How do I transfer a .xhtml from one Sigil project to another?

[ecbritz]

I'm trying to see how far I can develop an eBook called Sigil Instructions for eBook creators who start out without a clue without reaching the point where I must teach HTML code and CSS -- which at this point I still have to learn myself. The book works up towards an inevitable moment of revelation, repentance and conversion to HTML and CSS, where I become a born again Book Concocter. You will feel this soul-wrenching catharsis brewing in the sneak preview of the first few unfinished chapters I offer temporarily at https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/sh...Q8UujJ0pY00wTY
Its a very boring book, bound to irk the experts of this forum. It probably does not work on Google Glass. It works, more or less, on my old Sony Reader. One must experiment and try out Sigil on something.

[DiapDealer]

This thread is starting to feel like one big; "Neener-neener-neener! Watch me poke all the silly people who care about ebooks created with easily sustainable, modifiable, and transferable code that future generations can build off of and improve/update, rather than having to toss the whole muddled mess in the trash and start all over from scratch again."

[exaltedwombat]

I'm not sure if ecbritz is mocking people who WON'T learn the tools and want conversion to be fully automatic, or those who think we SHOULD learn them? :-)

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

I'm not sure if ecbritz is mocking people who WON'T learn the tools and want conversion to be fully automatic, or those who think we SHOULD learn them? :-)

DUCKY!!!

Methinks this now has ventured so far away from the realm of Sigil that it needs a more...deserving...platform. Like the Workshop or the ePUB forum. Or the "PagePlus X6 is wondrous" forum, wherever that may be.

FWIW, ecbritz, Apple's Pages program also produces exported ePUBs. As does InDesign. As do a number of other programs. And, hey! So does AbbyyFineReader, which outputs cruft by the handful. And you can export a PDF to HTML with Adobe Acrobat Pro X or XI, also: utter garbage.

No. Free. Lunch.

In print, what mattered was, what the output LOOKED like. In digital format, what matters is, how clean the code is, so that various devices can RENDER it correctly, because the output does not look the same on every device, nor at every font size, nor every screen. You don't "own" what it looks like NOW. This ain't print, and it ain't PDF.

Hitch

[ecbritz]

I agree this has gone too far. If you look at the book you will see that it's actually quite thorough and accurate as far as it went, and shows that I am seriously interested and keen to learn eBook editing well. I never doubted for a minute that I must learn HTML coding and CSS. My original question about how to transfer files from one Sigil project to another was answered almost immediately. But the use of such files, if they originate in an ePub produced by writer2epub -- or similar program or add-on -- touched on a problem which elicited a barrage of reactions. I started laughing at myself and at the whole uproar. Most people are still afraid of having to learn some kind of computer programming. I know people who still regularly get hysterical when they use MS Word. It's all gone too far. But I HAVE learned a lot from this thread. If you read the experimental book, you will see it's full of stuff I learned right here, thanks to all. Shall we call this the end of this story?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ecbritz

I agree this has gone too far. If you look at the book you will see that it's actually quite thorough and accurate as far as it went, and shows that I am seriously interested and keen to learn eBook editing well. I never doubted for a minute that I must learn HTML coding and CSS. My original question about how to transfer files from one Sigil project to another was answered almost immediately. But the use of such files, if they originate in an ePub produced by writer2epub -- or similar program or add-on -- touched on a problem which elicited a barrage of reactions. I started laughing at myself and at the whole uproar. Most people are still afraid of having to learn some kind of computer programming. I know people who still regularly get hysterical when they use MS Word. It's all gone too far. But I HAVE learned a lot from this thread. If you read the experimental book, you will see it's full of stuff I learned right here, thanks to all. Shall we call this the end of this story?

ecbritz:

It's a riot the first 20 or 30 or even 50 times you answer the question. Somewhere in the vicinity of the hundredth, it starts to pall. Unfortunately for you, most of the "regulars" (or, seriously, "irregulars") here have answered this question a LOT. And we've taken a lot of crap from people who say, "well, it says WYSIWYG on the Sigil site, so...(insert reason person should not have to learn html or css here)" (One of my personal grouses. I think we should nuke the WYSIWYG wording or phrasing altogether, but...hey.)

We also get a pretty good spate of requests from people saying, "Well, I told my client that they could have such-and-such," and then the questioner asks the most fundamental question (e.g., how to make a paragraph with white space above it)--and we are faced with helping someone who shouldn't be charging to make books, because s/he has no idea what s/he is doing. Some of us get cranky about that idea. (Wolfie even more than I.)

So, thus the responses you've received to date. Like families, we have shared history into which you've stepped. Good bad or indifferent. But still, really, the questions asked here really do belong on one of the other boards, for the sake of future questioners and searchers.

Hitch

[ecbritz]

I think the newbie-problem is common to ALL software user forums. There is ALWAYS a number of experts or veterans exchanging knowledge and opinions on a high level of expertise. And there are ALWAYS some newbies who enter the room with their clueless questions and opinions.

