HELP with Sigil

[GrannyGrump]

marlonjonesmba said:
I understand that it's a WYSIWYG program.

DiapDealer said:
But it's not. We removed all references to the word WYSIWYG from Sigil quite a while ago.


Possibly part of the problem is that Google brings ups hits from download sites (softonic, cnet, etc, etc) that still use the old WYSIWYG description.
And, OH-MY-GOD----Wikipedia! Wikipedia says: Sigil supports both WYSIWYG and code-based editing of EPUB files. I guess nobody has updated that page in a while.

So it is understandable to me that new users would be confused about this.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

So it is understandable to me that new users would be confused about this.

And I agree with un_pogaz, there are tons of those download sites or "Best 8 EPUB Programs 2019" or "10 Best EPUB Tools" or "How to Make an Ebook" sites out there.

They flood the top of many Google searches, and talk about how great and easy the WYSWIG editing in Sigil is.

Typically, the non-technically savvy people find those sites. And then instead of finding the best EPUB tool there is (Sigil)... they go to garbage like Vellum (it still infuriates me how much marketing nonsense there is about that program, and it's $250+, Mac-Only... preposterous!).

[un_pogaz]

I fully understand that PageEdit is a program totally different from Sigil, simply, I think that its integration could potentially be better (than the"Open With..." or "External XHTML editor").

I'd also like to lift a embicuiter: I am a "CodeView editor".
But I think of all those who use Sigil think that it is a WYSIWYG editor because it has been presented to them as such.

I came to Sigil because it was WYSIWYG, I had problems with BookView, I found this forum, and I was kindly explained to me that BookView was depreciated (and would soon be removed), so I got into CodeView.

How many people are still at step 1 or 2 of my journey? Probably a lot more than you think.
Many will abandon Sigil because BookView has disappeared and he can't imagine any other way of working than in WYSIWYG (and we never will be).

Sigil is, in many ways, the best publisher from scartch in ePub, the first is that it encourages people to learn what an ePub really is. Still, it is necessary to be properly invited (what BookView was doing)

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

... they go to garbage like Vellum (it still infuriates me how much marketing nonsense there is about that program, and it's $250+, Mac-Only... preposterous!).

Never mind the quality, feel the width at that price, and seeing as it's Apple only, it must be good - by definition.

I did a Google search for 'epub editors' just after GG posted, none of those cnet, softonic download sites came up in first couple of pages. And only a couple of the half-dozen or so '10 best epub editors' pages even mentioned Sigil, and those that did didn't mention WYSIWYG.

Probably my location or my Google analytics profile

BR

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by un_pogaz

I fully understand that PageEdit is a program totally different from Sigil, simply, I think that its integration could potentially be better (than the"Open With..." or "External XHTML editor").

Originally Posted by un_pogaz

I came to Sigil because it was WYSIWYG, I had problems with BookView, [...]

How many people are still at step 1 or 2 of my journey? Probably a lot more than you think.

Many will abandon Sigil because BookView has disappeared and he can't imagine any other way of working than in WYSIWYG (and we never will be).

We all started out as complete noobs. I remember when I first started reading EPUBs and found Sigil all those years ago. I came to it because it was an easy way to fix a handful of typos in the books I was reading + took care of the OPF and all the other EPUB crap without me having to manually ZIP things again after making corrections.

It was Open Source (huge plus), ran on every OS (huge plus), and let me see the book itself without having to look through HTML code soup, or having to constantly drag back to ADE to make sure I didn't botch anything.

You were even able to do very minor corrections in Book View (like add a space, delete a letter, comma->period) without making the book explode... and then once I became much more comfortable with EPUB, then went digging into the HTML.

Many readers just needed that easy GUI "fixing"... but if you look at some of the HTML out of Word abominations, InDesign, or HTML from convert-my-docx-to-any-format-dot-com, even I wouldn't know where the heck to start! (Well, I do now... but you get the point. We're talking about noobs! )

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I did a Google search for 'epub editors' just after GG posted, none of those cnet, softonic download sites came up in first couple of pages. And only a couple of the half-dozen or so '10 best epub editors' pages even mentioned Sigil, and those that did didn't mention WYSIWYG.

