Four Sigil questions

Gregg Bell · 11-23-2022, 09:17 PM

Hello Sigil friends. Nice to be here again. Those of you who celebrate it: Happy Thanksgiving!

I downloaded Doitsu's latest EpubCheck 0.4.6.2 and uploaded it to my Sigil plugins. But when I run the EpubCheck, it starts by saying: 'Running epub check 4.2.5'

Question #1. Is this normal?

I ran a FlightCrew validation test on an .epub and got the same error on all the HTML files:
https://imgur.com/a/reC8EFU (The image is also attached.) (BTW the same .epub passed Doitsu's EpubCheck.)

Question #2. What do I need to do about this error?

A while back I changed all my language things (sorry, don't know what to call them) in all my ebooks from:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

to:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-US">

Question #3. Was this a good change?

Lastly, I noticed that in the above bracketed things "en-us" and "en-US" are different.

Question #4. Does it affect the epub functionality to leave it as it is or should I change the "en-us" to "en-US" ?

Thank you!

KevinH · 11-23-2022, 09:54 PM

Q1 Answer I will leave to Doitsu or others.

Q2 Answer: According to epub2 official spec and schemas (very old now) "lang" is not an allowed attribute on the html tag but xml:lang is allowed and is recognized and takes precedence. I think it is safe to ignore those errors as that rule has been relaxed over the years but FC has not changed with that interpretation of the rules.

Q3 Answer: yes marking the language is a good thing in general. And especially true if multiple languages are used in the book.

Q4 Answer: To be safest, both xml:lang and lang should have the same value and the language region should be properly capitalized.

So for epub2 either remove the lang attribute leaving just the xml:lang attribute or keep them (ignoring the errors from FC) and make them all say "en-US" so they match just to be safe.

Doitsu · 11-24-2022, 12:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

I downloaded Doitsu's latest EpubCheck 0.4.6.2 and uploaded it to my Sigil plugins. But when I run the EpubCheck, it starts by saying: 'Running epub check 4.2.5'

Question #1. Is this normal?

Yes. 4.2.5 is the EPUBCheck version. 0.4.6.2 is the plugin version. (The plugin runs EPUBCheck in the background.)

Gregg Bell · 11-25-2022, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinH

Q1 Answer I will leave to Doitsu or others.

Q2 Answer: According to epub2 official spec and schemas (very old now) "lang" is not an allowed attribute on the html tag but xml:lang is allowed and is recognized and takes precedence. I think it is safe to ignore those errors as that rule has been relaxed over the years but FC has not changed with that interpretation of the rules.

Q3 Answer: yes marking the language is a good thing in general. And especially true if multiple languages are used in the book.

Q4 Answer: To be safest, both xml:lang and lang should have the same value and the language region should be properly capitalized.

So for epub2 either remove the lang attribute leaving just the xml:lang attribute or keep them (ignoring the errors from FC) and make them all say "en-US" so they match just to be safe.

Fab, Kevin. Thank you very much.

Two more follow-up questions please.

1) Which is optimal, removing the lang attribute or making them all say "en-US"?
2) If I remove the lang attribute, is the below exactly how it should be?

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en-US">

Thanks.

Gregg Bell · 11-25-2022, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doitsu

Yes. 4.2.5 is the EPUBCheck version. 0.4.6.2 is the plugin version. (The plugin runs EPUBCheck in the background.)

Thanks, Doitsu.

Tex2002ans · 11-25-2022, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

1) Which is optimal, removing the lang attribute or making them all say "en-US"?

Make everything just say en-US:

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-US" xml:lang="en-US">

The problem in Post #1 was you accidentally had 1 "en-us" + 1 "en-US".

- - -

Side Note: What this is saying is:

This HTML is "US/American English"!

According to the specs, best practices are capitalizing the country.

While most programs would work perfectly fine with the lowercase version, always better to err on the side of the "more correcter way".

Gregg Bell · 11-25-2022, 03:08 PM

Thanks, Tex, but I tested the .epub with

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en-US">

instead of

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-US" xml:lang="en-US">

And when I ran Flight Crew, there were no errors, so it would seem to me that is optimal. Is there a reason you think

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-US">

is preferable to

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en-US">

?

Tex2002ans · 11-25-2022, 03:40 PM

Epubcheck is the only one that matters, because it's:

The only checker actual stores (B&N, Amazon, Kobo, etc.) use.
It's following the actual EPUB specs.
It's consistently updated/maintained.

FlightCrew was just from the early days of Sigil to help:

validate + catch some basic errors in one-button press.
jump to the exact line # by double-clicking on the error.

Now that you have Doitsu's fantastic plugin, that lets you easily run epubcheck just like you used to run FlightCrew.

- - -

So:

If epubcheck complains, definitely take a look + fix the problem.
If FlightCrew complains, take a closer look. It may or may not be an actual issue.

Very simple (and correct) books, both of them will show 0 errors.

If you are using much newer (or more complicated code), FlightCrew might complain, because that type of stuff may not have existed (or been expected) way back then.

