PageEdit alternative?

[KevinH]

Been there and done that for over 30 years. I am also a user. You can add links in Sigil quite easily so there really is no need for the same in PageEdit that I can see. Simply save out of PageEdit, make any new links, add resources, generate indexes, etc, then relaunch PageEdit to make minor tweaks, proof, simple edits, etc.

That said, links to text in existing xhtml files may be possible in a future version of PageEdit. But adding new files (images, styles, etc) should really be done in Sigil itself prior to launching PageEdit if that is what you want to do.

PageEdit's design is not to replicate BookView but to give users a chance to proof, spellcheck, make minor tweaks, etc. Adding new resources as the destination for the link is never going to be in PageEdit's purview.

[exaltedwombat]

With my musician hat on, I do a lot of work in the notation program Sibelius. Its primary function is to produce publication-quality printed scores. But there's a playback feature... Do I need to say more? :-)

[KevinH]

Yes, as I can see no parallels other than you want to misuse software for something it was not really meant for. But that is your choice. It is also the developer's choice to decide that is not the direction the software is going in.

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

With my musician hat on, I do a lot of work in the notation program Sibelius. Its primary function is to produce publication-quality printed scores. But there's a playback feature... Do I need to say more? :-)

[ghmerrill]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

As I mentioned, we're just not going to be putting ourselves in the position of the user that wants to use Sigil as an authoring tool.

Yeah, I do totally get that; and I'm not suggesting you should do otherwise.

My wife is now encouraging me to just move to the new version of Word for the authoring part to finish the 3 chapters of the book that are left. But I'm reluctant to do that based on ... what? ... about 35 years experience with Word in its various incarnations.

But you've given me some reasonable alternative ways to go.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by ghmerrill

Yeah, I do totally get that; and I'm not suggesting you should do otherwise.

My wife is now encouraging me to just move to the new version of Word for the authoring part to finish the 3 chapters of the book that are left. But I'm reluctant to do that based on ... what? ... about 35 years experience with Word in its various incarnations.

But you've given me some reasonable alternative ways to go.

Why not finish your current book with a version of Sigil that included BookView - IIRC 0.9.14 was the last one.

BR

[KevinH]

FWIW, Sigil 0.9.14 is still available on our Releases page for Windows and macOS and is less than a year old, so it should remain quite viable for the foreseeable future.

[exaltedwombat]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Yes, as I can see no parallels other than you want to misuse software for something it was not really meant for. But that is your choice. It is also the developer's choice to decide that is not the direction the software is going in.

Oh, *I* don't want to. I have much more powerful programs for music creation (some of which include rudimentary score-writing facilities). But there's a lot who do. And it's not really 'misuse'. Just an application which may not have been considered.

[ghmerrill]

Yeah, I think I'm going to kind of punt on this in one way or another -- maybe going back to 9.14.

I've screwed around trying to find another "external editor" that will work like PageEdit, play well with Sigil, but with more functionality. Amusingly, the closest I've come is Kompozer. I mean, Kompozer actually works in this role, except ...

It hasn't been in development for several years now and it has an incompatibility in handling XML/HTML/XHTML syntax with Sigil. So when it opens my Sigil HTML files, it throws away the XML prolog (thanks a lot) and happily replaces terminiating occurences of '/>' with '>' (i.e., it eliminates self-closing tags, but but doesn't replace them with acceptable syntax). Saving this back to Sigil results in the Sigil Preview window announcing that an intolerable syntactic sin has been committed ("Opening and ending tag mismatch", duh).

This is correctable by telling Sigil to "mend" the HTML files, and then it's happy.

But it's not clear to me that this is actually a better approach than either temporarily going back to 9.14 or using some other approach where I copy/paste from a formatting "composing" editor into Sigil. I'm going to arbitrarily pick one of these approaches since I've already spent too much time being a bit stubborn about what's really a fairly trivial problem.

[ghmerrill]

Actually, once you develop a kind of mini "process", KompoZer works surprisingly well:

• Open the HTML file in Book Browser
• Launch the External Xhtml Editor (which you've configured to be KompoZer)
• Edit the file in the KompoZer window using its "Normal Edit Mode" (WYSIWYG -- mostly), its "HTML Tags" mode (WYSIWG with tag icons), or its "HTML Source" mode.
• Check result in its KompoZer Preview Window if you feel like it.
• Save the file (which updates the Sigil copy and the Sigil source window display.
• Notice the syntax complaint in the Sigil Preview window if you have it up.
• Click Tools -> Reformat HTML -> (Mend and Prettify all HTML Files | Mend All HTML Files)
• Iterate, saving your Sigil changes as the mood moves you.

This makes Sigil+KompoZer into a sort of lame IDE where "code changes" are error-corrected and validated on pushes.

Well, okay ... maybe that's a charitable exaggeration ... But it really isn't bad. It provides more functionality than PageEdit and is better than Book View was (I think ). Care needs to be taken so that you don't do something like making a change on the "External Xhtml Editor" side in WSYIWYG mode, then making a direct HTML change on the Sigil side, and then saving your External XHLTML Editor copy -- overwriting any changes you made in the Sigil instance. But that's a general problem with using an external editor and having two tools muck with the same file.

So at least this is something that those still pining for the return of Book View can try -- if they don't mind using a "discontinued product" that doesn't seem to have been updated for about 10 years and clearly doesn't have a future if you read what its developer has said. But hey, I know of at least one large software company that's still using a development tool I wrote about 25 years ago.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by ghmerrill

if they don't mind using a "discontinued product" that doesn't seem to have been updated for about 10 years and clearly doesn't have a future if you read what its developer has said.

Look on the bright side: it's not likely to ever change and break that part of your workflow!

[najgori]

Originally Posted by ghmerrill

Actually, once you develop a kind of mini "process", KompoZer works surprisingly well:
:

have you tried amaya? it is old html editor with fine "visual" abilites, css styles, etc..?

[ghmerrill]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Look on the bright side: it's not likely to ever change and break that part of your workflow!

True -- not to mention that I plan on not having a lot of workflow in the future.

[ghmerrill]

Originally Posted by najgori

have you tried amaya? it is old html editor with fine "visual" abilites, css styles, etc..?

Thanks for the pointer. It does indeed seem to work -- and not to exhibit the problems that KompoZer does. It also appears to have (at least from my quick perusal of it) better UI/UX features and somewhat better handling of HTML and CSS.

So I guess that one thing we've learned from this thread is that if you liked/needed Book View and aren't happy with PageEdit, than Amaya is probably a good choice. Again, "It's development is stopped." So its usability into the future of newer HTML, XHTML, and CSS releases may be limited. But for now, it looks pretty good.

[KevinH]

FWIW, the KompoZer codebase seems to have been ported to Mozilla's gecko browser and so lives on in some form and says it supports xhtml5.

https://github.com/therealglazou/bluegriffon

It is supposed to run on all platforms but I do not see any release binaries.

Postscript: wow their epub editor features require a 195 euro license fee!

Ouch!

[ghmerrill]

I downloaded the Bluegriffon editor and tried it for a few minutes, but I found the interface to be mostly bewildering and it made by eyeballs hurt.