Drag and drop text in 2.0.0

[StephV]

Thank you all for the info! I'm definitely taking a lot of notes and will see what I can add/modify to my workflow. I'm definitely giving the clips feature a solid try. Had I realized what it did sooner, it might have been adopted a long, long time ago.
I rarely have the time to sit and just learn so it's a great opportunity for that.

I'll also have to check what SavedSearches and and Find&Replace lists can provide for us. I already do use standard Find&Replace a whole lot, but I haven't dabbled in Regex much if at all (lack of time and potential brain implosion trying to cram too much info at once), but that's definitely in the "to learn" list since a long time ago (But EPUB3.3 revisions and WAI-ARIA 1.2 have taken a bigger priority recently).

I skimmed a bit through the Semantic Markup Question! topic and boy do I wish it was that simple for us. Certifiers tend to be the ones to request us to go overboard and I neither have the time nor the ressources to fight them on it. It's often quicker to just... Do what they ask us...

But none of what was explained to me is lost, I'm pinning topics and stuff and will go through recommended threads as I go (but right now it's high season for book releases so I don't think I'll have a lot of time to dedicate on learning beyond Clips this month... )

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by StephV

Thank you all for the info! I'm definitely taking a lot of notes and will see what I can add/modify to my workflow. I'm definitely giving the clips feature a solid try. Had I realized what it did sooner, it might have been adopted a long, long time ago.
I rarely have the time to sit and just learn so it's a great opportunity for that.

Originally Posted by StephV

I already do use standard Find&Replace a whole lot, but I haven't dabbled in Regex much if at all

Just think of Regular Expressions as "search using patterns".

Instead of individually searching for things like:

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• [...]
• Chapter 100

you can do a single regex search like:

• Chapter \d+
  
  • Find the word "Chapter" followed by "ONE OR MORE OF ANY NUMBER".

These are INCREDIBLY powerful, and can save you SO MUCH TIME once you understand some of the very basics.

For more examples, see:

• 2022: "False paragraph breaks & RegEx"
• 2022: "Regex expression to replace certain spaces with nonbreaking spaces"

and type this into your favorite search engine:

"regular expressions" Tex2002ans site:mobileread.com
"regex" Tex2002ans site:mobileread.com

You'll come across hundreds of topics where I've done a step-by-step breakdown of regexes + gave tons of helpful examples.

- - -

If you want even more, you can search:

"regular expressions" Tex2002ans site:reddit.com/r/libreoffice

That will show you ~100 of my LibreOffice explanations too (these patterns can typically be used in Word too).

Once you learn to "think in patterns", search/replace becomes SO MUCH better.

Here's a few recent examples:

• /r/LibreOffice: "Right Regex expression ?"
  
  • See the Side Note where I explained the basics of regular expressions + basic patterns that might be helpful to search for.
• How to Find All Italics in a Document + Replace with <i>Italics</i>

- - -

Originally Posted by StephV

[...] so I don't think I'll have a lot of time to dedicate on learning beyond Clips this month... )

Spend a little time up front learning how to use the tools more efficiently and you'll save a ton of time in the long-run.

Same with learning Styles in Word/LibreOffice! Spend less than 30 minutes learning Styles, and you'll save yourself hundreds of hours of formatting headaches.

There's so many awesome bells and whistles hidden inside of Sigil/Calibre. Take full advantage of them!

Another one you might like is Sigil's fantastic Reports:

• Tools > Reports (Ctrl+Shift+R)

to see a few awesome tricks with that, see my post in:

• 2022: "A way to find word length of chapters/stories in book?"

[Coldturkey]

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'd like to try that. Can you please explain how i can change the environment variable? I've done a couple of different searches but can't find anything on how to do this.

[DiapDealer]

Search for setting environment variables in Windows (or whatever your OS might be). There's tons of HOWTOs and videos out there.

[DiapDealer]

This marks the one and only time I will describe how to create environment variables in Windows 10/11. Bookmark this post for future reference.

1) type 'env' (no quotes) in the taskbar search area
2) click the resulting 'Edit system environment variables' link
3) click the Environment Variables button at the bottom of the open Advanced tab
4) in the User variables for <user> section, click the 'New' button.
5) in the 'Variable name:' field, type SIGIL_ALLOW_CODEVIEW_DROP
6) in the 'Variable value:' field, type '1' (no quotes)
7) click the OK button
8) click the OK button
9) click the OK button
10) Launch Sigil and verify dropping in Code View works.

