Plugin to insert and wrap an image with SVG

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

It still works for me on Arch with Qt5 Sigil 1.9.20.

It also still works for me on Arch with Qt 6.3.1 Sigil 1.9.20.
My DE is XFCE 4.16 and my distro is EndeavourOS.

[philja]

I've been investigating use of svg images and came across this plugin which I've installed in Sigil 2.0.1 in linux UbuntuStudio 22.04 LTS.

I can't get the COPY function to paste into an existing page. The user guide mentions a procedure for Sigil < 1.0.0 but for higher versions, nothing is said about the copy/paste into an existing page. Looking into this thread, I see this problem has been mentioned before and I found that others have mentioned the workaround that I found - use the plugin to insert a new page, copy and paste the svg code where I wanted it and then delete the unwanted page. But I cannot help but think that is not the way it was intended.

Looking at my OS clipboard, the plugin doesn't write anything there when I use the COPY function. I haven't been able to understand what I need to do to get it working. Help, please.

[CalibUser]

I downloaded the latest version of Sigil (version2) to test the plugin and it is not giving any problems. I clicked the Copy button after selecting an image and then I pasted the resulting code into a Sigil epub where the code appears as expected. I am using Windows 11 for the test.

I don't know why the plugin is not working for others.

[KevinH]

Here is the snippet from that plugin that does the work:

def CopyToClipboard(self, txt):
		"""
		Puts the text in txt on the clipboard
		Based on code from:
		https://www.programcreek.com/python/?CodeExample=copy+to+clipboard
		"""

		if platform.system() == 'Darwin':
			command = ["pbcopy"]
		elif platform.system() == 'Windows':
			command=["clip"]
		elif platform.system() == "Linux":
			command = ["xsel", "-b", "-i"]

Are you by chance using wayland instead of X11 on your linux box? If so, and if there is a wayland equivalent you could use instead, you might need to tweak these lines. From a google search I think wl-copy and or wl-clipboard might do what you want on wayland.

FWIW, wayland is not yet a choice I would make. Everytime I try it things break sometimes in horrible fashion. If I need to get real work done, turning off wayland on boot is the first thing I do. It is normally okay for playing around but not quite there yet.
Worse yet wayland's implementation varies by desktop chosen (kde vs ...) and so is non-standardized.

Originally Posted by philja

...
Looking at my OS clipboard, the plugin doesn't write anything there when I use the COPY function. I haven't been able to understand what I need to do to get it working. Help, please.

[philja]

Are you by chance using wayland instead of X11 on your linux box? If so, and if there is a wayland equivalent you could use instead, you might need to tweak these lines. From a google search I think wl-copy and or wl-clipboard might do what you want on wayland.

FWIW, wayland is not yet a choice I would make. Everytime I try it things break sometimes in horrible fashion. If I need to get real work done, turning off wayland on boot is the first thing I do. It is normally okay for playing around but not quite there yet.
Worse yet wayland's implementation varies by desktop chosen (kde vs ...) and so is non-standardized.

When I upgraded to UbuntuStudio 22.04 last year, I found the devs had abandoned XFCE in favour of KDE Plasma. This did cause me a load of problems initially which I found was due to Wayland not playing nicely with my Nvidia graphics card.

My solution was to remove the Nvidia card and resort to the motherboard's onboard graphics chip and this enabled me to use the X server. Since then I haven't had any real problem. I've gotten used to KDE Plasma but don't see any real advantages over XFCE, just some differences that took a little while to get used to.

I've found that bit of code you referred to. It certainly doesn't put anything on my clipboard when I use the plugins 'Copy' button and I lack the competence to work out why or to make a modification.

I do have xsel utility (but not wl-copy or wl-clipboard) and consulting the manpage shows that -b writes to clipboard and -i takes the input. But that doesn't seem to be working.

If I use the plugin's Insert facility, that works and when I do a ctrl-C on the svg code, it goes to my clipboard ok and I can paste it wherever I want it.

[KevinH]

XServer? Did you disable wayland then?

KDEPlasma will allow you to use X11 or wayland from the login screen. My guess is you are still using Wayland as your display controller not X.

[DiapDealer]

The plugin isn't working for me at all on my Archlinux box. The images selected do not get loaded into the widget. So the Copy button code believes there's no internal or external image selected. All I get is a warning that nothing has been selected (even though it has).

