Urgent - Related to Sigil-0.9.18

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

It might be argued that the support workload could be reduced by making the description of Sigil at https://sigil-ebook.com/about/ accurate (and informative about Book View and its replacement). Many queries could then be dealt with by simple redirection to the site.

Many queries are dealt with now by simple redirection to different posts/sites. I see no evidence whatsoever that one more will make any difference at all.

There's already a wealth of Sigil information here that new folk could avail themselves of, but they don't. They don't even make a token effort to see if their questions might have already been answered somewhere. They just barge in, ignore all pre-existing efforts to help with their transition and scream for immediate, personal, hand-holdy HELP!! So explain to me why I should make any more effort whatsoever to help people who have already proven to have zero motivation, or ability, to help themselves?

This is free, open-source software. We're not the help-desk for a for-profit software venture. We don't even accept donations for the love of Pete! As such, it is up the user-base to help themselves and to help each other.

Happy to help those who've exhausted the options already available to them, but I'm no longer available to those don't exert a modicum of effort to help themselves first. I'm not the babysitter.

[PeterT]

Maybe the final release with bookview should have been released as 1.0.0 and the versions without it renumbered from 2.x on

[odamizu]

It seems the simplest solution is to delete the About page on the Sigil Wordpress Blog, or replace the content with a link to the main GitHub page.

Everything else on the blog already refers people to GitHub or MobileRead, which is where the most current info and active support reside.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Maybe the final release with bookview should have been released as 1.0.0 and the versions without it renumbered from 2.x on

I suggested that when Kevin floated the idea of a PageView replacement for BookView - his reply was "Version 1.0.0 has been allocated to the upcoming version that frees up the folder structure."

Originally Posted by odamizu

It seems the simplest solution is to delete the About page on the Sigil Wordpress Blog, or replace the content with a link to the main GitHub page.

Everything else on the blog already refers people to GitHub or MobileRead, which is where the most current info and active support reside.

Or copy every thing in the blog to GitHub, assuming it's not there already, and change the links in the Help menu to the relevant GitHub pages.

And put a link to this forum in the Help menu.

And, for people running older versions of Sigil, put some big blinking multicolour P45s (redundancy notices) at the top of the blog pages with links to the equivalent GitHub pages.

Then stop maintaining the blog.

BR

[Hitch]

Hell, maybe just a saved reply, same one from all of us, that simply says, "Book View is dead. See this link and that link and this other link over here, dunderhead."

Hitch

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Or copy every thing in the blog to GitHub, assuming it's not there already, and change the links in the Help menu to the relevant GitHub pages.

And put a link to this forum in the Help menu.

And, for people running older versions of Sigil, put some big blinking multicolour P45s (redundancy notices) at the top of the blog pages with links to the equivalent GitHub pages.

Then stop maintaining the blog.

Is that all? Just more busy-work by me and it will all be better? No thanks. You guys feel free to tell them what's what. I'm going to stick to coding for a while.

[KevinH]

I am 100% behind DiapDealer here. As volunteers we barely have the free time for what we do now. To ask for more is just not going to happen. These people are constantly posting without even bothering to read anything already posted. This will only stop after enough time with no BookView.

So if you have time to point these misguided people in the correct direction, great, otherwise we are going to stop answering these posters otherwise we will have no time left to improve Sigil.

FWIW, we have branched Sigil to create a "nomove" branch that will allow any epub to be edited without imposing our standard Sigil folder structure (by moving files on first load). This is a very time intensive process as our standard structure is assumed all throughout the Sigil code base and each file must be studied to determine how to fix/relax these restrictions. It is going to take a lot of work.

Once this is complete, after a beta series, we will release Sigil as 1.0.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by KevinH

I am 100% behind DiapDealer here. As volunteers we barely have the free time for what we do now. To ask for more is just not going to happen. These people are constantly posting without even bothering to read anything already posted. This will only stop after enough time with no BookView.

So if you have time to point these misguided people in the correct direction, great, otherwise we are going to stop answering these posters otherwise we will have no time left to improve Sigil.

FWIW, we have branched Sigil to create a "nomove" branch that will allow any epub to be edited without imposing our standard Sigil folder structure (by moving files on first load). This is a very time intensive process as our standard structure is assumed all throughout the Sigil code base and each file must be studied to determine how to fix/relax these restrictions. It is going to take a lot of work.

Once this is complete, after a beta series, we will release Sigil as 1.0.

All I can say to both of you is, I seriously sympathize with every fiber of my body.

Hitch

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by KevinH

So if you have time to point these misguided people in the correct direction, great, otherwise we are going to stop answering these posters otherwise we will have no time left to improve Sigil.

You might want to make Tex2002ans's very detailed PageEdit installation guide a sticky and maybe also add it to the user guide.

