Have you Read The Fine Manual?

[kovidgoyal]

Ah, cool

[edella]

[QUOTE=kovidgoyal;902324]

No I'm saying that I see no reason why a technical manual cannot be produced in EPUB. And I'm not a EPUB zealot, I am however a reflowable format zealot. I think that any document that claims to disseminate information in the form of language should not restrict the the ability of the user to consume/manipulate that information as flexibly as possible.


I'd say that, at the moment, its very much a matter of 'horses for courses'. Most ebooks are just big enough and fast enough to read ebooks on. And because we have different reading issues, its good for them to be re-flowable, asa page will contain different amounts of text.

PDFs are good on a monitor, because they are a fixed size and the monitor is just beg enough to handle them without your eyeballs falling out after five minutes' viewing. Although I guess you might one day read a technical manual on your iphone, who would want to?

Also the actual 'oomph' of an ereader is pretty puny, so it takes forever to switch from page to page. I guess the ideal for me would be a sony 1 zillion model, full colour, very fast response -- ah, I suppose this is perhaps the iPad or similar (although rather expensive to use as just an ereader I guess!)

I do find though, on a sony anyway, using the landscape view allows the reading of PDFs with less bother, although its srill all a bit clunky. It appears that size does indeed matter.

I suspect a lot of such issues will be less important as ereaders get bigger and more powerful. I hope so -- an iPad or similar colour reader would be terrific for art and science books, not to mention cookbooks!

But this is the non-fiction area of things, and, unlike novels, which start at A and end at Z, non-fiction would need to he hypertexted/indexed up to the eyeballs, as one jumps to and fro a lot with non-fiction -- a different ballgame entirely I guess. Ereaders aren't computers -- or at least not yet!

regards from edella

[AGB]

Sorry, for some reason I thought this was the calibre manual.

So, no, haven't read the Sigil manuel yet. I'll do that now, though. Sorry about the inconveinience

[transmitthis]

Sooo er Hrm, can I get a copy of this Sigil Manual as an epub then....?

[cuthbert19]

Originally Posted by transmitthis

Sooo er Hrm, can I get a copy of this Sigil Manual as an epub then....?

Yes, you can download all the HTML pages it is written into and use Sigil to compose an epub file out of those .... and yes, I'm aware of the irony

Jokes apart ... have a read at Valloric's posts in the previous page, will you?

[transmitthis]

Originally Posted by cuthbert19

Yes, you can download all the HTML pages it is written into and use Sigil to compose an epub file out of those .... and yes, I'm aware of the irony

Jokes apart ... have a read at Valloric's posts in the previous page, will you?

I did have a read of all the previous posts, to be honest most of it went over my head. I just downloaded the Sigil Program, in case I might need it, and it would be nice to have a manual for it - must need one if there's one available..

I may be offline when using the program, so a website manual is (despite the format being ideal) useless in that regard

If anyone has a epub or mobi or lit or txt file of the manual, then let me know.
Don't have time at present to learn how to use a program to be able to convert the manual to be able to learn how to use the program

[cuthbert19]

We are way off-thread but ... you can use a program like HTTrack to save a local copy of the manual; since it changes only once in a while (at most, I think, when there's a new version of Sigil available), you only need to do it once and it will not be outdated for a good while

[TdeV]

This message stream about the manual has been made sticky and has 3 posts from Valloric, but every link produces a 404-not found error.

So, is there a manual or not?

If it's on a different link, then maybe you should make this one "unsticky".

[PeterT]

http://web.sigil.googlecode.com/git/contents.html looks to be the manual.

[user_none]

I've edited the post to reflect the new location.

[TdeV]

Thanks!

[RoyInVegas]

Sorry, but I have a problem with the term "Fine Manual." As in, "Have you read the fine manual?"

1) That it's no longer a printable PDF file makes it more difficult to use. Much easier to have a manual that can be printed, studied, and referred to without flipping back and forth from the actual program to an internet page. Also, it's a pain in the neck to read the online version while having lunch or floating on your back in the pool.

2) Whatever the technical strengths or deficiencies of an online manual, the problem remains that, with the Table Of Contents Editor, there are details of how to use the thing ... but no indication whatsoever as to how to activate it!

I've followed the instructions and have followed the instructions and followed the instructions "You can open the TOC Editor by selecting Tools - TOC Editor." But no matter how many times - over and over and over - I click on "tools," no such option shows.

To say that this is frustrating is one of the understatements of the century.

Is there any solution to this? Or am I to just wallow around aimlessly?

Seriously, I'd love to see an answer.

I'd also love to see the new manual converted into a PDF document, so I can print the thing and read it at leisure. (While eating lunch or floating in the pool. Print - though you may fight it - will continue to have its advantages.)

rh

[Toxaris]

For your specific example, the TOC editor is no longer available in that form as of version 0.4. The TOC editor is open by default at the right of the screen. Probably the manual needs some update, I don't know.
To be hones, I have never looked at it. For me the program is pretty much self explanatory. There are several options though to make a pdf from internet pages, you could use that.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by RoyInVegas

Sorry, but I have a problem with the term "Fine Manual." As in, "Have you read the fine manual?"



I've followed the instructions and have followed the instructions and followed the instructions "You can open the TOC Editor by selecting Tools - TOC Editor." But no matter how many times - over and over and over - I click on "tools," no such option shows.

To say that this is frustrating is one of the understatements of the century.

Is there any solution to this? Or am I to just wallow around aimlessly?

Seriously, I'd love to see an answer.

I'd also love to see the new manual converted into a PDF document, so I can print the thing and read it at leisure. (While eating lunch or floating in the pool. Print - though you may fight it - will continue to have its advantages.)

rh

I will agree the Version 2.0 Manual is out of date for some features

A brief exploration o f the Menubar would show the the TOC (editor) is now on the View Menu.
This is a more logical place, since you can now also navigate your book from here without knowing the filename of the segments involved.
At the bottom of the (TOC) list is a button that can be used to optionally regenerate the TOC from header tags (as it did in prior versions of Sigil) or you are now offered the option to open the NCX file from the Book Browser, where the burden is now completely on you to get it right

BTW The Flightcrew check within Sigil, will note NCX errors as part of the process.

[PeterT]

I also think the term "Fine Manual" derived from the abbreviation RTFM where the "F" did NOT stand for Fine, but rather was a term I would rather nor use in a family safe forum!