install Fightcrew Plugin for Sigil

[YKastell]

Hi,
just installed Sigil 0.9.5 on my PC running Ubuntu 16.04

I also downloaded the zip file containing the Flightcrew Plugin

I can't figure out how to install it

where should I unzip the archive and is there anything else to do from within Sigil ?

Thanks in advance

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by YKastell

Hi,
just installed Sigil 0.9.5 on my PC running Ubuntu 16.04

I also downloaded the zip file containing the Flightcrew Plugin

I can't figure out how to install it

where should I unzip the archive and is there anything else to do from within Sigil ?

Thanks in advance

Open Sigil, click on Plugins and then click on Manage Plugins. Then click on the Add Plugin button, browse to the flightcrew zip file, select it and let it install. Once it is installed, assign it to one of plugin buttons.

You don't need to unzip the file, Sigil will take care of that.

[DiapDealer]

DNSB beat me to it I'll just add the following:

Make sure a Python interpreter is configured for Python3.4+. Clicking the 'Auto' button will usually suffice (only required on Linux).

You can also run the plugin by using Plugins>Validation->Flightcrew.

[YKastell]

Thank you, it worked !
Yann

[Notjohn]

Huh. The way I remember it, I just downloaded the plug-in, clicked on it, and it installed itself. No?

In any event, I was relieved by how effortless it was.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

Huh. The way I remember it, I just downloaded the plug-in, clicked on it, and it installed itself. No?

That would be a no. Sigil plugins have never installed themselves. There's only one way* to install them, and that's via the Manage Plugins dialog from within Sigil. It is infinitely painless, though.

* Yes, I know one could manually copy files, but that's not really "installing."

[JustinThought]

Kind of on topic, kind of off-topic. Since I upgraded my Sigil, the FlightCrew plugin seems to have lost its functionality. I use both FlightCrew as well as EpubCheck--the second seems to be more thorough--but I use FlightCrew to alert me if I've loaded a media file and haven't used it. Now, FlightCrew doesn't even give me an error even when I've loaded an MP3 file into my file.

Anybody else come across this?

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by JustinThought

Kind of on topic, kind of off-topic. Since I upgraded my Sigil, the FlightCrew plugin seems to have lost its functionality. I use both FlightCrew as well as EpubCheck--the second seems to be more thorough--but I use FlightCrew to alert me if I've loaded a media file and haven't used it. Now, FlightCrew doesn't even give me an error even when I've loaded an MP3 file into my file.

I wasn't able to reproduce this issue with FlightCrew 0.9.0 and 0.9.1 on my Windows machine.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by JustinThought

but I use FlightCrew to alert me if I've loaded a media file and haven't used it. Now, FlightCrew doesn't even give me an error even when I've loaded an MP3 file into my file.

Are you sure you're not confusing the Flightcrew plugin with the Well-Formed Check (F7)?

Or maybe you're reimporting an image that still has a link from a previous delete? Sigil doesn't remove links to images when deleting images from an epub. The Delete Unused Media tool can tell you if an image is being used in the epub or not.

[Doitsu]

@JustinThought: The Sigil 0.9.x versions no longer come with FlightCrew, you'll need to install a separate FlightCrew plugin.

[JustinThought]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

@JustinThought: The Sigil 0.9.x versions no longer come with FlightCrew, you'll need to install a separate FlightCrew plugin.

Thanks, that's what I have been doing. Now, to add to the confusion, I find that the Sigil installation on my laptop runs FlightCrew just fine, but the one on my desktop still doesn't function. In theory, these two installations are identical, since I do everything in parallel, but obviously theory is wrong again.

Of course, maybe I did some experimenting on the laptop, since it has access to the internet where the desktop doesn't. I'll go in and do some experimenting on my black box and see what happens.

Never a dull moment.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by JustinThought

I find that the Sigil installation on my laptop runs FlightCrew just fine, but the one on my desktop still doesn't function.

Curious what you mean by "doesn't function". Does the plugin launch (via the Plugins->Validation->Flightcrew menu), run, and show the validation results window or not?

Also keep in mind that Flightcrew is not capable of validating EPUB3s (the "Details" button on a failed run of Flighcrew on an EPUB3 will indicate this).

