Register Guidelines E-Books Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Go Back   MobileRead Forums > E-Book Software > Sigil

Notices

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 12-06-2017, 10:04 AM   #1
blackest
Connoisseur
blackest began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 67
Karma: 10
Join Date: Sep 2014
Device: sony prs 2
opening and saving unzipped epub files in Sigil

In my other thread span span span

I talked about using brackets a cross platform text editor for web design for working with epub files it's really nice feature is that it opens a page in chrome where you can see exactly where something needs changing also the webdeveloper options in chrome are also pretty handy too. You can select an element in the epub see the rules affecting it alter the values and if you like it go to the css file line number and change it in the actual css file.

There is only one thing that makes life awkward epub or zip itself.

To work on the epub files outside of sigil you need to unzip the epub and to get it back into sigil you need to zip it up again.

The ability to import and export folders in Sigil would be very handy.
Admittedly it would allow for the ability to mess things up too. It would be pretty useful and avoid the tedium of zipping and unzipping.

For someone who knows how to write plugins it surely would be pretty easy to add this to Sigil?
blackest is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-06-2017, 10:09 AM   #2
KevinH
Sigil Developer
KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 7,506
Karma: 5433350
Join Date: Nov 2009
Device: many
Ask or commission someone to make a output and input plugin that does exactly what you want.

As for Chrome's element inspection, that is built right inside of both Sigil and Calibre. In Sigil, enable the Preview window and then use the slide to grow the Inspector widget. You can inspect any element, see the css rules applied, any javascript output, how that exact html is interpreted, any errors, etc. It is the same inspector used in all Webkit projects but is much more safe than the open port approach with environment variables that chrome uses. Preview will also show you exactly where any parsing error lies.
KevinH is offline   Reply With Quote
Advert
Old 12-06-2017, 10:13 AM   #3
KevinH
Sigil Developer
KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 7,506
Karma: 5433350
Join Date: Nov 2009
Device: many
By the way BookView is just an editable html document and clicking on an element and switching to CodeView will take you right to that spot in the code.
KevinH is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-06-2017, 11:33 AM   #4
blackest
Connoisseur
blackest began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 67
Karma: 10
Join Date: Sep 2014
Device: sony prs 2
Quote:
Originally Posted by KevinH View Post
By the way BookView is just an editable html document and clicking on an element and switching to CodeView will take you right to that spot in the code.
I love sigil but the interface can be a little cramped it's quite tricky to work with on large document viewports. The chrome browser canvas can be resized put on another desktop. It can be hard to get the preview window to fit the document and be able to use the rest of the interface.

If you try brackets in combination with chrome you can see how easy it is to just work on xhtml and css maybe even javascript (although thats more likely to fail on most ebook readers).


Maybe even target browsers as ereaders! They read and interpret most of the code in a consistent manner. I'm sick to death of all the buggy ereader applications. The 2 nicest ones seems to be ibooks and google playbooks on android. Although playbooks in chrome browser is a bit of a nightmare too, ugly as sin. /rant off
blackest is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-06-2017, 01:49 PM   #5
DiapDealer
Grand Sorcerer
DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
DiapDealer's Avatar
 
Posts: 27,465
Karma: 192992430
Join Date: Jan 2010
Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD
Sigil's Preview widget can be undocked, made as big as you like, and put on different monitor as well.
DiapDealer is offline   Reply With Quote
Advert
Old 12-06-2017, 05:22 PM   #6
blackest
Connoisseur
blackest began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 67
Karma: 10
Join Date: Sep 2014
Device: sony prs 2
Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer View Post
Sigil's Preview widget can be undocked, made as big as you like, and put on different monitor as well.
What preview can't do is go behind the main application window, what it also cant do is be moved to a virtual desktop away from the main application.

At least not on a Mac, it is a problem to have to be continually resizing it to be able to use it and then switch back to the code.

Maybe a tabbed interface would be easier to work with.

