using nav.xhtml for TOC - Page 2

KevinH · 05-06-2020, 03:34 PM

Then drag and drop it in BookBrowser to where you want it. The nav entry in the spine typically has linear="no" attribute set in it so it is up to the reading system to decide where it is shown. I personallyonly use the nav for machine parsing and creat an html TOC if I am creating a Table of Contents meant for actual readers of the book.

Rand Brittain · 05-09-2020, 01:44 PM

So if I don't want it to appear in the reader at all, setting it to "linear=no" is the best way to go about it?

JSWolf · 05-09-2020, 02:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rand Brittain

So if I don't want it to appear in the reader at all, setting it to "linear=no" is the best way to go about it?

If you don't want the nav to appear at all, make your eBook in ePub 2. Problem solved.

DiapDealer · 05-09-2020, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If you don't want the nav to appear at all, make your eBook in ePub 2. Problem solved.

Give it a rest, Jon. Your anti-epub3 rhetoric is not welcome in the Sigil forums. Further attempts to discourage people from using epub3 by you will be deleted.

Doitsu · 05-09-2020, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rand Brittain

So if I don't want it to appear in the reader at all, setting it to "linear=no" is the best way to go about it?

You could also remove it from the spine, because according to the epub 3.0.1 specs, nav spine entries are optional.

Note that if you manually remove a Sigil-generated nav document from the spine, you'll also need to remove the default toc landmark item or update the toc landmark item href to that it points to TOC.xhtml, if you have also generated a separate TOC file.

Rand Brittain · 05-21-2020, 09:30 PM

Ah, I see.

It seems like Sigil wants to keep putting nav.xhtml back at the beginning of the book even after I do this, though.

hobnail · 05-21-2020, 10:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rand Brittain

Ah, I see.

It seems like Sigil wants to keep putting nav.xhtml back at the beginning of the book even after I do this, though.

If you open the book in Calibre's editor and move it in the file list on the left then it will be displayed in the ereader where you put it. That's my experience with EPUB3s.

KevinH · 05-21-2020, 10:10 PM

Sigil will not reorder your spine contents unless you tell it to. Unless there is a bug. Have you tried simply dragging the epub3 nav.xhtml to the bottom of the Text section in BookBrowser?

Rand Brittain · 05-22-2020, 12:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinH

Sigil will not reorder your spine contents unless you tell it to. Unless there is a bug. Have you tried simply dragging the epub3 nav.xhtml to the bottom of the Text section in BookBrowser?

I can move it, but it looks like Sigil still wants to show it at the front of the BookBrowser even after I've made it non-linear, where the Calibre editor wouldn't show it at all.

KevinH · 05-22-2020, 08:46 AM

So are you saying you dragged it in Sigil ti the bottom of the spine in BookBrowser and it immediately came back to the top?

DiapDealer · 05-22-2020, 09:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rand Brittain

I can move it, but it looks like Sigil still wants to show it at the front of the BookBrowser even after I've made it non-linear, where the Calibre editor wouldn't show it at all.

That doesn't make any sense. I think you're confusing Editor with Viewer. The calibre editor HAS to show a non-linear entry. There would be no way to modify it if making something non-linear in the spine hid the page from an editor as well as a reader. The other difference is that unlike calibre, Sigil does not have an epub reader. It merely has a page/chapter Preview. Which will show you any xhtml file you ask it to--regardless of whether an ebook reader is supposed to show it or not. It has no way of presenting to you how an epub reader would order the flow of the content. You'd need to use an ebook reader (calibre or another epub reader) to see if your attempts to make the NAV non-linear (and/or move it to the back of the spine) with Sigil were successful or not. But generally speaking, if it is at the end of the list of text files in BookBrowser (which is the Sigil file browser tree-vew widget, by the way, and NOT the page Preview), then it's last in the spine order.

And even then, with everything done correctly, not all ereading systems honor the linear=no option. But they should certainly honor the spine order (the order of the text-files in Sigil's tree-view file browser--which is called Book Browser).

KevinH · 05-22-2020, 09:45 AM

And I just checked and repositioning the nav in the spine using simple drag and drop in Sigils' BookBrowser window, does in fact properly reorder the spine by verifying it in the opf. The re-ordered spine version of the epub can be saved and reloaded and its position remains where I put it.

So Sigil is currently working exactly correctly. So please explain exactly what you are doing step by step in Sigil that causes the nav.xhtml file to be moved back to the top (as you claimed). Is your epub3 opf broken in some way? Does it not properly add the nav property to the manifest?

KevinH · 05-22-2020, 10:50 AM

Okay in an attempt to recreate what you are seeing. I created an epub3 with a proper nav (ie. marked as "nav" in the manifest properties of the opf). Deleted it from the spine in the opf (you can NOT delete it from the manifest). Saved the epub.

Loaded the epub and the nav.xhtml was near the top (not at the actual top) when reloaded BUT was NOT part of the spine! So all is good. The nav.xhtml has to someplace in BookBrowser otherwise you could not select it for editing.

If I then drag the nav.xhtml to the end (as if I want the nav to be last in the spine), it will be re-added to the end of the spine as expected.