- - -

Side Note: On marking up your book's language with HTML lang + xml:lang... you can follow all the same advice given previously in:

The only thing I'd do differently now compared to back then is... capitalizing that "en-us" -> "en-US".

KevinH · 11-25-2022, 05:07 PM

I agree. Use both properly and ignore Flightcrew on this issue. In the future, for both epub2 and epub3 validation I strongly recommend using Doitsu's epubcheck plugin in Sigil for validation.

Gregg Bell · 11-25-2022, 06:05 PM

Many thanks, Tex and Kevin. I appreciate it.

11-25-2022, 03:08 PM	#7
Gregg Bell Gregg Bell Posts: 2,264 Karma: 3917588 Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Itasca, Illinois Device: Kindle Touch 7, Sony PRS300, Fire HD8 Tablet	Thanks, Tex, but I tested the .epub with Code: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en-US"> instead of Code: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-US" xml:lang="en-US"> And when I ran Flight Crew, there were no errors, so it would seem to me that is optimal. Is there a reason you think Code: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-US"> is preferable to Code: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en-US"> ?

11-25-2022, 03:40 PM	#8
Tex2002ans Wizard Posts: 2,297 Karma: 12126329 Join Date: Jul 2012 Device: Kobo Forma, Nook	Epubcheck is the only one that matters, because it's: The only checker actual stores (B&N, Amazon, Kobo, etc.) use. It's following the actual EPUB specs. It's consistently updated/maintained. FlightCrew was just from the early days of Sigil to help: validate + catch some basic errors in one-button press. jump to the exact line # by double-clicking on the error. Now that you have Doitsu's fantastic plugin, that lets you easily run epubcheck just like you used to run FlightCrew. - - - So: If epubcheck complains, definitely take a look + fix the problem. If FlightCrew complains, take a closer look. It may or may not be an actual issue. Very simple (and correct) books, both of them will show 0 errors. If you are using much newer (or more complicated code), FlightCrew might complain, because that type of stuff may not have existed (or been expected) way back then. - - - Side Note: On marking up your book's language with HTML lang + xml:lang... you can follow all the same advice given previously in: 2019: "Trying to simplify my work flow (confused about the heading/language again)" 2018: "Two Questions" The only thing I'd do differently now compared to back then is... capitalizing that "en-us" -> "en-US". Last edited by Tex2002ans; 11-25-2022 at 03:43 PM.

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11-23-2022, 09:17 PM	#1
Gregg Bell Gregg Bell Posts: 2,264 Karma: 3917588 Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Itasca, Illinois Device: Kindle Touch 7, Sony PRS300, Fire HD8 Tablet	Four Sigil questions Hello Sigil friends. Nice to be here again. Those of you who celebrate it: Happy Thanksgiving! I downloaded Doitsu's latest EpubCheck 0.4.6.2 and uploaded it to my Sigil plugins. But when I run the EpubCheck, it starts by saying: 'Running epub check 4.2.5' Question #1. Is this normal? I ran a FlightCrew validation test on an .epub and got the same error on all the HTML files: https://imgur.com/a/reC8EFU (The image is also attached.) (BTW the same .epub passed Doitsu's EpubCheck.) Question #2. What do I need to do about this error? A while back I changed all my language things (sorry, don't know what to call them) in all my ebooks from: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> to: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-US"> Question #3. Was this a good change? Lastly, I noticed that in the above bracketed things "en-us" and "en-US" are different. Question #4. Does it affect the epub functionality to leave it as it is or should I change the "en-us" to "en-US" ? Thank you! Attached Thumbnails

11-23-2022, 09:54 PM	#2
KevinH Sigil Developer Posts: 7,631 Karma: 5433388 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: many	Q1 Answer I will leave to Doitsu or others. Q2 Answer: According to epub2 official spec and schemas (very old now) "lang" is not an allowed attribute on the html tag but xml:lang is allowed and is recognized and takes precedence. I think it is safe to ignore those errors as that rule has been relaxed over the years but FC has not changed with that interpretation of the rules. Q3 Answer: yes marking the language is a good thing in general. And especially true if multiple languages are used in the book. Q4 Answer: To be safest, both xml:lang and lang should have the same value and the language region should be properly capitalized. So for epub2 either remove the lang attribute leaving just the xml:lang attribute or keep them (ignoring the errors from FC) and make them all say "en-US" so they match just to be safe. Last edited by KevinH; 11-24-2022 at 10:35 AM.

11-25-2022, 05:07 PM	#9
KevinH Sigil Developer Posts: 7,631 Karma: 5433388 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: many	I agree. Use both properly and ignore Flightcrew on this issue. In the future, for both epub2 and epub3 validation I strongly recommend using Doitsu's epubcheck plugin in Sigil for validation.

11-25-2022, 06:05 PM	#10
Gregg Bell Gregg Bell Posts: 2,264 Karma: 3917588 Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Itasca, Illinois Device: Kindle Touch 7, Sony PRS300, Fire HD8 Tablet	Many thanks, Tex and Kevin. I appreciate it.

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