"open with" apps

[AlanHK]

-- using Sigil .9.13 "legacy" on XP

Regarding the "open with" right-click options:

With an image selected in the file list, I can right-click on the filename to get "open with" and choose an app I have previously used.

But if I right-click in the image panel, I get the "Open with" list; the apps I have previously used to open images are listed, but all greyed out and I cannot choose them. The only choice is "Other application". I can choose an app there, but though it joins the list, it is also grey and next time I still have to find it with "Other application".





Also, there is no way to remove or change the names of apps on the "open with" list through the GUI. (I made a typo in the name of an app I added, wanted to correct it.)
Looking in the ini file I find

[open_with]
editor_image=D:/IrfanView/i_view32.exe
editor_description_image=Irfanview
editor_html=D:/Uedit/uedit32.exe
editor_description_html=uedit32
editor_font=C:/WINDOWS/system32/fontview.exe
editor_description_font=fontview
editors_image=Photoshp\x1f\x44:/Photoshop/Photoshp.exe, Photoshop\x1f\x44:/Photoshop/Photoshp.exe, Irfanview\x1f\x44:/IrfanView/i_view32.exe
editors_font=fontview\x1f\x43:/WINDOWS/system32/fontview.exe

So I deleted that and started again. After rechoosing my image apps, the INI now has

[open_with]
editors_html=Ultraedit\x1f\x44:/Uedit/uedit32.exe
editors_image=Photoshop\x1f\x44:/Photoshop/Photoshp.exe, Irfanview\x1f\x44:/IrfanView/i_view32.exe

Now only "editors_" entries. Were the "editor_" and "description" ones relics of an older version?
At least the format is fairly clear.
I could paste in the old editors_font line and that worked.

But still all options on r-click are grey when starting from the image pane.

Meanwhile; for html files, I have an "open with" list from the file list, but no "open with" at all in the text pane. That seems inconsistent.

Regarding fonts, while I can choose (in Windows) fontview.exe to open them and get a preview, there is nothing shown in the editing or preview pane when a font file is selected. I know nil about Qt, but there seem to be widgets to preview fonts. That would be useful, to show the file size and basic specs of the font as well as some glyphs.

[KevinH]

This is a known bug that was already fixed in the latest release. The only workaround is to right-click in Book Browser on the image file and not right click on the image tab itself.

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by KevinH

This is a known bug that was already fixed in the latest release. The only workaround is to right-click in Book Browser on the image file and not right click on the image tab itself.

OK... so will live with that til I upgrade.

How about a font preview ?

[Turtle91]

Can a font previewer be created as a plugin?? I think that would be a useful feature.

[KevinH]

Setting up a font preview dialog is not something of general value. It would just lead to feature creep. For Fonts as you said, you can simply open the font file in a font showing app if you want a preview. How many different font families are you using that you can not remember what that font family looks like? If the fonts are already in use, then using Preview and the Inspector would also be a way to see what font is being used and what it looks like.

And a plugin that loads each font and generates a sample would not be hard to develop. So I will leave this for plugin developers to look at.

That said ...

You do know you can set an "open with" for Fonts in Sigil. For example, on my Mac, I specified that Fonts can use Open With with Font Book.app which nicely shows a Preview.

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by KevinH

How many different font families are you using that you can not remember what that font family looks like?

When I open a epub and see a file 00001.ttf, I need to look at a preview to know what it is.
90% of the time it turns out to be Times Roman, Bookerly or the like that I can just delete and replace with "serif" in the CSS.

Originally Posted by KevinH

You do know you can set an "open with" for Fonts in Sigil. For example, on my Mac, I specified that Fonts can use Open With with Font Book.app which nicely shows a Preview.

Yes of course, and I mentioned that in my post.

If I have 5 fonts, that is a lot of clicking and opening and closing external apps to see them all, while the edit and preview panes in Sigil remain inert.

Same would hold for any plugin, unless it can actually use the main panes, which I've never seen a plugin do. Would love it that were possible.


HTML shows text and preview
SVG shows the text, but not a preview.
CSS, OPF, NCX, show the text contents,
JPEG, GIF, PNG shows the image and its specs.
TTF, OTF, show nothing at all about the files. Not even the file size or the name of the font contained.
So showing a font preview would be quite consistent.

[KevinH]

So a single right click on a font to open with a font previewer and a single click on the previewer to close is really too much?

Again, if someone would like to implement your "improvements" and supply us with a github pull request, we would probably include it if it actually worked. That said, using open with is hardly a burden.

[BeckyEbook]

Maybe at the moment a small plugin is enough if you just want to check the basic font data (name and style). There will be only one click (or select from menu Plugins) and running the plugin.

This can be better than Open With because the plugin informs about all the fonts in the file. No preview – just file name, font family name and style.

This is a very simple version of the plugin, but it probably does exactly what you need for files named 0001.ttf or other files that are not real font names.