So to summarize:

In a proper epub3:

a) to put the nav.xhtml file last, simply drag and drop it there in Sigil's BookBrowser window.

b) to make the nav not be shown to the user, you have two options:

1) edit the OPF and add the fololwing to the nav spine entry:
linear="no"

This should tell every epub3 reader to not display the nav as part of the normal spine order.
Most epub2 readers unfortunately do not know how to handle linear="no" properly.

or

2) simply remove the nav entry from the spine completely (not the manifest!) before saving the epub

And if you do that you probably want to do what Doitsu suggested to edit the nav.xhtml Landmarks section first to that it will point the user to a html toc.

Hope this helps.

KevinH

AlanHK · 10-09-2020, 08:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinH

So to summarize:

Thanks, finally an explanation of why the nav file appears/disappears and moves around.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinH

b) to make the nav not be shown to the user, you have two options:

Actually, there is a third option, a hack I used before I knew what "linear" did:

In all the nav tags, add hidden=""
e.g. change <nav epub:type="toc" id="toc"> to
<nav epub:type="toc" id="toc" hidden="">

This will give you a blank page, not no page at all. However, it seems to work on readers that only understand epub2, and display the nav page regardless of the spine setting.

JSWolf · 10-09-2020, 09:32 AM

In what programs would the nav.html to displayed in place of the NCX ToC when using the ToC control if the NCX was not created ?

05-21-2020, 10:10 PM	#23
KevinH Sigil Developer Posts: 7,647 Karma: 5433388 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: many	Sigil will not reorder your spine contents unless you tell it to. Unless there is a bug. Have you tried simply dragging the epub3 nav.xhtml to the bottom of the Text section in BookBrowser? Last edited by KevinH; 05-21-2020 at 10:12 PM.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
nav.xhtml and search & replace	lumpynose	Sigil	3	06-10-2019 03:55 PM
Doubt about nav.xhtml and editor	Terisa de morgan	Editor	5	08-12-2018 11:51 AM
TOC nav.xhtml issue	ebookscovers	Conversion	1	05-06-2017 11:12 AM
ToC help needed: nav.xhtml	Phssthpok	Editor	10	04-14-2017 04:58 AM

05-06-2020, 03:34 PM	#16
KevinH Sigil Developer Posts: 7,647 Karma: 5433388 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: many	Then drag and drop it in BookBrowser to where you want it. The nav entry in the spine typically has linear="no" attribute set in it so it is up to the reading system to decide where it is shown. I personallyonly use the nav for machine parsing and creat an html TOC if I am creating a Table of Contents meant for actual readers of the book.

05-09-2020, 01:44 PM	#17
Rand Brittain Bookmaker Posts: 416 Karma: 2143650 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: Cybook Opus	So if I don't want it to appear in the reader at all, setting it to "linear=no" is the best way to go about it?

05-21-2020, 09:30 PM	#21
Rand Brittain Bookmaker Posts: 416 Karma: 2143650 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: Cybook Opus	Ah, I see. It seems like Sigil wants to keep putting nav.xhtml back at the beginning of the book even after I do this, though.

05-22-2020, 08:46 AM	#25
KevinH Sigil Developer Posts: 7,647 Karma: 5433388 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: many	So are you saying you dragged it in Sigil ti the bottom of the spine in BookBrowser and it immediately came back to the top?

05-22-2020, 09:45 AM	#27
KevinH Sigil Developer Posts: 7,647 Karma: 5433388 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: many	And I just checked and repositioning the nav in the spine using simple drag and drop in Sigils' BookBrowser window, does in fact properly reorder the spine by verifying it in the opf. The re-ordered spine version of the epub can be saved and reloaded and its position remains where I put it. So Sigil is currently working exactly correctly. So please explain exactly what you are doing step by step in Sigil that causes the nav.xhtml file to be moved back to the top (as you claimed). Is your epub3 opf broken in some way? Does it not properly add the nav property to the manifest?

05-22-2020, 10:50 AM	#28
KevinH Sigil Developer Posts: 7,647 Karma: 5433388 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: many	Okay in an attempt to recreate what you are seeing. I created an epub3 with a proper nav (ie. marked as "nav" in the manifest properties of the opf). Deleted it from the spine in the opf (you can NOT delete it from the manifest). Saved the epub. Loaded the epub and the nav.xhtml was near the top (not at the actual top) when reloaded BUT was NOT part of the spine! So all is good. The nav.xhtml has to someplace in BookBrowser otherwise you could not select it for editing. If I then drag the nav.xhtml to the end (as if I want the nav to be last in the spine), it will be re-added to the end of the spine as expected. So to summarize: In a proper epub3: a) to put the nav.xhtml file last, simply drag and drop it there in Sigil's BookBrowser window. b) to make the nav not be shown to the user, you have two options: 1) edit the OPF and add the fololwing to the nav spine entry: linear="no" This should tell every epub3 reader to not display the nav as part of the normal spine order. Most epub2 readers unfortunately do not know how to handle linear="no" properly. or 2) simply remove the nav entry from the spine completely (not the manifest!) before saving the epub And if you do that you probably want to do what Doitsu suggested to edit the nav.xhtml Landmarks section first to that it will point the user to a html toc. Hope this helps. KevinH

10-09-2020, 09:32 AM	#30
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 74,015 Karma: 129333114 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	In what programs would the nav.html to displayed in place of the NCX ToC when using the ToC control if the NCX was not created ?

Advert

Advert