Robustness

[Toxaris]

I will try it one last time, although others already have given up.

Originally Posted by JimLL

OK, fine. Disagree. Jutoh is not for commercial operations. But it still costs too much for us fixed income folks. (Hmm. You got something against fixed income folks?)

Where is this coming from? I have a normal job like most people with a fixed income. If I want certain software, I save money for it. Just like with anything else I like to have. The price has nothing to do with its function.

Originally Posted by JimLL

As for reading up and learning, it's not a matter of wanting to, altho folks always seem to assume a poster they disagree with is lazy. I passed all chance of reading up and learning when the stroke hit 25 years ago. My short term memory is all but gone. Reading up sticks for about 2 minutes. Learning a new system is just not in the cards.

That is all fine, but then don't start to learn how to make ePUB. Learning is required, even if you don't think it should. You cannot expect other people to remove the learning curve from you, just because you think they should. Either you put in some effort and try, or you don't. After all, someone with your programming experience should have no problems with this simple stuff (and it is simple stuff).

Originally Posted by JimLL

As for trivial coding, I've coded saves and it IS trivial unless you want to tie it in with all sorts of other stuff. I suggested auto saves. That would be trivial. You put the HTML filename in a variable (that's probably already done). You put on a timer. You save file by name. Trivial.

Again, not trivial. Which HTML file? There can be a lot of those in the ePUB. Also, what would be solved with it. You other thread where you describe your issues an autosave WOULD NOT HAVE HELPED.
Autosave of the HTML will help you nothing, as it is only a building block. Do you scream 'autosave' to Microsoft (or OpenOffice) because chapters are not autosaved, but the whole document? Were are talking about ePUB here, not about HTML. And, like Hitch said, how about the images, stylesheets and so on?

Originally Posted by JimLL

Of course if you WANT it to be complicated so you can argue against it...

I am not a fan of complicity, but being a part-time programmer I know this is more than just a trivial task.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by JimLL

Ah, I go out of my way to put everything into one single html file. It's way too much time to mess with bits and pieces. Yeah, that would make it more than trivial.

Having all the chapters in one HTML file is bad form. It makes it more difficult to maintain. Maintaining and changing is a lot easier with separate files. It will also make everything a lot slower.

Not only that, multiple readers have issues if a single HTML file is bigger around 280 Kb.

And how about chapters starting in on a new page? That is automatically solved if a chapter is a new file. If not, you have to program it in the stylesheet.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

Having all the chapters in one HTML file is bad form. It makes it more difficult to maintain. Maintaining and changing is a lot easier with separate files. It will also make everything a lot slower.

Not only that, multiple readers have issues if a single HTML file is bigger around 280 Kb.

And how about chapters starting in on a new page? That is automatically solved if a chapter is a new file. If not, you have to program it in the stylesheet.

what does OP care - he's probably never ever purchased an e-reader device - or ever will- & he has no idea/ no interest in what a stylesheet is - he just comes here to bitch about something he got for free - can't we just vote to ban him ?

[JimLL]

Originally Posted by cybmole

what does OP care - he's probably never ever purchased an e-reader device - or ever will- & he has no idea/ no interest in what a stylesheet is - he just comes here to bitch about something he got for free - can't we just vote to ban him ?

Way out of line. I have a kindle with over 100 books and documents on it. I make up these documents for myself and for friends from 30 to 100 separate fragments, adding them together (one is 512 pages long) into one text document (and for ebooks through one html to Sigil. And believe it or not it is in one html within the epub. Fancy that!)

As for this free program I made a donation to Sigil well before I ever posted here.

And, oddly enough, considering something like (presently) 83 documents and hundreds of hours working on them, I'm interested in WORDS not html or epub components. Isn't that really, really strange!? An editor that is interested in words!? Really strange not to be a code mechanic.

And believe me, if I had known that folks around Sigil were determined to keep it as an ego boosting pile of technicalities for hacker types instead of the general population, I'd never have posted.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by JimLL

And believe me, if I had known that folks around Sigil were determined to keep it as an ego boosting pile of technicalities for hacker types, I'd never have posted.

Now that you do know, what's your plan?

[Toxaris]

And again he is not really reacting to content, but only very selective comments. Only the comments to which he continue his rant.
I give up. Even my 2 year old son listens better than the OP.

[cybmole]

I'd like to know how he reads . epub format on a Kindle ? & why he's stressed about an EPUB editor when his device is NOT epub compatible

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by JimLL

And believe me, if I had known that folks around Sigil were determined to keep it as an ego boosting pile of technicalities for hacker types, I'd never have posted.

Having heard your ideas I think you might be better off using Open Office writer and the free extension Writer2ePub for generating an ePub file. Writer2ePub is another forum here at MobileRead. It permits WYSIWYG editing and saving in Open Office and then the generation of an ePub as the final step.

Dale

[JimLL]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

And again he is not really reacting to content, but only very selective comments. Only the comments to which he continue his rant.
I give up. Even my 2 year old son listens better than the OP.

