Sigil-2.7.0 Released

[philja]

Originally Posted by hobnail

I didn't see this answered. I'm also not getting replace all when I use alt+a. The Search menu shows alt+a as the shortcut for replace all. Clicking the replace all button in the find and replace at the bottom of the code view window works.

On my MacBook, the given shortcut for replace all is Ctrl+Alt+A. Now you might say you're on Windows. But then the MacBook shortcuts all seem to be in Windows language. I've said before that it's not very helpful for a Mac user.

Usually Ctrl on Windows equates to Cmd on Mac but I didn't know Alt=Opt. I'm only a recent Mac user.

On my Mac, it's Opt+Cmd+A which replaces all.

Try Ctrl+Alt+A on Windows.

[ElMiko]

Originally Posted by philja

On my MacBook, the given shortcut for replace all is Ctrl+Alt+A. Now you might say you're on Windows. But then the MacBook shortcuts all seem to be in Windows language. I've said before that it's not very helpful for a Mac user.

Usually Ctrl on Windows equates to Cmd on Mac but I didn't know Alt=Opt. I'm only a recent Mac user.

On my Mac, it's Opt+Cmd+A which replaces all.

Try Ctrl+Alt+A on Windows.

Unless you go into preferences, and change the keyboard shortcut to Ctrl+Alt+A, it won't do anything.... unless of course it's already assigned to something else, in which case it'll do that.

The issue that hobnail and I are having is that in Sigil's preferences it is explicityly assigned to Alt+A, but the program doesn't honor it. For me, it opens the Automation menu instead. Basically it doesn't distinguish between "Alt, A" and "Alt + A". The same issue would arise for any shortcuts assigned to "Alt +(F,E,I,M,S,T,V,W,PK, or H)"

[KevinH]

Is there any difference when using the left alt versus the right alt key?

There were no changes in shortcuts in the code so maybe adding a high level Automation menu is causing the issue on Windows? Is Alt A a windows built in way way to get to the menu?

If so, perhaps changing the shortcut for replace all would work around the issue.

I thought we removed all Alt+ shortcuts as defaults on Windows quite a long time ago.

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by philja

But then the MacBook shortcuts all seem to be in Windows language. I've said before that it's not very helpful for a Mac user.

Usually Ctrl on Windows equates to Cmd on Mac but I didn't know Alt=Opt. I'm only a recent Mac user.

And I already explained that this is standard practice on MacOS for cross-platform Qt software like Sigil. It makes standard copy and paste and cut sequences universal across platforms. It will not be changed as there are long term Sigil MacOS users that have used it and expect it for over 10 years (me included).

[KevinH]

I looked at the Sigil code and there are no ALT+ a Letter default shortcuts set and used by Sigil anymore, not for a long time. There is no default accelerator used on the Automation high level menu either.

So you once set ALT+A to be the Replace All key sequence in your Sigil prefs and then later versions of Sigil inherited that via ini files. No new user installs will see that. Windows is what is interpreting your ALT A differently now that there is an Automation menu. MacOS does not use menu accelerators like that.

So you will need to assign a new shortcut that does not clash with Windows menu accelerators.

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by KevinH

So you once set ALT+A to be the Replace All key sequence in your Sigil prefs and then later versions of Sigil inherited that via ini files. No new user installs will see that. Windows is what is interpreting your ALT A differently now that there is an Automation menu. MacOS does not use menu accelerators like that.

So you will need to assign a new shortcut that does not clash with Windows menu accelerators.

Ok, thanks. That makes sense. I'll figure out a new key combo.

[philja]

I've just had a chance to check with my linux and W11 boxes on the shortcut for replace all.

All my boxes are on the latest 2.7.0 Sigil. The Sigil Preferences in the W11 box shows Ctrl+Alt +A as the setting for replace all. This agrees as I thought it would with the Windows language used in the preferences in the MacBook. And when tested, it works on Mac and W11.

However, the latest Linux AppImage preferences does have Alt+A shown as the 'replace all' setting.

I have never changed that shortcut because 'replace all' is something I avoid.

