.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by un_pogaz

Okay it's not optimized, okay it's buggy. A lot for some. But, for answer the Thread title :
Demise the BookView would be a biggest mistakes and a big loss for Sigil

It's only a question of when Book View goes away, not if. It's become a boat anchor when it comes to Sigil development. It's buggy and it's increasingly unmanagable. It's fine for everyone to bring up things they still use BV for (mainly so alternatives can be suggested), but don't get your hopes up that Book View will get a reprieve. That ship has sailed. Book View is on borrowed time.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Thasaidon

WHEN BV goes I would like to see Preview being assigned the '<>' icon.

I'm not sure that's very likely. The '<>' icon literally represents the angle brackets that are such a prominent part of html and xml code.

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by un_pogaz

@Thasaidon Switch "BookView" and "Preview", why not. But a practical and quick access solution would be to put "BookView" in a "Preview" submenu, or have the 3 buttons "Preview", "CodeView", "BookView".

A good idea I can live with that.

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'm not sure that's very likely. The '<>' icon literally represents the angle brackets that are such a prominent part of html and xml code.

It does not have to be the '<>' icon itself. But I would like an icon just for Preview with the screen replacing the CV tab (as BV does now) or perhaps adding it as a new tab. This would allow quick switching between CV and Preview.