But I wasn't asking about that anyway just the option to work from an unzipped folder. rather than having to zip for sigil and unzip for other applications.

There would also be possibilities for versioning manuscripts.

Still Sigil is still better than the alternatives

Thanks for reading.
blackest is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-06-2017, 05:51 PM   #7
KevinH
Sigil Developer
KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.KevinH ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 7,506
Karma: 5433350
Join Date: Nov 2009
Device: many
BTW: The tabbed interface can be achieved with CodeView and BookView (used to preview) with the click of a simple icon or key sequence.

And I have no problems miving the detached Preview to another monitor at all on a Mac. I do not use virtual desktops so I will give that a try as well. You would only need to resize Preview if you are using fixed layout, otherwize Preview will properly reflow and can be zoomed separately.
KevinH is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-06-2017, 06:49 PM   #8
slowsmile
Witchman
slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 628
Karma: 788808
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Philippines
Device: Android S5
Quote:
I talked about using brackets a cross platform text editor for web design for working with epub files it's really nice feature is that it opens a page in chrome where you can see exactly where something needs changing also the web developer options in chrome are also pretty handy too. You can select an element in the epub see the rules affecting it alter the values and if you like it go to the css file line number and change it in the actual css file.
@blackest...Well, if all you want is an easier way to use the Brackets app in Sigil, you could perhaps right click on any xhtml file in Sigil and just choose Open With. Set the Brackets path as your preferred outside app and the selected file will be automatically opened in Brackets from within Sigil. Sigil will also remember your preferred outside app. I sometimes do this for DreamWeaver and you can also save any changes made with your outsde app directly back to the selected file in Sigil. Doing it this way will also make it easier for you because it means that you don't have to frig about converting stuff to and from zip format because it's all done inside Sigil. You could also perhaps use the Chrome app in exactly the same way from within Sigil by using Open With.

To be honest with you, if all you want is an editable HTML view, then why don't you just use Sigil's inbuilt HTML editor? In Sigil you can button toggle between HTML View(editor) and Book View(editor) with just one click -- so there's no need to always use Chrome to test, just check the html file in Book View. You can also set the Preview pane -- this also gives an Elements and Resources view similar to Chrome. You can also automatically mend and prettify the code with just one click which gives a better-spaced html view which makes it much easier to work on the html code. What I'm saying is: Why are you zipping and unzipping files, using Brackets and using Chrome and doing all sorts of complicated time-wasting stuff when you can do it all -- with a much easier and faster workflow -- in Sigil ?

Last edited by slowsmile; 12-06-2017 at 08:33 PM.
slowsmile is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-06-2017, 07:13 PM   #9
BetterRed
null operator (he/him)
BetterRed ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BetterRed ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BetterRed ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BetterRed ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BetterRed ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BetterRed ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BetterRed ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BetterRed ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BetterRed ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BetterRed ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.BetterRed ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 20,459
Karma: 26645808
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Sydney Australia
Device: none
↑ ↑ ++

That was my thought too, but seeing as KH and DD didn't mention it, I assumed I'd misunderstood.

But for what its worth, Book Browser->Open with... Brackets works on Windows. I occasionally break out into Notepad++, or if I'm bored Bowpad

BR

Last edited by BetterRed; 12-06-2017 at 07:35 PM.
BetterRed is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 12-07-2017, 12:10 AM   #10
blackest
Connoisseur
blackest began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 67
Karma: 10
Join Date: Sep 2014
Device: sony prs 2
Quote:
Originally Posted by slowsmile View Post
@blackest...Well, if all you want is an easier way to use the Brackets app in Sigil, you could perhaps right click on any xhtml file in Sigil and just choose Open With. Set the Brackets path as your preferred outside app and the selected file will be automatically opened in Brackets from within Sigil. Sigil will also remember your preferred outside app. I sometimes do this for DreamWeaver and you can also save any changes made with your outsde app directly back to the selected file in Sigil. Doing it this way will also make it easier for you because it means that you don't have to frig about converting stuff to and from zip format because it's all done inside Sigil. You could also perhaps use the Chrome app in exactly the same way from within Sigil by using Open With.

