Please Help Test Sigil 2.7.5 Beta

[KevinH]

Hi All,

To get the very latest critical security and bug fixes, we have made major updates to Sigil to use the just released Qt6.10.2 and Python 3.14.2 and to use the very latest toolchains to make our builds. Sigil 2.7.5 includes all the accepted new features and improvements asked for here on Mobilreread as well as many, many bug fixes.

Since automated functional and regression testing a project as big and varied as Sigil and its plugins is hard to do, we would very much like your help in testing a beta of our upcoming release Sigil-2.7.5.

Since major changes to Python have been made, please also test all of your plugins that use our embedded python interpreter to verify they continue to work with Python 3.14.2.

Please post any issues you may find in this thread or in our github Issues.

Please note, the new minimum Mac OS version for running and using Sigil is now MacOS 10.13 (High Sierra) as it is the oldest MacOS version still receiving security fixes from Apple and is the oldest supported by Qt 6.10.

I have posted CI builds of the beta to my personal repo here:

https://github.com/kevinhendricks/Bu...nMac/releases/

Look for these Beta builds ...

Sigil-2.7.5-beta-x86_64.AppImage
Sigil-2.7.5-Windows-x64-Setup.exe
Sigil.app-2.7.5-beta-Mac-arm64.tar.xz
Sigil.app-2.7.5-beta-Mac-x86_64.tar.xz

Note: these MacOS builds are fully signed but NOT notarized by Apple as we only use notarization in our final official release process. So if you run into difficulties try removing the Apple quarantine extended attribute before unpacking and running the beta. You should only do this for truly trusted software.

To remove the quarantine extended attribute, use the following:

Place the downloaded file on your Desktop (move it out of Downloads) and run Terminal.app and enter the following commands:

    cd ~/Desktop 
    xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ./Sigil.app-2.7.5-beta-Mac-x86_64.tar.xz

or 

    cd ~/Desktop
    xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ./Sigil.app-2.7.5-beta-Mac-arm64.tar.xz

Then try unpacking it and running the beta.

Windows users: though I haven't run into it yet, it IS conceivable that you might need to update your Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable runtimes. Sigil is now being built with Visual Studio 2026. Those using Windows 11 should be able to keep these up to date with the normal Windows Update service anyway.

Linux AppImage Users: don't forget to mark the .AppImage file as executable after downloading.

[KevinH]

FYI, translators, this beta uses a recent but not final set of translations from Transifex. So you still have time to update those if needed and I will pull them in from Transifex in time for the official final release once all reported bugs have been worked out.

[BetterRed]

Windows 10 Pro 22H2 19045.6809

If I run Sigil maximised (which I never do), minimised non-modal windows appear to be shown at the left hand end of the status line:



If I run Sigil in a smaller window (which I always do) minimised non-modal windows appear at the bottom edge of the monitor - i.e. in the same absolute positions, which for me means they are barely visible:



There is no indication as to what the minimised windows are - e.g. spellcheck, reports, etc.

If I open another EPUB, the minimised non-modal windows show data from the EPUB that was open when they were minimised. They should be closed when the EPUB they refer to is closed, rather than when Sigil is closed.

I also note the Reports function is now lightning fast

BR

[KevinH]

I will look into auto closing minimized Dialogs when a new epub is opened that replaces the current one.

In MacOS, this is already taken care of when the MainWindow is closed, since opening a new epub always opens in its own new MainWindow and does not replace.

As to where minimized Windows/Dialogs show up on Windows when Sigil is maximized or not, that is a Windows 11 OS thing, and is not part of the Sigil codebase.

[DiapDealer]

Can't say that I'm really a fan of those new minimizable dialogs for Windows. I think they're going to cause some confusion. I won't stand in the way if enough people here favor them, though. Minimizing an open dialog in an application on Windows is just not something that has ever occurred to me to try and do. *shrug*

Currently, if I minimize the reports dialogs in two separate instances of Sigil, I can't tell which minimized dialog goes with which Sigil instance without first restoring it (or minimizing one instance of Sigil to hide the associated minimized dialog).

This feels really, really foreign to me. I'm beginning to think this ability was disabled in Qt on Windows by default for a reason.

[KevinH]

So how on Windows do people normally get a large non-modal dialog out of the way temporarily on a single screen system or laptop but not the entire app?

[DiapDealer]

I'm honestly trying hard to think of a Windows application I use where I engage with application specific non-modal dialogs. Large or otherwise. I'm sure others probably have examples of ones that they use all the time (that's why I won't stand in the way here). And for it to minimize outside of the main window of the application it's a part of feels and looks strange to me. I think I was expecting more of an MDI interface when it was being discussed. It's probably just me. And if I keep on using things the way I always have, this shouldn't really affect me anyway.

