a few bugs

[WS64]

I noticed a few bugs in Sigil 0.9.8

1. Open any epub, rename the first (maybe any, have no checked) file to xxx.xml. Sigil will crash when you try to "Split at Cursor/Markers"
2. I have a lot of own saved searches and clips. But from time to time Sigil loses them. This only happens when I have several books open (in several Sigil instances). In this case I need to close all Sigil instances, on the next Sigil-start they are back. I can't tell an exact way to reproduce this.
3. From time to time Sigil shows the "An error happened/Sigil will close now" message (can't remember the exact wording) when I try to insert something from the clip editor. Luckily Sigil is NOT closing after this. Actually nothing happens except that I have to do the same action again, 2nd time it works. Again, unfortunately I cannot tell which steps are necessary to reproduce this.

None of these happened in my previous version which I think was 0.9.2 (or even older)

Btw, can I have the old Metadata Editor back?
I could so easy throw away the metadata that I did not need, it is way more complicated with the new one...

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by WS64

Btw, can I have the old Metadata Editor back?
I could so easy throw away the metadata that I did not need, it is way more complicated with the new one...

For EPUB2, I treat it as a spreadsheet and ignore the buttons

Use vertical arrow keys to traverse the list of names
Use horizontal arrow keys to move between name and value
To delete an entry use Ctrl/Del on the name
To edit a value use F2 on it

BR

[KevinH]

1. The xml extension is not valid in Sigil for anything other than plain xml and should not be used for html or xhtml or svg. That said, Sigil should never crash. I will look into fixing this.

2. This is a bug in Qt syncing ini/settings files across multiple instances of the app open. It is Windows specific. I can not reproduce this on Mac OSX.

3. Sorry, again this may be caused by the same Qt ini syncing bug. I have never seen this on OSX version of Sigil and so the only way to track this down is with concrete set of steps to recreate it.

Newer version of Qt involved which fixed older bugs but introduced new ones. Going to older versions of Qt will not help. We may try to move to Qt 5.9.1 (the latest) for the next release in case that helps.

And no the old table based metadata editor will never come back. Simply highlight and hit the delete key, the new one works exactly the same way.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Simply highlight and hit the delete key, the new one works exactly the same way.

Kevin - it's Ctrl+Del in Windows, IIRC always has been.

BR

[WS64]

To the Metadata editor, no, simply highlight and delete is not the same as before.
First of all, I have to read all "Names" to find out which I can delete (or edit), in the old it was so easy, the ones on top (outside the big window) were the ones I wanted.
They were always at the exact same position, very convenient.
With the new editor, when you go to one line, and this line is very long, it jumps to the end of the line, so I cannot even see the other lines anymore. And even deleting this line does not help, I need to completely close the editor after deleting the long line to see the start of the other lines.
Sorry, but the old editor was way easier to use!

To the QT issues, does this fit to me never seeing this behaviour on Sigil 0.92? Was a new QT introduced since then?

[KevinH]

Yes, the delete action does work even on long lines. I will look in auto-abbreviation for longer lines. BTW as BetterRed explained, simply click on the metadata tag/element name and delete. It will remove the entire item even any additional properties/attributes.

The only truly basic ones you need are language, title, and probably author. You can use the arrows buttons to arrange them any way you want.

yes we have changed Qt many times trying to get needed bug fixes. Earlier releases uses 5.1,5.3,5.4,5.4.1,5.6.x

[WS64]

KevinH, what about maybe a button like "delete all metadata except..."?

[KevinH]

Just how much metadata are you trying to delete and why? If you are the author/creator of the work, why did you add it in the first place? If you are not the author, why are you deleting information from a book that can be potentially useful to readers and that takes up so little space in a compressed epub (.zip)? Why bother?

The problem is a button like that could remove metadata added specifically to target kindles, or other devices, but we have no way of knowing the intended meaning and target.

So no ... a button like that won't be added either.

[KevinH]

btw on the topic of essential metadata, I should have included the main uuid dc:identifier as it will be pointed at in the opf and will be used with embedded fonts for obfuscation/deobfuscation.

You might also want to keep the metadata associated with the cover image as well since devices use that.

[WS64]

OK...

Offtopic but related to the metadata editor:

Since I can't get the old metadata editor and no button I took the existing cleanOPF plugin listed in your list of plugins. It does not work at all on my system, e.g. wrong python engine, mix of tabs and spaces which seems not to be allowed and so on.

So I repaired it and and made some modifications to make it meet my requirements.
I am not sure, am I allowed to publish it?
The original plugin is of course not my work but of someone called "rubeus" who is now banned from the board....
(and actually I am not sure if anyone else needs a plugin like that!)

[KevinH]

Did that plugin include a license file or in any way state which license it was released under? If not, you should probably not publish a derivative of a work automatically under copyright. If yes and BSD, GPL, MIT, etc etc, then yes you can publish it under the terms of that license.

Of course you can always use it privately but publishing the code does typically require either the author's permission or a license.

[JustinThought]

Originally Posted by WS64

//snip!//[*]I have a lot of own saved searches and clips. But from time to time Sigil loses them. This only happens when I have several books open (in several Sigil instances). In this case I need to close all Sigil instances, on the next Sigil-start they are back. I can't tell an exact way to reproduce this.

Originally Posted by KevinH

//snip!//
2. This is a bug in Qt syncing ini/settings files across multiple instances of the app open. It is Windows specific. I can not reproduce this on Mac OSX.

I have experienced this issue since before the update, and one thing I have concluded is that it is memory-specific. On my desktop, which has 4gb of memory, I can open three, sometimes four instances of Sigil without "disappearing" my saved searches. On my cheapo laptop, with its wealth of 2gb, when I open #3, it's bye-bye searches. Dunno if this helps, but I thought I'd throw it in there.

[WS64]

@JustinThought, my computer here actually has 32GB, so I really doubt that this is the reason.

But I guess it might help that you can actually reproduce this, I cannot, it just happens from time to time here!

[WS64]

One more:
I have stored a standard CSS set in the clip editor. My idea is whenever I need it I open a stylesheet and paste it from there.
This works fine if I go over Tools/Clip Editor/select my clip and press on "Paste clip".

But to shorten this I thought I could enable View/Clips and paste from there.
But it does not work. Not in the Style Window.
Same for a click on a clip from the View into the Find/Replace fields.
These clips simply appear nowhere.
Seems that way clips can only be inserted into files under "Text".

My expectation is that the clips will be inserted wherever the cursor is at that moment.
Is there a reason for the actual behaviour, or is this a bug?

[Doitsu]

I was able to reproduce this bug. Clicking an entry in the Clips window when a stylesheet file has the focus doesn't work.

BTW, it also doesn't work in the toc.ncx and content.opf windows. I don't think that users will want to paste clips into toc.ncx, but being able to paste clips into the content.opf window would allow users to bypass the Metadata Editor and paste frequently used metadata entries.

@WS64: Until this get fixed you could either:

a) Use the Clip Bar toolbar to select the first 10 clips. (To display the Clip Bar right-click the tool bar area and select Clip Bar.)

b) Right-click the stylesheet and select a clip from the Clips context menu.

BTW, you can also assign keyboard shortcuts to the first 20 clips.