Sigil-1.0.0 Released

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Are you talking about the QListWidget that lists all of the available Reports Widgets so the user can select the report type they want.

Yes, that was what my example was pointing to. I thought that previous versions had the ability to resize the inner frame/divider - although I could certainly be wrong - I just don't remember having those titles cut-off.

As far as shorter names or enabling the frame to be resized, that's up to y'all. My .02 would be to allow the frame to be adjusted that way users can adjust their real-estate use to their desires/circumstance.

[KevinH]

The fixed width is 200 pixels. As I tried to explain, resizing is not what we want here as it would impact space available for the actual reports. What font size are you using? What platform?

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by KevinH

The fixed width is 200 pixels. As I tried to explain, resizing is not what we want here as it would impact space available for the actual reports. What font size are you using? What platform?

Windows 10, v 1909
Fonts are:
Preview:36 Arial
CSS/Code View: 18 Lucida Sans
Spec Char: 32 Arial

Although those font settings didn't have an effect on the reports list. I am using dual monitors at 3840x2160 pixels each; scaled to 200%, which is probably affecting the font within the window. Since Sigil doesn't have a "menu/window font size" option, scaling to 200% was the only way I could get the font to be a reasonable reading size.

[KevinH]

There are high dpi settings for Windows and some specific to Qt. As a stop gap, since this really should be fixed in Qt high dpi or Windows code, I shortened three of the longest names of the reports as follows:

Classes Used
CSS Classes
Characters Used

Perhaps DiapDealer can tell you about Windows high dpi support in Qt and how to enable it using environment vars.

[Turtle91]

Awesome - Thanks!

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by KevinH

I shortened three of the longest names of the reports as follows:

Classes Used
CSS Classes
Characters Used

Maybe these three names might be more consistent:

• HTML Classes
• CSS Classes
• Used Characters

then you'd have:

• All Files
• HTML Files
• Image Files
• CSS Files
• HTML Classes
• CSS Classes
• Links
• Used Characters

Also, "the Used Characters Report" rolls off the tongue better than "the Characters Used Report".

[KevinH]

It is not classes defined in html styles (html classes) but instead classes used in html files. I wasn't really looking for suggestions on what to name them. The names that exist now should be fine.

[democrite]

Now that 1.0 is released, I'm not sure what is to come. Typically I use Sigil mainly to convert to EPUB 3, edit the TOC, and for the page list plugin. Btw, editing of the EPUB such as re-ordering files does not seem to update the pagelist; perhaps as intended and not yet added.

For all other edits, on macOS, I tend to use BBEdit. It loads an EPUB much quicker as it does no parsing, and for typical post-creation edits as corrections, I find BBEdit more convenient as it is quicker to bring up global search and replace (a dedicated shortcut) and one can save commonly used (complex) regexes. I also like BBEdit since it doesn't rewrite the entire EPUB on save, and as such I can keep track of date last modified.

Some features that I think would be great:

1. some apps index headers, CSS classes, and perhaps other elements. IDEs typically allow one to navigate code such as going to a particular class, function, etc. It would be nice if there was some shortcut to bring up some search dialog and then be able to go to a particular header in any file. Refactoring such as renaming a class and having the change applied globally would be nice too. There seems to little other options of highly refined EPUB editors, BlueGriffon a notable example that I have tried, and I would very much like if eventually Sigil adopted some IDE editing and navigation features helpful for large code bases or EPUBs.

2. TOC editor. Somewhat often I find commercial EPUBs with a less than ideal TOC, with entries not being in the correct hierarchy such as all H2s being H1 (chapter at the same level as part). In such cases, it would be nice to multiple select and then change level. It would also be nice if there was some drop down in the TOC editor that could set level 1–6 expansion, e.g. collapse all save up to H2. Handy to view at a glance and navigate long TOCs that may have dozens or hundreds of entries. When changing the level of an entry, it too would be nice if the collapse/expansion state was kept rather than auto-expanding.

One last thing, perhaps it can be done by the plugin maintainer, it would be more convenient if when converting to EPUB 3, one could keep the file name and overwrite the existing file. Renaming and replacing is a few extra steps that would be nice to avoid. As there is now more complete EPUB 3 support, perhaps the conversion from 2 to 3, and perhaps the reverse in the possible case of someone might wanting such, may be better suited as built-in as it may be now more used and more so in the future.