To be honest with you, if all you want is an editable HTML view, then why don't you just use Sigil's inbuilt HTML editor? In Sigil you can button toggle between HTML View(editor) and Book View(editor) with just one click -- so there's no need to always use Chrome to test, just check the html file in Book View. You can also set the Preview pane -- this also gives an Elements and Resources view similar to Chrome. You can also automatically mend and prettify the code with just one click which gives a better-spaced html view which makes it much easier to work on the html code. What I'm saying is: Why are you zipping and unzipping files, using Brackets and using Chrome and doing all sorts of complicated time-wasting stuff when you can do it all -- with a much easier and faster workflow -- in Sigil ?
Chrome gives you more than a html view, you can have an iphone 6 view a touchscreen laptop view an ipad view and more ...

There are other things which can be used too such as git for versioning
I think one thing i do like is bigger windows i'm working on a 13" Laptop so it helps i can move between brackets and Chrome its kinda handy to be able to highlight an object in chrome and bring up the quick edit for the class in use

I've attached a screen shot with brackets open and chrome displaying the xhtml file. Because its brackets as the server and chrome the client i can use chrome at the window size i want and have the code near full screen. It can be full screen.
Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	Screen Shot 2017-12-07 at 04.22.27.png
Views:	352
Size:	659.5 KB
ID:	160457  
blackest is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-07-2017, 08:52 PM   #11
blackest
Connoisseur
blackest began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 67
Karma: 10
Join Date: Sep 2014
Device: sony prs 2
turns out osx has a handy option cmd drag ecancrusher from applications to the finder sidebar. you need the cmd to allow apps there. drag across an epub its unpacked drag the folder its packed. Might try Sigil and brackets in the sidebar too

Brackets is perfect in the sidebar once epub has been cracked open with the ecancrusher dragging the folder into the side bar onto the brackets app makes the folder open as the project folder. which is ideal

Last edited by blackest; 12-07-2017 at 09:00 PM.
blackest is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-09-2017, 04:41 PM   #12
odamizu
just an egg
odamizu ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.odamizu ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.odamizu ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.odamizu ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.odamizu ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.odamizu ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.odamizu ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.odamizu ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.odamizu ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.odamizu ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.odamizu ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
odamizu's Avatar
 
Posts: 1,583
Karma: 4300000
Join Date: Mar 2015
Device: Kindle, iOS
Quote:
Originally Posted by blackest View Post
turns out osx has a handy option cmd drag ecancrusher from applications to the finder sidebar. you need the cmd to allow apps there. drag across an epub its unpacked drag the folder its packed.
Have you tried ePub Zip/Unzip by MobileRead's The Grand Mouse pdurrant? It is most excellent. I've had it in my Finder Sidebar for years. (It's MacOS only.)

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=55681
odamizu is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-13-2017, 12:53 PM   #13
Hitch
Bookmaker & Cat Slave
Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hitch ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Hitch's Avatar
 
Posts: 11,447
Karma: 157030631
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Device: K2, iPad, KFire, PPW, Voyage, NookColor. 2 Droid, Oasis, Boox Note2
Quote:
Originally Posted by blackest View Post
Chrome gives you more than a html view, you can have an iphone 6 view a touchscreen laptop view an ipad view and more ...

There are other things which can be used too such as git for versioning
I think one thing i do like is bigger windows i'm working on a 13" Laptop so it helps i can move between brackets and Chrome its kinda handy to be able to highlight an object in chrome and bring up the quick edit for the class in use

I've attached a screen shot with brackets open and chrome displaying the xhtml file. Because its brackets as the server and chrome the client i can use chrome at the window size i want and have the code near full screen. It can be full screen.
Yabbut, all you're doing is using something like Developer Tools, to set approximate sizes, and seeing how a BROWSER would render it--which doesn't always, and often does not, track to how the content is actually displayed in a real eReader. You mentioned iBooks and Google's app as being the "nicest," which tells me that you expect/want ebooks to render like webpages--and they don't.