To disable it again:
1) repeat steps 1-3 above
2) highlight SIGIL_ALLOW_CODEVIEW_DROP in the top window and click the 'Delete' button
3) click OK
4) click OK
5) launch Sigil and verify dropping text in Code View no longer works.

[KevinH]

There really are lots of sites that explain how to do this in great detail.

A simple google search of:

"how to set an environment variable in windows"

gives pages and pages of hits.

Here is one with graphics ...

https://geekflare.com/system-environ...es-in-windows/

Perhaps we should make your post and this link an FAQ or Pinned Thread.

[BetterRed]

I've used this free gadget since XP ==>> Rapid Environment Editor

BR

[seanos]

Thanks for re-enabling this.

I also rely on drag and drop. It’s incredibly useful and worked fine for me before (but I’m using Linux rather than Windows). It’s an integral part of editing and I was surprised to see it had been dumped.

I also use Clips constantly, but they are two completely different things.

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by seanos

Thanks for re-enabling this.
...
I also use Clips constantly, but they are two completely different things.

Not if dragging and dropping text bits from an outside sheet of commonly added text strings. That was the whole reason why we recommended clips.

[seanos]

Yes, but I’m not doing that and was just trying to flag that people can (and do) use drag and drop in legitimately useful ways.

I barely use it in other programs because the standard keyboard navigation/selection methods I learnt long ago work fine for ordinary text. They don’t work well with tags though, so if you need to regularly work on text with unpredictable, badly nested tags, drag and drop is very useful.

[Coldturkey]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

This marks the one and only time I will describe how to create environment variables in Windows 10/11. Bookmark this post for future reference.

1) type 'env' (no quotes) in the taskbar search area
2) click the resulting 'Edit system environment variables' link
3) click the Environment Variables button at the bottom of the open Advanced tab
4) in the User variables for <user> section, click the 'New' button.
5) in the 'Variable name:' field, type SIGIL_ALLOW_CODEVIEW_DROP
6) in the 'Variable value:' field, type '1' (no quotes)
7) click the OK button
8) click the OK button
9) click the OK button
10) Launch Sigil and verify dropping in Code View works.

To disable it again:
1) repeat steps 1-3 above
2) highlight SIGIL_ALLOW_CODEVIEW_DROP in the top window and click the 'Delete' button
3) click OK
4) click OK
5) launch Sigil and verify dropping text in Code View no longer works.

Very clear instructions. Thanks for taking the time to do that.
In my defence (weak though it is) I thought environment variables was a Sigil thing, I didn't realise it was for Windows as a whole so didn't look at the google search output for that.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Coldturkey

Very clear instructions. Thanks for taking the time to do that.

No problem.

Originally Posted by Coldturkey

In my defence (weak though it is) I thought environment variables was a Sigil thing, I didn't realise it was for Windows as a whole so didn't look at the google search output for that.

I sort of got that impression. That's why I changed my mind and provided instructions.

[seanos]

1. Find the .desktop file for Sigil (/usr/share/applications/sigil.desktop)
2. Copy the file to your applications folder (so it’s not overwritten when Sigil is updated) — in a terminal:
   

   cp /usr/share/applications/sigil.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/sigil.desktop

3. Open ~/.local/share/applications/sigil.desktop in a text editor and change the Exec line from Exec=sigil %F to Exec=env SIGIL_ALLOW_CODEVIEW_DROP=1 sigil %F
4. Save & close the file

[seanos]

I can understand not wanting to descend into a mire of drag & drop bugs that only affect a minority of users, but this is so odd I thought it was worth mentioning.

In Sigil 2.0.1, if I select text in the editor and hold Control to copy while dragging, as soon as I click the left mouse button the view is swapped to the style sheet as though I had pressed F3.

In the style sheet it works as expected.

99% sure this worked before.

Manjaro Linux, Sigil says Qt 5.15.10.

[Turtle91]

There is a specific feature that will take you to the style sheet if you ctrl-click on a class name. It’s intended to make it easier to edit the styles.

Are you sure you aren’t highlighting a class when you try and drag?