[KevinH]

FWIW:

1. you can already right click on a class and have relevant style sheet be opened and the cursor placed on the class.

2. using the Table of Contents dock widget, you can already navigate to any heading in any file once it is built.

3. you can already use Find and Replace to search for and open for just about anything based on any search criteria you set.

So please be explicit and explain exactly what type of IDE navigation you are looking for. There are no functions, classes can already be identified, you can already use find and replace to replace class attributes, use clips to assign classes easily, etc.

As for toc editing, I have rarely if ever seen a toc with "hundreds of entries". Most if not all the heading changes can be done with combinations of regular expressions find and replace and clips. So I am not sure how much use multiple selection for movements would be.

As the author of the ePub3-itizer, I think using an output plugin followed by an input plugin is perhaps the safest approach to prevent lost data. If you are familiar with python3 at all, feel free to modify that plugin.

Our immediate post 1.0 plans are as follows:
1. fix any outstanding bugs
2. Add macOS Dark Mode and Windows Dark Mode support
3. add book language translations for guide and nav titles for users whose book language does not match the user interface language.

In the longer term, we plan to implement ordered dictionaries/hash tables to eliminate attribute order changes, and once those are in place, look at implementing a comparison function.

So our agenda for the next year is pretty full.

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by democrite

... TOC editor ... it would be nice to multiple select and then change level

I would find this useful, too, to be able to select multiple items and change the level of all selected items in one go.

Originally Posted by KevinH

... you can already right click on a class and have relevant style sheet be opened and the cursor placed on the class.

Omigod, this is so cool! This is why I love this forum. Always learning new things that Sigil can do that I had no idea it was capable of

As for toc editing .... Most if not all the heading changes can be done with combinations of regular expressions find and replace and clips. So I am not sure how much use multiple selection for movements would be.

Help, please? I am confused. This is regex find/replace in the nav.xhtml or in the TOC Editor?

Thank you!

[KevinH]

Any html page can work with Find and Replace

[democrite]

Originally Posted by KevinH

1. you can already right click on a class and have relevant style sheet be opened and the cursor placed on the class.

I too had not known about that and after looking through the menus, there indeed are a good amount of nice features.

Originally Posted by KevinH

1. you ca3. you can already use Find and Replace to search for and open for just about anything based on any search criteria you set.

Some editors have a search all where a new window, panel, or tab appears showing results from all files and then one can easily see at a glance and key through next, replace and find next etc. Some might also if using replace all, show results. Find and replace acts differently of course across various apps though what comes to mind from what I use most is such. I had also not known about saved searches and that is helpful. BBEdit in its search dialog has a dropdown allowing one to select from them; if a small button was in the find panel, that would be very convenient.

Originally Posted by KevinH

So please be explicit and explain exactly what type of IDE navigation you are looking for. There are no functions, classes can already be identified, you can already use find and replace to replace class attributes, use clips to assign classes easily, etc.

Over the years, various editors and IDEs have appeared with various features. Emacs and Vim have too over time have available to them various plugins adding various kinds of navigation. Desktop search such on macOS – Spotlight, LaunchBar, Alfred –, and various platforms, and so forth. Every possible app that I might have used before that navigates something in someway, I tend to think of. I had though that mere mention of IDE, being a concept well developed over decades though still undergoing change, I had thought one or both of you might have thought of such.

My question is not necessarily of what is to immediately come, but with the release of 1.0, I've started thinking about what might an ideal EPUB editor be someday, if ever. I understand that you two are not a large company with the resources and team, and so forth. This is just me raising the question of meditation upon such things.

For all things, I try to be as efficient as possible. Shell scripts and aliases, keyboard macros apps that let me perform multiple actions in multiple apps, in the case of EPUB, for example making corrections, highlight some text in my viewer and with a keystroke, switch to my editor and use AppleScript to find and select in current file. Some features such as AppleScript may be of limited interest and never make it into Sigil even 10 years from now though one can as they say dream.