I mean, it doesn't matter to me if you can't live without Brackets, etc., but making eBooks so that they work on a browser means pretty much nothing, in the development and production of eBooks. I would never--never--use a browser as a development tool, not at this time.

Spoiler:
(I just endured a conference call with a client, who develops webpages, and was absolutely CONVINCED that of course, we could nest tables to create a faux Bootstrap mechanism so that if a table was made untenable by a user making their font too large, that the table would effectively degrade to vertically-stacked cells. [Which, he adivsed, is what HE would do, to achieve tables that worked in every eBook environment regardless of font sizing.] Oh, and that we could manipulate uls and ols all we wanted, starting with a given number, changing margins, yadda-yadda, most of which is NOT doable.)


I can understand the attraction of the quasi-Firebug functionality, certainly. I'm sure everyone can see that. But I'm simply saying, assuming that you're doing this for some commercial purpose--your own, or for clients, etc.,--browser views are, in my opinion, wildly misleading.

Offered solely FWIW.

Hitch
Hitch is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-14-2017, 06:23 PM   #14
slowsmile
Witchman
slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.slowsmile ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 628
Karma: 788808
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Philippines
Device: Android S5
@blackest...The point that Hitch and many other people are making is that you are using the wrong app to create and test your epub files. Reasons? You are using an app editor(Brackets) that formats Web pages in HTML v5. A standard epub uses HTML v4.01. An epub also follows very specific formatting rules that are defined by the IDPF(epub standards committee).

As an example of errors introduced by using the Brackets app, I note that in the thumbnail of your Brackets app that you posted earlier(post #10) you have this namespace declared at the top of your html file in Brackets:

Code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html>
Your xhtml namespace declaration in all files should look like this for a standard epub:

Code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
Because of the above incorrect namespace declaration in your files(caused by the Brackets app), your epub wont fly when you run Epubcheck. And if it doesn't pass Epubcheck then your file will never upload to any ebook vendor due to these errors.

Have you tried checking your epub with the online Epubcheck(IDPF validator) ?

I also suspect that if you do run Epubcheck on your epub then you will likely get many more errors as a result of using the Brackets app. And many of these errors will have been specifically caused because you are using the wrong app to format your epub. You should really be using Sigil which is an app that was specifically designed for editing/formatting epubs. And if you continue using the wrong tools(Brackets/Chrome) then it only remains for me to wish you good luck and a warm welcome to formatting hell.

Last edited by slowsmile; 12-14-2017 at 08:32 PM.
slowsmile is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-14-2017, 07:25 PM   #15
DiapDealer
Grand Sorcerer
DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.DiapDealer ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
DiapDealer's Avatar
 
Posts: 27,465
Karma: 192992430
Join Date: Jan 2010
Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD
In all fairness, Sigil supports epub3, and all those points you raise are perfectly valid for epub3. The IDPF validator is also capable of validating epub3s. The doctypes/namespaces you mention are only invalid in an epub2. They're exactly correct for epub3 and will pass EPubCheck with flying colors when part of an epub3.
DiapDealer is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
unzipping, zipping

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Sigil not saving media as part of EPUB JackTrade Sigil 26 07-03-2017 12:39 PM
Automatic date of modification after saving EPUB file in Sigil Chang Sigil 1 11-20-2015 05:00 AM
SIGIL Crashes When Opening Files on MacBook Pro WilliamGarner Sigil 2 10-09-2013 09:07 AM
Opening ePub in Sigil breaks TOC and loses italics PatNY Sigil 15 08-25-2010 07:05 PM
Unzipped files reading as zipped jerrywojo Calibre 1 07-03-2010 02:04 PM


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 03:39 AM.


MobileRead.com is a privately owned, operated and funded community.