[philja]

I've run some checks on my W10 box - it was running Sigil 1.9.30 with a version of QT5 and the InsertImageSVG plugin worked in all the modes but Sigil wouldn't display the images. And I tried with jpgs and pngs but every time I just got a generic image icon displayed.

So I moved Sigil up to V2.0.1 and I see it comes with Qt6.5.2. But the behaviour was the same - the plugin copied to clipboard ok or inserted a new file but the images wouldn't display inside the <svg> tags in Sigil.

Back in my linux box, I see Sigil 2.0.1 only has QT 5.15.10. Is that because I have a flatpack version installed in order to keep up with the latest version of Sigil without having to build it myself?

But Sigil in the linux box does display the pngs, jpgs and gifs correctly inside the <svg> tags although nothing seems to get copied to the clipboard.

So the new question is why the images inside the <svg> tags display ok in the linux box but not in the W10 box with the same Sigil version although the Qt is more up to date in the W10 box?

[philja]

Originally Posted by KevinH

XServer? Did you disable wayland then?

KDEPlasma will allow you to use X11 or wayland from the login screen. My guess is you are still using Wayland as your display controller not X.

Honest answer is I don't know. The troubles were back in mid 2022 and caused repeated lockups. Discussion on a Ubuntu forum got me through that period with the solution I mentioned - removing the Nvidia card. I never see any boot-time option to select wayland or X11 and I boot up fresh every day.

I just checked how to differentiate: I ran xdpyinfo and got lots of stuff which I wouldn't get with wayland (so it seems) and then I ran :

echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE

which returned x11.

So it does look like I'm using x11 and not wayland.

[philja]

I ran :

echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE

which returned x11.

So it does look like I'm using x11 and not wayland.

[DiapDealer]

Back in my linux box, I see Sigil 2.0.1 only has QT 5.15.10. Is that because I have a flatpack version installed in order to keep up with the latest version of Sigil without having to build it myself?

I have no idea about Flatpak, but even Archlinux is delivering Sigil 2.0.1 with Qt5.15. The choice is theirs. We've given them the ability/instructions to build their Sigil package with Qt6, but they've chosen not to. Perhaps the Flathub maintainers have chosen to do the same. I've frankly given up trying to influence repo maintainers. They're going to do what they're going to do.

[philja]

I have no idea about Flatpak, but even Archlinux is delivering Sigil 2.0.1 with Qt5.15. The choice is theirs. We've given them the ability/instructions to build their Sigil package with Qt6, but they've chosen not to. Perhaps the Flathub maintainers have chosen to do the same. I've frankly given up trying to influence repo maintainers. They're going to do what they're going to do.

Well that seems to be good news. Either Qt5.15 or Qt6 will work ok.

[KevinH]

So it seems xsel and xclip are not even installed by default anymore for some strange reason.

Here is what I did to test, after opening a terminal:

which xsel

# nothing found

#installed xclip and xsel tools
sudo pacman -S xclip xsel

# made sure xsel worked now
echo "hello" | xsel -ib

Then opened my favourite editor and hit paste:

emacs junk.txt

And sure enough "hello" appeared.

So it appears you can get this to work but you just need to install xclip and xsel if you are running X11 and not wayland at least on a recent Linux like Arch or Manjaro

[philja]

Originally Posted by KevinH

So it seems xsel and xclip are not even installed by default anymore for some strange reason.

Here is what I did to test, after opening a terminal:

which xsel

# nothing found

#installed xclip and xsel tools
sudo pacman -S xclip xsel

# made sure xsel worked now
echo "hello" | xsel -ib

Then opened my favourite editor and hit paste:

emacs junk.txt

And sure enough "hello" appeared.

So it appears you can get this to work but you just need to install xclip and xsel if you are running X11 and not wayland at least on a recent Linux like Arch or Manjaro

I had already checked xsel and it was installed. But xclip wasn't. I've installed it and tried your little 'hello' test and sure enough it goes to the clipboard for pasting.

But that hasn't made any difference to the InsertImageSVG plugin in my linux. Its 'Copy' function does nothing. 'Insert' works fine and I can copy with Ctrl-C from the page inserted by the plugin and then paste it anywhere in any page I wish - and see it ok in the clipboard.

[KevinH]

I think "xclip" is the X clipboard and xsel copy selections to it (or in this case pipes things to it).

You got me then. Not sure what is going on. I will fire up my Manjaro box and see if I can recreate what you are seeing with this plugin.