In the case of specific IDE features I'd like to see, what I most commonly use is keyboard navigation. Much like various desktop search apps might index things on a desktop like browser bookmarks and history, indeed there are no programming functions in an EPUB, but thinking of how easily one can navigate code in most refined and mature IDEs, what of such spirit can possibly apply? Myself, I find CSS classes, headers (even if they are hidden with sigil_not_in_toc), files, EPUB 3 pagelist markup (if I compare a PDF and EPUB side by side and want to go to page), and possibly though unsure IDs and metadata. With a keystroke that brings up a search box, instantly filtering anything and being able to go there. As editors, what I tend to use these days are various IDEs from Intellij and Xcode.

A short video about navigation in Intellij IDEs. They do have one for C++ btw. Such features and perhaps for many other reasons have made Intellij become the default platform for Android development. IDEA was well regarded as a Java editor back in the days and perhaps still, and now they have IDEs for several languages. I use many of the mentioned features.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UHsJyCq1SU

Originally Posted by KevinH

As for toc editing, I have rarely if ever seen a toc with "hundreds of entries". Most if not all the heading changes can be done with combinations of regular expressions find and replace and clips. So I am not sure how much use multiple selection for movements would be.

I am thinking of academic or scientific works in various fields that can sometimes reach well over 500 pages. Indeed even such works may not have extremely large TOCs as they come. Some do. For any EPUB I will add to my reader, I will edit the TOC to include as many headings as I feel are needed to have a good idea of all the topics covered. If such are not marked up but use paragraph classes, I will sometimes or often change them to headers. If a possible TOC could be extremely large such as covering thousands of entries, e.g. a reference work on botany or something else, I may create an HTML TOC showing enough entries and I feel are helpful and then in each case, decide how much I want to include inline. iOS Books as you may have noticed if one or both of you have looked at, when scrolling with the bar, there is a tooltip showing section. As such, I can navigate EPUBs to sections.

If I add headers that may not have been included in the original TOC, in the case of footnotes, some easy way to view for example the TOC expanded to H2 or 3, and quickly scroll and see if any need editing such as to remove a suffixed number. I tend to use arrow keys, navigating up/down and then left or right to change level. In the case of a collapsed entry, if I select left it then expands that entry. Such would be a nice fix someday. I'm not sure what else may make more easy TOC or other editing. Some of whats mentioned above, perhaps other things such as if for example I am in some file and change a paragraph to header, right click and add to TOC, or some dialog where I can say include all headers up to some level. Specifically for TOCs and perhaps other things, some features available via right click, some menu, or shortcut could be nice. I'll continue to think about what such might be.

As works I tend to read or study may be lengthly, and reading devices being what they are – more work to easily flip back to the TOC or anywhere else –, I tend to add if not already there links to every header of every chapter to return to the HTML contents. For that, I use regexes that are not always ideal; I may look into a plugin someday such as auto adding such links to lets say every header up to H3.

Refactoring that I can think of: selecting a class or ID and having it changed everywhere. Inline selecting a header to change level and having it updated. Changing title header. Adding or renaming a EPUB 3 page span and having that added or changed.

Keyboard shortcut sets one can change between might someday be nice.

One thing about shortcuts, they seem to now use ctrl rather than cmd on macOS.

Such things one could say are possible future requests, though indeed I understand it is you two. Such is more me starting to think of every possible editor I have ever used, if an EPUB resembles in a code base in someway, and what or what is everything possible that might be most useful, convenient, productive, what may reduce mouse movement and clicks, additional keystrokes, etc. to be as productive as possible with the least possible needed movement.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Perhaps DiapDealer can tell you about Windows high dpi support in Qt and how to enable it using environment vars.

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Awesome - Thanks!

Sorry. I missed this exchange until just now.

Try setting the following environment variable to "1" (without the quotes) to enable High DPI support for Sigil on Windows:

QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR

I don't know what other kind of scaling you might be doing with Windows, but if the above doesn't do anything for you, you can try setting the QT_SCALE_FACTOR environment variable to something just above 1. Like maybe 1.1 or 1.2.

I'm actually tweaking some hi dpi windows stuff with Sigil right now. It's a little tough without a hi dpi monitor, though.

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Any html page can work with Find and Replace

Ah. So the idea then is to change h1, h2, h3 etc. headers in html using Find/Replace, then regenerate TOC — as opposed to using the shortcut in TOC editor of selecting TOC entry and using the arrow buttons to change nesting level?

[KevinH]

That is one way to do it and it makes the semantic meaning of the heading match its level.