When I test it in linux, Alt-A makes the automation entry on the menu bar display the 'manage automation lists' option but without opening the dialogue.

I can't find any combination of Ctrl, Alt, and A that will make the 'replace all' work in linux (and I'm not about to set up a keyboard shortcut myself to do that).

[KevinH]

Any new installs without an existing ini settings file will not have a default shortcut set for replace all on any platform as far as I can tell based on the source code.

[Vanguard3000]

Hey all. I updated this morning and am noticing a lot of stalling and CPU usage when more than one instance of Sigil is opened (which is often the case for me), with regards to the Preview window.

For example, if I open BOOKA, then BOOKB, BOOKA will generally run fine when switching xhtml files or doing edits that would trigger a Preview update. When doing the same things on BOOKB (i.e. the second instance opened), Sigil will stop entirely for several seconds before the Preview updates, during which time I can't interact with Sigil at all.

This seems to be the case with a third instance as well if I open one. I've tried with the "Disable GPU Acceleration" open checked and unchecked, and am on Windows 11.

Has anyone else noticed this? Devs, I'll suffer with it for the next few days if there's anything you want me to try to help diagnose the issue; it is a frustrating issue though so I'll have to roll back eventually and hope the next version corrects the issue for me.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by Vanguard3000

Has anyone else noticed this?

Yes I noticed it as well.

[KevinH]

There are no Sigil specific code changes that should cause this as the second and third instance should use memory based caches, whereas the original instance of Sigil uses a slower disk based cache. My guess is that the browser instance threads are being lowered in priority somehow by Windows 11. There was a similar issue seen with multiple browsers and as I remember was first reported in the Calibre thread.

I will see if I can find that issue and solution that involved changing priorities in Windows 11.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by KevinH

There are no Sigil specific code changes that should cause this as the second and third instance should use memory based caches, whereas the original instance of Sigil uses a slower disk based cache. My guess is that the browser instance threads are being lowered in priority somehow by Windows 11. There was a similar issue seen with multiple browsers and as I remember was first reported in the Calibre thread.

I will see if I can find that issue and solution that involved changing priorities in Windows 11.

It is very noticeable, and was not an issue in the previous version.

I regularly open two windows when I am cleaning books in a series. I will grab a copy of the css from the previous book so I can ensure consistency between the books... I have not noticed that gpu acceleration affects it either way, it just seems to take an extra 6-7 seconds to refresh the preview especially when opening a new page from the book browser...during that time it won't let you do anything else. The previous version had no delay.

[KevinH]

Yes, but Windows treated the Qt 6.8.x version differently than it did later versions.

The macOS version of Sigil uses multiple main windows and to test I was able to open 5 different epubs at the same time with no slowdown in Preview or CodeView at all.

[KevinH]

Okay, I could not find the issue in calibre, but a general web search indicates the Windows has an "efficiency mode", that will automatically lower the priority of programs it doesn't like for some reason.

To rule this out, fire up 2 or 3 instances of Sigil and go to Windows task manager, and disable efficiency mode for the second and third instances of Sigil and all its threads and test again.

Please include screenshots showing the priority of all threads generated by Sigil across all instances, including the multiple QWebEngineProcess thread.

As all of this works just fine on MacOS, so I will test with multiple instances of Sigil on Linux to see how fast it is.

My bet is this is truly related to Windows lowering priority for memory hungry processes like browsers for its efficiency mode (that is triggered by the new Qt WebEngine), but I do not have a Windows box to test that hypothesis with.

As an temporary workaround, try using the template plugin to load commonly used code when starting a new epub or simply use FolderOut to save commonly used epub pieces to a folder which can easily be loaded by any instance of Sigil.

If someone who can recreate this Preview slowdown on Windows with multiple instances of Sigil, please use the task manager to see if the second or third instances and their threads have had their priorities lowered. Please let us know what you see.

[kovidgoyal]

@KevinH If I had to guess I would guess that this is caused by lock contention in one of the various disk caches web engine uses. Windows is particularly susceptible to it because of its insane mandatory file locking. I have seen that with newer versions of web engine on windows. I know you said that second instance uses in memory cache, but perhaps that's not true for all caches.