New Features or Improvements post Sigil 2.8.1

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by 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.

That's what I'm seeing on Windows as well. I can't reproduce what Kevin is seeing on macOS. I'll check on Linux, but Linux and Windows typically run pretty close together with these kinds of issues.

[KevinH]

Try hovering over the first image until the thumbnail first shows then moving your cursor down almost immediately (long *before* it self hides). Then just keep moving the cursor back and forth over a long list of images at a reasonable pace (not fast or slow).

I can 100% recreate this on macOS using that approach, which happened by accident the first 2 times I tried it.

Update:

Yes on Linux this performs much better. I still get an occasional image flash after a very slight delay on any one image when *no* hover text exists or is created as the hover delay has not triggered anything yet.

But the image flashing is much much worse on MacOS than on Linux (or Windows!). Not sure why.

Update2:

The ImagePreview timer is only 150ms long, according to the code. It stops the Timer on a mouse leave event for the BookBrowser instead of tying it directly to mouse entering a single BookBrowser item and cancelling it on leaving that item.

This is why keeping the mouse moving only over a large list of images inside BookBrowser prevents the timer from being stopped. And they are not using the same delay as normal hover as they are platform dependent which explains why it was firing long before the actual hover text was shown.

Update3:

Changing this delay from 150ms to 300ms really seemed to help on macOS and it came a lot closer to the platform native QTooltip hover delay.

That said, I double-clicked an Image to open it in an ImageTab and before I could see the image or move my mouse the pop-up thumbnail completely covered most of the ImageTab.

Given you can open the image with a double click (no need to even use the pop-up menu and select ViewImage). I just still can not see any real advantage here even with the longer delay for MacOS.

[BetterRed]

Images popping up as a mouse pointer passes over the book browser could trigger a seizure in people with epilepsy, certain eye diseases, or diabetes. IMO that's reason enough to make it optional.

BR

[KevinH]

I am leaning to a flat "no thank you" instead of "optional" here. That said, with the correct delay, the image flashing can virtually removed or very greatly reduced.

[Turtle91]

Hover (with options to set thumbnail size/delay time) would be my vote, but I’m totally ok with the file size displayed in the image tab.

[DNSB]

I tried with a multi-book omnibus which has about 120 chapter header images (chapter number over an image specific to the book) and did not get the image flashing. OTOH, I found no real advantage in my workflow and reverted the changes. I'm willing to give it a try again if/when the delay and thumbnail size get configuration options but suspect for me, it will likely still be cold pancakes and no honey.

Something about that comment that most Microsoft Office users only use 15% of the features but they can't agree which 15%.

[philja]

Talking of annoying hover pop-ups - here's one I come across several times per session.

I do use some keyboard shortcuts, but I'm a pretty regular user of a pointing device (in my case, a trackball on my desktops). After clicking somewhere and 'abandoning' the mouse/trackball, the cursor too often ends up on the 'where to search' part of the find and replace window.

The result is startling on my linux box - see attached screenshot - the W11 box has the same, just a different color scheme.

These pop-ups are not useful for making a selection. You have to go to the dropdown menu to effect a change.

The 3 pop-ups in the find and replace pane (what, where, direction) are good candidates for a toggle to turn them off - or just dump them anyway.

Anybody else feel the same way?

[KevinH]

I think there is a way to use QStylesheet settings to remove or prevent them from popping up. I think BeckyEbook showed us a tweak to change that because someone else had the same issues. FWIW I have never in all my time with Sigil even seen that pop-up by accident (or even purposefully)!

I will see if I can track down her post.

Update: Yes found it.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...tooltip&page=2

See BeckyEbook's post on page 2 of that thread. There is a qss stylesheet one-liner that turns off QToolTips.

Use QSS to hide tooltips.
Just create/edit a qt_styles.qss file in the Sigil configuration folder and enter there:

Code:

QToolTip {max-width:0; max-height:0; margin:0; padding:0;}

It is worth asking: how many users want to hide tooltips?

Pros: No need to add options in Sigil, any willing user can control the option themselves.

Cons: None?

[DiapDealer]

I'm more curious why @philja's tooltip background isn't matching the light theme that Sigil is using. That doesn't happen on my machines.

EDIT: Nevermind. judging by the look of the various tabs, I suspect there's already some custom qss going on.

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by 3333

I would also like to ask about one small UI feature before submitting it as a PR.

Sigil-Enhanced has an image hover preview in the Book Browser. Hovering over an image shows a small preview together with its dimensions and file size.

I have adapted the current implementation against Sigil master here:

https://github.com/rinne1998/Sigil/c...hover-preview/

Would this be something you would be interested in having in Sigil itself?

@3333

Thank you for the idea and implementation as it is a very nice feature in general but it is not for Sigil at this time. Sigil has existing methods to view images (double-click, or via pop-up menu View Image) 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.