Be sure and tell your 2 year old that he has to be proficient at styles and classes and all technical components involved in epubs.

You're the ones not listening.

Saying a user must be a technician is just dumb.

[JimLL]

Originally Posted by cybmole

I'd like to know how he reads . epub format on a Kindle ? & why he's stressed about an EPUB editor when his device is NOT epub compatible

As a matter of fact, I've already answered that. Now who's reading selectively?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by JimLL

Way out of line. I have a kindle with over 100 books and documents on it. I make up these documents for myself and for friends from 30 to 100 separate fragments, adding them together (one is 512 pages long) into one text document (and for ebooks through one html to Sigil. And believe it or not it is in one html within the epub. Fancy that!)

Epubs with a single large HTML file won't open on many ebook readers.

If the purpose of your epub creation is to make files for Kindles... why not just get Mobipocket Creator and convert to that? Why bother making poorly-formatted epubs to convert to something else?

And, oddly enough, considering something like (presently) 83 documents and hundreds of hours working on them, I'm interested in WORDS not html or epub components.

Sigil is probably not the best program for someone just concerned with getting words into a reasonably-viewable format. It's designed with a lot of focus on being able to structure ePubs precisely, edit the metadata to exact requirements, and adjust the css to preferred formatting. If you just want a basically-readable file, with bold/italic/large headers/etc--basically, the formatting that mobi supports--Sigil's not a great program for that; it's got too many distractions from the base functions.

Isn't that really, really strange!? An editor that is interested in words!? Really strange not to be a code mechanic.

I'm not a code mechanic, but I've learned to use Sigil because I want embedded fonts, indented paragraphs, metadata control and chapters to be separate files within the ePub. If all I wanted was something readable, I'd use one of the random "convert to epub" programs floating around the web. If my end goal were a mobi file, I'd skip the "create epub" part entirely.

You seem to be getting frustrated because a program designed for fine detail work is a lousy basic-needs editor. You're not going to get much sympathy; it's like you're complaining that the power drill with the flex handle and adjustable speed makes a lousy icepick.

Yes, we can agree: Sigil is a fairly limited HTML editor. It lacks good navigation features; the WYSYWIG is sometimes glitchy; the save options are deliberately hampered in order to support other parts of epub design. Most of the rancor you encountered was people not understanding why you would pick Sigil as your design program, if those were the kinds of features that mattered to you.

I have no idea why you're making ebooks in Sigil if you want one-big-file for all the text. If you don't care about the TOC or font embedding or CSS formatting, there are better choices, that work well for what they do.

If you explained your end goal, people might be able to find you a better program for your needs. It's perfectly reasonable to ask for "a program that doesn't take ten hours of studying a complex manual to learn" or "a program that runs on my machine, which is configured [thusly]." But complaining that Sigil isn't doing what you want it to, when apparently what you want isn't what Sigil was designed to do, isn't going to win you any support--nor help you find a program that *does* do what you want.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by JimLL

As a matter of fact, I've already answered that. Now who's reading selectively?

Actually, you didn't. No one here has a CLUE why on earth you're using an ePUB editor to make Kindle books--it makes no sense, unless you're planning on making Fire-optimized books, which hardly seems likely. Why DON'T you use MBPC (MobiPocket Creator), which is DESIGNED to use Word files, or html from OO, and make Kindle books (and doesn't care about the fact that using one big long honking html file will crash a variety of devices in a finished ePUB)?

You are, in fact, very good at deflection, using nastiness in lieu of clearly explaining what your issues/problems/goals are. As has been said, by numerous people here, not less than 10 times, if you would explain clearly what issues you are actually having, people here might have helped you, but you've burned your bridges.

I'm really, truly, no kidding, DONE with this (and all of your) thread(s)-- everyone and their brother has tried to help you, and all you hear is a twisted version of what they've tried to say. I'm sorry to say it, but the stroke clearly affected your ability to correctly parse WORDS, meaning and context, as well; if your editing skills are as badly affected as your parsing skills, you might want to get someone else to proofread your work.

Hitch

[JimLL]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Having heard your ideas I think you might be better off using Open Office writer and the free extension Writer2ePub for generating an ePub file. Writer2ePub is another forum here at MobileRead. It permits WYSIWYG editing and saving in Open Office and then the generation of an ePub as the final step.

Dale

Best post I've found here.

[JimLL]

Originally Posted by Hitch

everyone and their brother has tried to help you,

Hitch

HELP? HELP??? What they have said is that you have know all about how Epub and Sigil work to use them and that I shouldn't be doing what I am doing.

Questions I have asked have been answered generally by saying Sigil isn't supposed to do that.

Parsing? Believe me, I know words. Beyond that I know defensive forum members who always have to get in the last word. If you don't know or admit how much there has been between the lines you guys have written you certainly shouldn't be lecturing me.

[Hitch]

Removed my own post--Hitch