[KevinH]

For laughs, I tried to minimize the Reports window on MacOS and it refuses to minimize even with the minimize hint include as a window flag. The min tool button is there but is dimmed out and not usable.

So perhaps we go away from Minimizing these large non-modal windows and instead add a routine and a button to keep them open but shrunk just so that the titlebar can be seen. I think it is BetterRed who said he had a tool that added that feature, perhaps it is one we should try to mimic.

I will try it under KDE and Manjaro to see how Linux handles that.

[KevinH]

Okay under Manjaro KDE, I can minimize the SpellcheckEditor window and it disappears down into the task bar. There is no obvious way to bring it back besides minimizing the entire Sigil app and then restoring it which brings the Spellcheck Editor back with it.

If I open two different Sigil applications, and try the same, when I hover over the single Taskbar Sigil icon, KDE shows me the two associated MainWindows in thumbnail size for me to select from.

But on Manjaro Linux, Sigil exhibits the exact same problem as reported by BettterRed in that when minimize the Spellcheck Editor then open a new different epub then un-minimize the Spellcheck Editor, it is showing the old data.

So minimization does not really work on anything that isn't the Main Application Window easily, at least not in a cross-platform way.

The problem with adding our own toolbar rollup button, is that it breaks all platform specific titlebars and you then have to create a crossplatform app titlebar from scratch with the extra buttons to rollup and rolldown.

So I do not see an easy solution to this. We would need to create a keyboard shortcut of some sort (as new title bar buttons will not work) that asks the current focus window for its current size, remembers it, and then tells that window to resize itself to absolutely minimum size (ie. just titlebar in height). If that same keyboard shortcut is used again on that same focus window, then re would need to restore it back to its original size.

I can easily use the macOS existing titlebar buttons and ask it to tile all that application's windows in some way but making it as small as possible is not one of those options.

Not sure how to best handle this.

[philja]

I've got the beta appimage running on UbuntuStudio 24.04.3 LTS - looks ok.

I've had a quick run through with TagMechanic, EpubCheck, testplugin, Epub3-itizer plugins without incident.

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by philja

I've got the beta appimage running on UbuntuStudio 24.04.3 LTS - looks ok.

I've had a quick run through with TagMechanic, EpubCheck, testplugin, Epub3-itizer plugins without incident.

Wonderful! Thanks for testing your plugins and reporting back. Python 3.14 changed more than a few things and we already fixed some breakage in the dulwich module.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by KevinH

So how on Windows do people normally get a large non-modal dialog out of the way temporarily on a single screen system or laptop but not the entire app?

Via a Windows add-on, I make the non-modal child Stay on Top (Ctrl+Win+T), Roll it Up (Ctrl+Win+R) and park it:



If I put something top of the Sigil window, then its topped and rolled non-modals will be visible:



That's okay, if I minimise Sigil (which I can do from the taskbar) the topped and rolled non-modal windows go with it, otherwise I can leave them there as a reminder.

The add-on is Actual Title Buttons, I've used it since 2007, not free but back then none of the freebies worked seamlessly with all the applications I use… ATB did and still does.



BTW my comment of Reports being lightning fast was on largish, but very simple book, the Sigil Manual is about the same as before.

BR

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by KevinH

. . .

Not sure how to best handle this.

FWIW 1: My advice is stay out of it, leave it to the native window managers and related addons, for Windows there are dozens… Blinds, Fences, Whim, Rainmeter (?) . . .

FWIW 2: some calibre library manager plugins use non-modal windows, they are shown in the Windows taskbar:



I group taskbar icons, via another add-on (7TT), others don't (even if they use 7TT), see the exchange between me and the OP (Comfy.n) from post 10 onwards in this thread ==>> OPF Helper

BR

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

FWIW 2: some calibre library manager plugins use non-modal windows, they are shown in the Windows taskbar:

BR

Yes, thanks for the link, they simply set the QDialog parent to a nullptr to make it a standalone top-level Window.

Doable, but not ideal as cleaning up top-level windows without "delete on close" set can leak memory. And the Sigil windows in question are tied to the book loaded in the main window and should not be a new top-level windows, whereas that tool crosses/processes multiple books.

[retiredbiker]

I got the 2.7.5 appimage and tried a couple of epubs. Exercised the ODTImport,, Check Internal Links, Remove unused selectors, Epubcheck, Footnote manipulator, InsertImageSVG, Punctuation Smarten, Remove Inline Styles. Got no errors, but on a quick test some of the plugins had little or nothing to do; still they ran with no errors. Running on Pop_os.