New Features or Improvements post Sigil 2.8.1

[DNSB]

Personally, I would find the image feature slightly more convenient that the current right-click, view image when I want to look at an images size. Or possibly, just add the file size to the double-click on image display to prevent annoying accidental hover popups.

[KevinH]

For those that build there own and want to play around with 3333's code here:

Simply download this diff file:

https://github.com/rinne1998/Sigil/c...429e7ac88.diff

To apply it (macOS and Linux)

cd Sigil/
patch -p1 < PATH_TO_DOWNLOADED_DIFF_FILE

And it should apply perfectly cleanly over current Sigil master and will build with no issues at all.

Give it a try.

PS. If you have patch.exe on your Windows box, the same things should work but otherwise if anyone knows the native Windows commands to apply a diff file, please post them here.

[icallaci]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Please add the reason you like it. I am trying to understand how this is useful in everyday work for most users over a popup menu View Image we already have.

I apologize. I've been so used to how Sigil has worked for years, that I never tried the new features before replying. I had pretty much switched to looking at images in Calibre, so I saw the post and mindlessly said "Yes." But it's a "nice-to-have" feature at this point, not a requirement.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by KevinH

PS. If you have patch.exe on your Windows box, the same things should work but otherwise if anyone knows the native Windows commands to apply a diff file, please post them here.

I don't know of any inherent Windows commands to apply diffs.

If you already have git installed:

git apply PATH_TO_DOWNLOADED_DIFF_FILE should work (but might depend on the patch being prepared by git).

Getting patch.exe on Windows is fairly trivial using winget, but you'll need to add it to your path manually:

winget install --id=GnuWin32.Patch -e

Note that Windows has been known to special-case files named patch.exe and require administrative privileges to run them for some asinine reason. I get around that by renaming the binary to something like parch.exe. *shrug*

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Or possibly, just add the file size to the double-click on image display to prevent annoying accidental hover popups.

Since you are now the third person to ask me to do that, I have pushed this change to master. Sigil's ImageTab will now include the file size in KB in the image description shown in the status bar.

Please still take a peek at 3333's implementation when you get a free moment, and let me know what you think.

[DNSB]

Link removed as the test is over.

The SHA-256 for this compile of Sigil-2.8.1-Windows-x64-Setup.exe is:
AC2A57CC186AF4CA8C2617C7846C49983FCA983F4EF581BCCB DC2264C18B67F4

[KevinH]

And please if you try hover image feature in DNSB's build please do post here with your thoughts.

As for mine.

- I do find the pop-up images quite distracting as they cover a good sized piece of the current CV editing window.

- The hover delay at times seems to be non-existent after the first trigger. Just pass your mouse over a long line of images once the first thumbnail appears and watch all the images fly past. Not sure what is going on here as the hover full path and semantic info works differently. Maybe a timer problem. As until the hover delay, there should be no images at all. Otherwise it makes selecting an image for renaming, deleting, etc quite annoying when the no hover delay happens.

- Also small images (smaller than the specified thumbnail size) are actually blown up and look all pixelated. If actual size is smaller than thumbnail size, the actual size should be used.

- I have not examined the memory usage yet. But keeping even just a few images cached will result in increased memory footprint for the entire time Sigil is active until closed or until that cache is flushed.

So given ViewImage works and is available in the pop-up menu, selecting an image dialog already presents user scrollable scaled images, and GetInfo, ViewImage, ImageTabs (just now) and Reports all show file sizes, my vote is a "no".

But do form your own opinion and report back as I would like to come to a final decision on this asap.

[icearch]

I tried, and I found:

1. It would not flash like crazy when I speed my cursor across images, it only appear when I stop or passby slowly, like very slowly. If on Mac it flashes, maybe that's a OS problem. And I do not sense any time delay even the first time. But I do think it need to be tuned.

2. My screen is pretty big, the pop-up window only took like 1/6 of code view. So not a big deal.

3. As to enlarge small pics, the whole premises of this feature is to let uesr distinguish pics and get some basic window, so it's a useful feature. And again, maybe it's just my screen is big so not a huge deal to me.

So my conclusion is: It can be added, but need some refinement, and need a trigger to toggle on and off, let the user choose.

--------

update: I tried on a smaller screen, yes, it's pretty annoying. It NEED a toggle.

[KevinH]

Did you try waiting until the first thumbnail shows then moving your cursor over the images list in BookBrowser. This 100% repeatably creates a long set of flashing images.

The more I think about this, if it needs a toggle to turn on or off. That is a sure sign it won't be useful to the majority of Sigil users which is the principle criterion for acceptance.

The divergence of opinion and lack of any strong argument or reasoning (other than "I like it" and its "saves me a mouse click") in support of it. It is too large a change (4 new files added) just for something that many people would immediately disable.

[icearch]

No, definitely no flash images what ever, unless I move mouse cursor like 0.5 second per image. And 2~3 hz is not flash for me.

And i'm not vote for it or vote against it, I'm all ok. But if added, it NEED a toggle. But personally I would leave it on.

[KevinH]

And my reasoning is if it truly needs a toggle, it is not for us. Again, the criteria is that it is useful for the majority of users, ie. not something some/many/most will find so annoying they would need to toggle it off. Most new features can be ignored if not useful, but in this case it would need to be toggled off completely.

So unless I hear some good logical reasoning that it is truly useful in some common workflow (other than it saved me a click or a double click), then I really can not see adding 4 new files (2 headers, and 2 cpp) files of code to maintain for a feature that increases Sigil's working memory footprint but does not help the majority of Sigil users and that needs to have a way to toggle it off as it can be distracting for many people.

And for people on Linux or MacOS who do not have a build to play, I have attached a small h.264 encoded movie (480p) of what I see as I pass my mouse over a long list of images after first hover image is shown.

See the attached image_flash.mov.zip

[KevinH]

Ah, from watching that linked video above a few times, I think I see what is going on. When the cursor is over an image it starts the delay timer but somehow does not stop or restart it when the cursor moves to a new image. Then when that timer times out, whatever image the cursor is currently over is thumbnailed.

If this is the reason, this could of course be worked around by restarting the timer every time a different image is first under the cursor and turning it off upon leaving.

If anyone else has a *strong* argument in favour of this feature, please add it here asap otherwise my conclusion will be:

"Thank you for the idea and implementation as it is a nice feature in general but it is not for Sigil at this time because Sigil has existing methods to view images and select images from a list with user controllable thumbnails, neither of which have any long-term memory footprint implications, and neither cause inadvertent visual distractions for some users."

[philja]

Originally Posted by KevinH

"Thank you for the idea and implementation as it is a nice feature in general but it is not for Sigil at this time because Sigil has existing methods to view images and select images from a list with user controllable thumbnails, neither of which have any long-term memory footprint implications, and neither cause inadvertent visual distractions for some users."

I support your conclusion.

That movie will never get you an Oscar, Kevin.

[KevinH]

I an so not a movie maker! A 20 second screen cap movie was over 18meg! Reducing it to 420p then compressing it with either zip -9 or xz reduced it to a passable 3.8 meg.

[DNSB]

For what it may be worth, I've attached a screenshot of part of the Sigil main windows with a image hovered over. For me, if I hover on the first image and then move the cursor, I only see the next image I stop on.

I personally don't find this that useful but there are others who might. Since it does require using the mouse, I'm pretty doubtful about usefulness for keyboard first users.

BTW, opening an 12 year old book does give epubcheck/epubveri a workout, hence the oversized validation window.