Automation function in Sigil to save a lot of labor?

[automa]

Is there a setting or certain programming technology by which you could delete all the lines of useless text that are inserted in the book that includes certain words?

What about automating the task of inputting separation lines between the chapters instead of putting them one by one with CTRL SHFT TAB ENTER while scrolling down a long book, which can be a time consuming and tedious process.

[DiapDealer]

Since "chapter" has very little definitive meaning in an epub, how would you propose to automate it in a way that would accomodate everyone? Besides, if you have a specific element (or class of element) you want a chapter-break to precede (or follow), then you can automate the process yourself with "Find & Replace." And save it for later use.

[automa]

If the Chapter heading section begins with the letter Chapter that would be good enough. Is there a way you can apply heading 1 on all of those paragraphs that begins with the word Chapter? Thank you about the chapter-break idea.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by automa

Is there a way you can apply heading 1 on all of those paragraphs that begins with the word Chapter?

Regex is your friend here. You should learn the basics of it if you want to start automating stuff to your advantage.

Please don't use this blindly without having good backups (and I'm sure someone will find a more effective/safe way--that's the beauty of regex ) but something like:

<p([^>]+)>(.*?)Chapter(.*?)</p>

replaced with:

<h1\1>\2Chapter\3</h1>

might work. It will retain any ids/classes the paragraph might have, as well as any elements that may be in front of/behind "Chapter." Without seeing the code in question, it's always a bit of a crapshoot. Make sure you're in regex S&R mode and have the "DotAll" option checked and the "Minimum Match" option unchecked.

Even so, any legitimate paragraph with the word "Chapter" in it is going to get caught up as well.

If there's a question of case (chapter, Chapter, CHAPTER), simply tell regex to ignore case by preceding the expression with (?i):

(?i)<p([^>]+)>(.*?)Chapter(.*?)</p>

[automa]

Thank you. And then after that, is there a way to automate the inserting of split marker right before all the heading 1s?

[RbnJrg]

Originally Posted by automa

Thank you. And then after that, is there a way to automate the inserting of split marker right before all the heading 1s?

With Find & Replace:

1. In the "Find" field, write "<h1" (if the heading tag is <h1>; if the heading tag would be -for example- <h2> then you should write "<h2" -no quotes-)
2. In the "Replace" field write "<hr class="sigil_split_marker" />\n\n<h1" (no quotes)

After that press the button "Replace All".

To finish, press the key F6 (or select the menu "Edit" and execute the command "Split at Markers").

Rubén

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by automa

Thank you. And then after that, is there a way to automate the inserting of split marker right before all the heading 1s?

What am I... the regex store?

Just add Sigil's split marker code

<hr class="sigil_split_marker" />

to the front of my above Replace expression and you can do it all in one fell swoop. You have to at least try. You'll find I'm a terrible spoonfeeder.

[DiapDealer]

Actually, my initial expression will only match paragraphs that DO have some sort of class, id or other attribute assigned. If there are any bare paragraph elements (<p>) to be included in the match, I'd recommend changing the:

<p([^>]+)>

part of the Find expression to:

<p([^>]*?)>

[automa]

Thank you! How do I get into Regex S&R mode?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

What am I... the regex store?

Apparently.

automa:

You should look for "RegexBuddy," which is a fabulous Regex learning program, only $40.00. There's also a fabulous Regex section here in the Pinned stuff, above. There are entire websites and forums dedicated to Regex which I'm sure you'll find incredibly useful.

Hitch

[Toxaris]

There are also various cheatsheets around that will help you.

You are by default in regex mode. You can verify it in the S&R window.

[Jellby]

When learning regex you just have to take into account that there are many dialects, and sometimes you need to adapt the recipes from one dialect to another.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Jellby

When learning regex you just have to take into account that there are many dialects, and sometimes you need to adapt the recipes from one dialect to another.

As is true of all HTML, XHTML and CSS, too! I usually compare trying to read someone else's HTML & CSS to knowing one dialect of Chinese and trying to read another...it's all much of a thing, isn't it? Like Regex...once you know how to say it in PCRE, you can say it somewhere else, it's just getting the "accents" right. ;-)

I always cringe when I get an email from someone who wants us to "fix their HTML," (or their INDD, etc.), usually for $5-$25 (ha!). I tell them, it's frankly faster and cheaper for us to do it from scratch, at least, most of the time. Trying to troubleshoot someone else's HTML, CSS, etc., takes more time than doing it over.

Hitch

[phossler]

Originally Posted by automa

Thank you! How do I get into Regex S&R mode?

In the F&R area, there's usually [Normal] displayed

From that dropdown, you can select [Case Sensitive] and/or [Regular Expression]

(Doing this from memory since no Sigil on this system)

Paul

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by phossler

(Doing this from memory since no Sigil on this system)

BLASPHEMER!!!!!