In my experience, a forum supporting a worthwhile program usually has one or two veterans who go back to the beginning of the forum and who gave their lives, or their retired lives -- certainly their patience and time -- to hapless newbies and fellow-experts alike, showing undaunted charity and dignity. I have endless admiration for these unsung heroes of the internet.

The answer to the problem is that when a question is asked, a short, factual, practical and polite answer should be given, and this answer should not be repeated by others.

But it is of course not human nature to do so. There will be grandstanding, taking sides, emotional language, even insults, sympathy for the poor newbie sod, or irritation with his delusions, spun-out yarns, and so forth. Software forums provide a platform for the antics of human nature, and there you have it.

I was carried along by the flood in this thread, now approaching 700 or 800 views. Apparently it made interesting reading, and I certainly learned a lot from it.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ecbritz

I think the newbie-problem is common to ALL software user forums. There is ALWAYS a number of experts or veterans exchanging knowledge and opinions on a high level of expertise. And there are ALWAYS some newbies who enter the room with their clueless questions and opinions.

In my experience, a forum supporting a worthwhile program usually has one or two veterans who go back to the beginning of the forum and who gave their lives, or their retired lives -- certainly their patience and time -- to hapless newbies and fellow-experts alike, showing undaunted charity and dignity. I have endless admiration for these unsung heroes of the internet.

The answer to the problem is that when a question is asked, a short, factual, practical and polite answer should be given, and this answer should not be repeated by others.

Well, if you want information for free, then you have to suffer through all the agonies of putting up with people wanting to add their $.02. Oh, the humanity of it all.

But it is of course not human nature to do so. There will be grandstanding, taking sides, emotional language, even insults, sympathy for the poor newbie sod, or irritation with his delusions, spun-out yarns, and so forth. Software forums provide a platform for the antics of human nature, and there you have it.

I was carried along by the flood in this thread, now approaching 700 or 800 views. Apparently it made interesting reading, and I certainly learned a lot from it.

{shrug}. You, however, got what you came for, right? (and, FYI, 7-800 views is not a lot for this particular forum. Those aren't uniques, AFAIK.) Instead of wasting 40 or 60 or 100 hours of your own precious life learning how to do something yourself, you suffered through 2 hours of forum-reading, and walked away with the knowledge given to you by others. It's simplicity itself to exploit the desire of people to demonstrate that they know how to do something and use it to your own advantage. That is "human nature" as well.

Hitch

[ecbritz]

Yes, I agree to all you have said, and I am indeed grateful that this forum exists and thankful for every bit of advice I got. The book-experiment I worked on shows how seriously I took all information given here into account. It's not a bad idea to write up what you've learned and simultaneously experiment with what you've learned, keeping your tongue in your cheek so as to maintain good cheer, don't you think?

Something that would make a good forum topic, to my mind, is how a newbie should plan his learning project. I started going through the Sigil tutorials, a good starting point. But I side-tracked myself too soon. This thread testifies to the premature turn I took, although I also learned a lot.

Let's start a thread dedicated to the sequence of steps a newbie should follow! How he should start the learning process, when best to tackle HTML and CSS, etc. I think this would really be helpful to the clueless, also helpful to the teaching members here. Hope you agree!

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ecbritz

Yes, I agree to all you have said, and I am indeed grateful that this forum exists and thankful for every bit of advice I got. The book-experiment I worked on shows how seriously I took all information given here into account. It's not a bad idea to write up what you've learned and simultaneously experiment with what you've learned, keeping your tongue in your cheek so as to maintain good cheer, don't you think?

Something that would make a good forum topic, to my mind, is how a newbie should plan his learning project. I started going through the Sigil tutorials, a good starting point. But I side-tracked myself too soon. This thread testifies to the premature turn I took, although I also learned a lot.

Let's start a thread dedicated to the sequence of steps a newbie should follow! How he should start the learning process, when best to tackle HTML and CSS, etc. I think this would really be helpful to the clueless, also helpful to the teaching members here. Hope you agree!

Ecbritz:

You may wish to review some of the various "sticky" posts on the sub-forums, and visit the Workshop and ePUB forums. They are really good places to start. I'm not opposed to your idea, but I think that the Sigil forum is the wrong place to start it. There's also an excellent ePUB floating around somewhere here, which is a beginner's guide to ePUB-making already (I feel dreadful, I forget who wrote it, but it's not bad at all). And there's (I think it's Harry's) guide to beginning mobi-making which is a sticky over at the Mobi forum.

The "tricky" part as I see it is that a lot has to be learned before someone starts their first ePUB which doesn't directly have to do with ebook-making itself, but, rather, simply learning fundamental concepts of HTML and CSS.

And I think that's where everyone's trolley kind of leaves the tracks (teaching the fundamentals of HTML/CSS). OH--and don't miss the Wiki, either; excellent articles there on bookmaking, as well.

Hitch

[PeterT]

Hitch; I *think* you mean Trying to write a simple ePub tutorial

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Hitch; I *think* you mean Trying to write a simple ePub tutorial

@PeterT:

I *think* that's right. ;-)

Hitch