entity replacements gone haywire

[lumpynose]

I've read the recent threads about that; the highlighted button is the < > one.

[DiapDealer]

That's definitely Code View. But I've never had anyone report the issues you're having.

If I type an entity in Book View, I get the exact results you're describing whenever I switch to Code View.

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That's definitely Code View. But I've never had anyone report the issues you're having.

If I type an entity in Book View, I get the exact results you're describing whenever I switch to Code View.

The problem I'm experiencing is when I open the file. I change the entity to "& # 38 ;" save the file, then open the file and it's been changed to "& amp ;". That's with it not in the preserve entities list.

When I add both "& amp ;" and "& # 38 ;" to the preserve entities list then when I open the file that has "& # 38 ;" in it it gets changed to &amp;#38;amp;#38;#38;

[lumpynose]

Addendum to the above, the only preferences I've changed is to uncheck both mend xhtml boxes for open and save.

[lumpynose]

I also tried uninstalling sigil, deleted the C:\Users\MyName\AppData\Local\sigil-ebook directory, and reinstalled it but no joy. Just for grins I tried both the 32 and 64 bit versions.

[lumpynose]

Another addendum to the one above; after I save the file I close sigil before I open the file, usually by double-clicking on it.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

Addendum to the above, the only preferences I've changed is to uncheck both mend xhtml boxes for open and save.

May I ask why?

Adding &amp; to the Preserve Entities list is neither necessary, nor recommended, by the way.

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

May I ask why?

Adding &amp; to the Preserve Entities list is neither necessary, nor recommended, by the way.

Does it matter if I uncheck those? Does unchecking them cause problems?

Normally I have them both on but when I noticed this I tried turning them off. With them both off it still changes the numeric & entity to &amp; when the file is opened.

Why is it not recommended to add &amp; ?

I started with adding the entities for endash and emdash because I couldn't tell which was which with them replaced. Similarly the copyright symbol was tiny and and hard to make out so I decided to be consistent and use entities everywhere.

[lumpynose]

If I understand you correctly, I'm rather dismayed that you're forcing entity replacements. A lot of these things are hard to see, for example when I did "&#8855; or &#8853;" they're just little undecipherable blobs of pixels on my screen. Changing the CSS / Code View font size to 12 helps a tiny bit, as does changing the font to Consolas.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

Does it matter if I uncheck those?

Depends on if you're trying to open invalid xhtml or not.

Originally Posted by lumpynose

Does unchecking them cause problems?

It can (see above). But I doubt that it's relevant to your specific problem. It's just that most newcomers to Sigil will be better served by leaving those options checked until after they become more familiar with EPUB and Sigil in general.

Originally Posted by lumpynose

Normally I have them both on but when I noticed this I tried turning them off. With them both off it still changes the numeric & entity to &amp; when the file is opened.

As I said above, it probably has no bearing on your entity problem, but I'd leave them checked, just the same. At least until you figure out why this particular problem is happening.

Originally Posted by lumpynose

Why is it not recommended to add &amp; ?

Because there's no need for it. It's one of several entities that are always allowed/preserved. And because it's never occurred to the devs to experiment with Sigil with &amp; added to the entities list. I'd definitely remove it if you have it in there.

EDIT: after further testing ... this is definitely the problem. Remove &amp; from your Preserve Entities list.

Originally Posted by lumpynose

I started with adding the entities for endash and emdash because I couldn't tell which was which with them replaced. Similarly the copyright symbol was tiny and and hard to make out so I decided to be consistent and use entities everywhere.

Rather than trying to preserve ALL entities (consistency in this regard isn't relevant - Sigil doesn't care if you preserve a handful, none, or all), why not check the appearance preferences and increase the font size (or font-family) for special characters? You don't have to have tiny copyright symbols (entity or characters).

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

If I understand you correctly, I'm rather dismayed that you're forcing entity replacements.

Then you don't understand me correctly, because we're not forcing anything RE entity replacement.

&amp; and &lt; and &gt; are entities that are always allowed due to coding specifications. They don't need preserving. They're always "legal" and need no special treatment. Adding them to the Preserve Entities list is causing them to be treated differently than they would otherwise would be.

Just remove &amp; from your Preserve Entities list and your problem will go away.

[DiapDealer]

We'll make sure that &amp; is ignored in future versions of Sigil if it's in the Preserve Entities list.

[lumpynose]

Ah, ok, I finally get it. Sorry for being obtuse. It was all due to my having &amp; (or its numeric version) in the preserve entities list.

[lumpynose]

So now that I've calmed down and can go back to using numeric entities as per epub 3, can you think about my idea of adding a comment column to the Preserve Entities list? Assuming you don't axe it.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

So now that I've calmed down and can go back to using numeric entities as per epub 3, can you think about my idea of adding a comment column to the Preserve Entities list? Assuming you don't axe it.

We'll keep it in mind. And no, there's no plans to axe it. Glad to hear it's working for you now.