If it at all helps, our users did test your proposed changes and have a few suggestions you may want to incorporate in your own implementation:

- on MacOS arm64 increase the delay to 300ms to better approximate the macOS normal delay and prevent unwanted flashing of images as the cursor is moved back and forth over the images in BookBrowser. That flashing can be dangerous and trigger some individuals.

- small images below the thumbnail size are pixelated when shown in thumbnail form that is larger, so you may want to not scale images whose normal size is smaller than the thumbnail size.

- some users preferred a user setable thumbnail size as they found the thumbnail either too large or too small.

- add a way for the user to completely disable the feature if they find the thumbnails distracting as many did.

Hope something here helps! Thanks again for your suggestion.

[philja]

Originally Posted by KevinH

I think there is a way to use QStylesheet settings to remove or prevent them from popping up. I think BeckyEbook showed us a tweak to change that because someone else had the same issues. FWIW I have never in all my time with Sigil even seen that pop-up by accident (or even purposefully)!

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...tooltip&page=2

See BeckyEbook's post on page 2 of that thread. There is a qss stylesheet one-liner that turns off QToolTips.

I'm surprised you've never seen them. They happen on my MacBook as well, but much smaller. You must be very precise in your parking of the cursor.

Thanks for finding Becky's code (and thank you Becky for providing it). It works a treat and only took a few seconds to implement.

[edit]
Having read that thread from 2024 referenced above, I saw that there was the idea (Kevin) to reduce the 'what', 'where' and 'direction' tool-tips of the find and replace window to one-liners. I think that would be a good solution to the current invasive pop-ups.

For me, Becky's code works fine, but it removes all the tool-tips, so it is not a good solution for many users, especially new-comers because there is now no pop-up for the 6 small implementation icons at the right-hand end of the find/ replace lines. I can live with that, but probably many do rely on the tool-tips to avoid accidentally clicking the wrong icon.

Is it possible to limit the css to just the 3 fields (what, where, direction) or to reduce those pop-ups to a bare one-line description of each field's purpose without all the options?

[philja]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'm more curious why @philja's tooltip background isn't matching the light theme that Sigil is using. That doesn't happen on my machines.

EDIT: Nevermind. judging by the look of the various tabs, I suspect there's already some custom qss going on.

Hi DiapDealer - yes I've customised a few things with the qss stylesheet: background color, tab colors, scroll buttons. Mainly for better visibility for me.

BUT I haven't interfered with the dark theme of those pop-up tips. That's a wobbly that UbuntuStudio throws at me in certain unpredictables cases. I have a strong personal dislike of dark mode and turn it off wherever I can. The previous LTS version of the OS used to throw some dark mode modals in Thunderbird, but I haven't seen them recently.

[KevinH]

For me, Becky's code works fine, but it removes all the tool-tips, so it is not a good solution for many users, especially new-comers because there is now no pop-up for the 6 small implementation icons at the right-hand end of the find/ replace lines. I can live with that, but probably many do rely on the tool-tips to avoid accidentally clicking the wrong icon.

Is it possible to limit the css to just the 3 fields (what, where, direction) or to reduce those pop-ups to a bare one-line description of each field's purpose without all the options?

Yes qss should be able to turn off specific qtooltips. Using the name field of the specific code class should allow it much like modern css using a class attribute or id.

Perhaps BeckyEbook has already done that. I am not sure. As for reducing them to one liners then no where would the codes be listed in Saved Searches and they are not all obvious. So BeckyEbook's qss solution is not something a new user should be using anyway. BeckyEbook's approach is really the most suitable for experienced users, and showing the QTooltips is really the best for all newcomers.

[KevinH]

Okay, I just tried the following in place of BeckyEbook's qss and this just turns off that huge tooltip on the "Where", the Mode ("what") and Direction in FindReplace.

#cbLookWhere QToolTip {max-width:0; max-height:0; margin:0; padding:0;}

#cbSearchMode QToolTip {max-width:0; max-height:0; margin:0; padding:0;}

#cbSearchDirection QToolTip {max-width:0; max-height:0; margin:0; padding:0;}

By just looking at the source code in the file/class that sets the tooltip you want you can see what many of the user interface items are called.

https://github.com/Sigil-Ebook/Sigil...lace.cpp#L2172

In this case they were ui.cbFind, ui.cbReplace, ui.cbLookWhere, ui.cbSearchMode, and ui.cbSearchDirection, and I used them the qss above.

By following this approach you can selectively turn off any tooltips you do not like by searching Sigil's source code (you can do that easily in github) to find the offending tooptip text and add the qss to disable that item.

[philja]

Originally Posted by KevinH

As for reducing them to one liners then no where would the codes be listed in Saved Searches and they are not all obvious. So BeckyEbook's qss solution is not something a new user should be using anyway. BeckyEbook's approach is really the most suitable for experienced users, and showing the QTooltips is really the best for all newcomers.

You're right there.

And thank you for the code snippets in the following post. I've implemented them on my linux, W11 and MacBook, and they give much finer granular control.

All I wanted to do was get rid of the pop-ups, which were so large and intrusive - and now they're gone, and all other tooltips are still available if needed.

So all good.