[Plugin] sprucer: Semantic (X)HTML Formatter

[RelUnrelated]

Hi everyone,

I'm happy to share a new Sigil plugin I've been working on called sprucer.

sprucer is a custom plugin designed to rearrange the (X)HTML within an EPUB file so that it is displayed in a way that more accurately depicts its semantic structure, strictly enforcing W3C standards.

Key Features:

• Custom Formatting Engine: Normalizes the document and rebuilds the indentation and line breaks based on the structural hierarchy of the tags.
• User Configuration UI: Includes a graphical settings menu that allows you to toggle between spaces or literal tabs, and adjust the indentation multiplier from 1 to 8 characters per level.
• Sensitive Block Preservation: Safely isolates and perfectly preserves literal <pre>, <style>, and <script> blocks to prevent any layout corruption during the formatting process.

Installation:

1. Download the attached sprucer.zip file at the bottom of this post. (Do not unzip this file).
2. Open Sigil and go to Plugins > Manage Plugins.
3. Click the Add Plugin button on the right side of the panel.
4. Navigate to and select the downloaded ZIP file.
5. Click Yes to accept the security warning and install the plugin.

Note: If you are updating from a previous version in the future, you must remove the old plugin via the Manage Plugins menu before adding the new one.

Usage:
Trigger the plugin via the Plugins > Edit menu, or assign it to a shortcut. A settings window will pop up to grab your preferences (which it remembers for your next session). Click "Run Formatter" to process the files in your open EPUB.

The source code, full changelog, and GPLv3 license are available on my GitHub repository here: RelUnrelated/sprucer.

I hope you find it useful for cleaning up your EPUB structures. Let me know if you run into any issues or have suggestions for future updates!

[KevinH]

Thank you for your contribution. I will add you to our Sigil Plugin Index.

Just like with our built-in Mend and Prettify, please be aware that css white-space properties can be used and set on any tag so that it must be exempted from whitespace changes just like a pre tag would.

Perhaps a warning if that property is used in the css to let users decide how they want to handle that case.

[RelUnrelated]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Perhaps a warning if that property is used in the css to let users decide how they want to handle that case.

That's an excellent observation. I'll start on the changes for that right away.

[KevinH]

This plugin has now been added to the Sigil Plugin Index.

[BeckyEbook]

My two cents:
* You can achieve exactly what sprucer does by editing prettyprint.xml
* sprucer removes all non-standard spaces and replaces them with regular ones

This isn't a criticism! I'm happy about every new plugin.