I definitely ran across these things over the past 8 years...

Perhaps now it's being drowned out by even more of the Vellum, Kindle Create, iBooks Author, -type "drag-and-drop, look how 'easy' it is to create a pile of garbage and call it an ebook" programs. :P

[Vroni]

Originally Posted by un_pogaz

But I think of all those who use Sigil think that it is a WYSIWYG editor because it has been presented to them as such.

A counterexample is enough to refute that. I am using Sigil since 0.34 and i choosed it to have control over every little screw and i only used bookview as a very first rough preview.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by un_pogaz

Many will abandon Sigil because BookView has disappeared and he can't imagine any other way of working than in WYSIWYG (and we never will be).

Then they were never going to like Sigil, and I don't really care. If you think I'm in this because I want to see Sigil being used by millions of people who rave about it being the best, then you're sadly mistaken. I'm not motivated by trying to make Sigil the most popular epub editing software ever. Not even a little bit. I'm trying to make Sigil useful. If you need full WYSIWYG capabilities, then Sigil was never the software for you (rhetorical you). If you're a coder and you just need a bit WYSIWYG tweaking then PageEdit will easily accommodate you (even utterly unincorporated with Sigil as it is). The only people the ditching of Book View will dramatically affect are those who (bewilderingly) were using Sigil as an authoring (read -- word-processing) tool with no html/css knowledge whatsoever. Something it was never intended to be used for/by.

PageEdit will remain a separately launched tool (installed anywhere the user likes, and configured with the provided button in Sigil), and Sigil will continue to lack any WYSIWYG descriptors until people get it.

This conversation is pointless in the grand scheme of things. People will learn, or they will be left behind. Their choice. In a year, everyone will have adapted or moved on, and none of this will even matter. I once believed in my heart that Sigil 0.4.2-ish was the be-all, end-all version of Sigil. And that any version after the 0.4.x series was an abomination. This too shall pass.

[theducks]

I started way back in the 0.x era (2010).
It only took me 3 times trying to join a broken paragraph in Bookview to decide to never make a change there, only to view and locate (code was synced to BV).

PS I did not even know any REGEX back then

[exaltedwombat]

When I first encountered Sigil, I was beyond the stage where open-source software could confuse me with a plethora of download options - source code, x-86, x-64 (obviously with my latest Windows version I needed the higher number, right?), Linux (what's Linux?) etc. But I knew plenty of people who would have fallen at that hurdle.

I joined the fold when my friend, owner of a not-so-small publishing company, thought it would be a good idea to teach me how to help him with eBook conversion. He prepared his books in Word, then into Quark for page layout. As he had pretty well-formed Word files, Calibre was giving him pretty clean code. He tidied up in Sigil.

My first impression of Sigil was 'there must be something better than this!' Then I realised there was a layer underneath Book View which he had never used and wasn't showing me. Yes, you can be a successful eBook publisher without ever straying beyond WYSIWYG! He was even getting functioning footnotes!

I find exactly the same scenario when wearing my other hat as a musician. Good musicians who own advanced software but do little but scratch the surface. (Of course, in music we encounter another breed too. Those who are adept on the computer but know little of how music works. At least eBook newbies don't expect Sigil to write the story for them!)

[exaltedwombat]

*****

[crusader642]

Thanks for all the info. I have just installed Sigil on another machine and was as surprised as the original contributor that I lost the ability to edit the text directly. I know a little HTML but not having to worry about it was great when, for example, having to put in line feeds after Calibre joined sentences together. I have installed 0.9.14 and it's working fine again.

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by DNSB

For me, the Preview pane ... gives me the best of both worlds.

Amen to that! (I don't use a second monitor.)

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Kevin talked me down.

My already great respect for Kevin has reached a new high.