[JustinThought]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Curious what you mean by "doesn't function". Does the plugin launch (via the Plugins->Validation->Flightcrew menu), run, and show the validation results window or not?

Also keep in mind that Flightcrew is not capable of validating EPUB3s (the "Details" button on a failed run of Flighcrew on an EPUB3 will indicate this).

Yes, it launches, but it doesn't take even a small amount of time, and always returns "No Problems Found", even when I intentionally leave a problem in there for it to find. (I can run my standalone FlightCrew, which is still lurking on my drive, and it finds the errors appropriately.) These epubs are all EPUB2, since I haven't yet made the leap to the newer protocol.

I did do some testing, since I found the file date for the FlightCrew addon on my laptop was a newer version, so I copied that to my desktop; the file size was the same, but I deleted the old one, uninstalled it from Sigil, and re-installed the newer one anyway, but that was just blowing smoke--no change. I'll keep trying, and if/when I discover the solution, I'll happily report it here--just in case anyone else should happen to run across the same thing.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by JustinThought

Yes, it launches, but it doesn't take even a small amount of time, and always returns "No Problems Found", even when I intentionally leave a problem in there for it to find. (I can run my standalone FlightCrew, which is still lurking on my drive, and it finds the errors appropriately.) These epubs are all EPUB2, since I haven't yet made the leap to the newer protocol.

Sorry in advance for being such a stickler for detail, but I need you to confirm that you are indeed launching the Flightcrew plugin via the main menu (Plugins-->Validation->Flightcrew) and no other method: no keyboard shortcut, no plugin button on the menu. Only the manual menu method for the purposes of debugging this issue, please.

If that's what you're doing and it's indeed ignoring errors that you think it should be catching, then I need you to attach a small, sample epub that contains the error you believe your Flightcrew plugin is overlooking.

[JustinThought]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Sorry in advance for being such a stickler for detail, but I need you to confirm that you are indeed launching the Flightcrew plugin via the main menu (Plugins-->Validation->Flightcrew) and no other method: no keyboard shortcut, no plugin button on the menu. Only the manual menu method for the purposes of debugging this issue, please.

No apology necessary--you're helping me! Well, I was running the quick-launch button (assigned to the first button), but I also ran it from the menu, with the same result.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

If that's what you're doing and it's indeed ignoring errors that you think it should be catching, then I need you to attach a small, sample epub that contains the error you believe your Flightcrew plugin is overlooking.

Ohboy. Now you've opened a whole gooshy can of worms. Because the epubs I am working on are copyrighted, I pulled a different one up that I knew would give an error because it contained an MP3 file--which, of course, neither FlightCrew nor EpubCheck particularly care for. Blithely run FlightCrew--and it errs out as it should.

Okay, so take my current project, plug in an MP3 file, run FlightCrew--and no errors found. So it's (apparently) something in this group of EPUBs (there are 30 or 31 in the series.) Later, I'll call up some of my other projects and verify FlightCrew's status on some of them. Sorry, but I need to get ready for work now.

But I'm sending you the (one of the) problem EPUB(s) via PM to avoid publicizing copyrighted material.

I'll really be interested to see what you find out! Thanks in advance!

edit: uh-oh. I don't see an attach file button in the PM screen. I'll investigate further, now that I've discovered that it's specific to these files. I'll let you know what I find out, though.

edit again: I just can't let this go. Just for giggles, I called up my problem epub on this machine (my laptop), and ran FlightCrew--and it gave me all the appropriate errors. So it's a problem with this group of epubs, on that machine. Ahhh! I love the smell of a challenge in the morning!

edit Friday morning: Okay, I give up. I was not able to duplicate FlightCrew operating properly on my black box today--and the environment should be the same, as the computer "slept" all night, was not turned off. So, here's just one of my epubs that test fine on the desktop, even though it has 1) an MP3 audio file; 2) two video files; and 3) several unused graphics files. As I said, it tests with "No Problems Found" on the desktop; but when I call it into Sigil here on my laptop, I get more warnings than Will Robinson ever got from Robbie.

So that tells me that the problem is with my installation and/or environment on the desktop, not a problem with either Sigil or the FlightCrew addon. As time permits, I'll keep investigating, and if I ever find the problem, I'll let you know.

My suspicion is that it's an ID-10T error. Those are situations that you have no control over.