Originally Posted by KevinH

FWIW, we have branched Sigil to create a "nomove" branch that will allow any epub to be edited without imposing our standard Sigil folder structure (by moving files on first load).

Let me know once the "nomove" branch is ready for first tests.

[DiapDealer]

I removed the conflicting info from the sigil-ebook.com/about page. But since there are, in fact, no links to the sigil-ebook.com/about page from Sigil itself (nor on github, nor on Mobileread), I doubt very highly it will help with anything.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

You might want to make Tex2002ans's very detailed PageEdit installation guide a sticky and maybe also add it to the user guide.


Let me know once the "nomove" branch is ready for first tests.

I do want to say that Tex's comment--that the PE installation is a bit much for The Average Bear--is correct. I suspect that a lot of heartburn would be alleviated if the installation were made easy--so Doits' suggestion is one I'd second.

Hitch

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I do want to say that Tex's comment--that the PE installation is a bit much for The Average Bear--is correct. I suspect that a lot of heartburn would be alleviated if the installation were made easy--so Doits' suggestion is one I'd second.

Hitch

I truly don't see how it's a "bit much" for the average Sigil user (which is what we're talking about, here).

You double click it to install it (much easier, in fact than Sigil's installation). And to configure it, you browse to the .exe and select it (as explained in the user manual that no one reads). Surely that's not asking too much of someone who's already proven themselves capable of browsing to a .epub to open it? Or downloading an installer from the internet? Or browsing to a zip file to install a plugin? Why must we clutter up the top half of the Sigil forum with sticky threads that no one reads as well? Too many sticky threads defeats the purpose of having any sticky threads in the first place.

[KevinH]

I am confused ... PageEdit is installed just like any other standalone app. The only thing different is if you want to more closely integrate it with Sigil, which then requires using Sigil's Preferences to set PageEdit as your preferred XHtml Editor. This is documented in the latest version of the Sigil User's guide and in the release notes. It is not difficult.

[exaltedwombat]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I removed the conflicting info from the sigil-ebook.com/about page. But since there are, in fact, no links to the sigil-ebook.com/about page from Sigil itself (nor on github, nor on Mobileread), I doubt very highly it will help with anything.

It would have helped me when I was first dipping a toe into eBook production and looking for information about the available tools.

What slightly confused me about installing Page Edit was that it doesn't actually install in the usual Windows sense, it just sits there in a folder.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I truly don't see how it's a "bit much" for the average Sigil user (which is what we're talking about, here).

You double click it to install it (much easier, in fact than Sigil's installation). And to configure it, you browse to the .exe and select it (as explained in the user manual that no one reads). Surely that's not asking too much of someone who's already proven themselves capable of browsing to a .epub to open it? Or downloading an installer from the internet? Or browsing to a zip file to install a plugin? Why must we clutter up the top half of the Sigil forum with sticky threads that no one reads as well? Too many sticky threads defeats the purpose of having any sticky threads in the first place.

Originally Posted by KevinH

I am confused ... PageEdit is installed just like any other standalone app. The only thing different is if you want to more closely integrate it with Sigil, which then requires using Sigil's Preferences to set PageEdit as your preferred XHtml Editor. This is documented in the latest version of the Sigil User's guide and in the release notes. It is not difficult.

Yeah, y'know...I think that's how we all think. M (Tex) made some very good points to me, in a recent gab session away from MR and I would prefer to defer to his thoughts on this. (PAGING TEX2002ANS!)

He actually thought that PE should be "packaged" with Sigil and self-extract, yadda; my thoughts on it are SIMPLY that we should put his easy-peasy installation destructions someplace simple.

When I look the Page Edit instructions, yeah, they're easy-peasy for us. But in thinking about what Tex said, I suspect he's right. We're still getting a lot of users that are looking for Word-plus and removing BV isn't going to change that.

I mean to say--I KNOW that you two, Diap and Kev, don't deal with this kind of thing everyday (and be happy for that!), but I do. My customers literally don't know HOW to download from browsers. I'm not kidding when I say that. They struggle with things like installing Kindle Previewer (which is a self-extractor/self-installer) and the like.

I swear, I'm not trying to make your lives harder or add ninety-bajillion stickies. I'm trying to think about how to reduce the number of questions and I recognize far too well your irritation. I get that way when I'm past my IL (Idiot Limit) too. When I've created click-by-click instructions, and I STILL get questions because the asker refused to read the instructions, or didn't even open them and so on. It's easy to get angry about it (god, do I know that!).

IF Tex would post on it, which I know he'll do (it's like knowing that Halley's Comet will come past again...), his points on it really are better than mine. I think he has a good eye for what works with the typical user. I tend to go crazy overboard, because my particular brand of "typical user" is a bit less (well, QUITE a bit less) techie than most.

Tex, dear, iz you dere?

Hitch