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Old 09-17-2013, 10:30 AM   #16
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Originally Posted by mrmikel View Post
... Being written in C, from what I can tell, makes it more work than calibre, which is written in python. This may have limited the number of helpers.
...
Actually it's C++, an OO language, same as python. Anybody who is good in python should, after some(!) time, cope with C++.
The real problem is that Sigil, being as complex as it is now, needs professional programmer or exceptionally talented amateur with exceptionally deep knowledge in html/css/windows/mac/linux/media/codecs etc. And a lot of free time.
Small chance.
On the bright side:
...hmm... for me, at the moment, Sigil is good enough... (I thought I'll have more to say).
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Old 09-17-2013, 11:51 AM   #17
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I like how Sigil enables me to format how a book file looks without me having to learn or remember complex HTML coding which I'd have to do repeatedly throughout a text. I'm currently going back over some of the books that I have uploaded here at MR with the latest versions of Sigil to make them look better in their formatting. I like how you can not only generate a TOC but can now edit it and even create a HTML document in the file that keeps good formatting.
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Old 09-17-2013, 12:35 PM   #18
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An example of Sigil use: I recently had to do some internal structural changes on all our titles - around 300 - due to some changes of the distribution system we use. It took me at weekend - give or take - using a combination of Sigil and AutoHotkey. Without Sigil this might have taken weeks, and I probably would have had acquired a tennis elbow from the processing.

BTW, I have tried to download the Sigil code to take a look, but I get stuck when using cmake with an error "Qt5-dir not found" and
"CMake Error at src/Sigil/CMakeLists.txt:454 (qt5_wrap_ui):
Unknown CMake command "qt5_wrap_ui"."

QT 5.1.1. is installed in C:\Qt\Qt5.1.1 (default). I'm not a C++ programmer by nature, and certainly not cross-platform, so I can't get any further. (Made some small programs and databases in Object Pascal/Delphi in the 90's and early 00's, but since then it's been Office VBA and Lotus Notes - but I might be able to make some small contributions - learning is a life-long proces, ain't it )

Regards

Kim

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Old 09-17-2013, 12:45 PM   #19
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Sigil is a fantastic program. It works great for me as is. So long as bugs can be addressed in a more or less timely fashion I am happy with it the way it is- new development would be great, but the program is great the way it is already.
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Old 09-17-2013, 01:19 PM   #20
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[QUOTE=cortman;2627088].. So long as bugs can be addressed in a more or less timely fashion ../QUOTE]

the thread is telling you that the current number of volunteer bug fixers = zero, & that there is no money in the donations kitty for paid help.
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Old 09-17-2013, 02:49 PM   #21
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[QUOTE=cybmole;2627137]
Quote:
Originally Posted by cortman View Post
.. So long as bugs can be addressed in a more or less timely fashion ../QUOTE]

the thread is telling you that the current number of volunteer bug fixers = zero, & that there is no money in the donations kitty for paid help.
Pardon. I thought it was saying that new development was stalled- he said in the statement that he planned to stay on as project manager, which I interpreted as meaning bug fixes.
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Old 09-17-2013, 02:59 PM   #22
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Large difference in Project Manager (ie one who is just attempting to co-ordinate activites / ensure standards / etc) and a coder.

While he HAS been both, he would rather step back his time to more of the manager.
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Old 09-17-2013, 03:33 PM   #23
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Originally Posted by EowynCarter View Post
Why a fork? Unless you want to make development people will not approve of?

Even in the worse case scenario, Sigil won't suddenly become unusable. And code is still there for people to change.

And I agree with the Jutoh / Sigil comparison. It's nice to have both.
For my own use, in my own firm. It's easy to say that Sigil won't suddenly become unusable, but if John decides to drop it, it could go the way of many previous products fairly quickly. And in the ever-changing world of ebook-making (remember: we do this commercially), I may need other things to be added. It has nothing to do with "development that people will not approve of," it has to do with paying someone to make development or addons or whatever for my own use.

I don't know what the "standard" level of support is for Sigil, in terms of money. I can say that we've supported Sigil to the best of our abilities and, I believe, paid quite a lot more than we would have for X licenses of a commercial product. If the point of push has met shove, and in order for it to be maintained, paid-by-contract programmatic help has to be retained, then, in order to meet Valloric's original stated restrictions, and to keep my firm using it, I may have to fork it. It's as simple as that. I have very different concerns than most of the hobbyist users who frequent this board. That isn't to diminish their skillsets, or anything like that--many of the posters here are extraordinarily skilled and talented--but they're not running commercial firms, and can suit themselves more than I can, or "make do" with an older version of Sigil for far longer than can I.

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Old 09-17-2013, 04:00 PM   #24
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Originally Posted by Hitch View Post
For my own use, in my own firm. It's easy to say that Sigil won't suddenly become unusable, but if John decides to drop it, it could go the way of many previous products fairly quickly. And in the ever-changing world of ebook-making (remember: we do this commercially), I may need other things to be added. It has nothing to do with "development that people will not approve of," it has to do with paying someone to make development or addons or whatever for my own use.

I don't know what the "standard" level of support is for Sigil, in terms of money. I can say that we've supported Sigil to the best of our abilities and, I believe, paid quite a lot more than we would have for X licenses of a commercial product. If the point of push has met shove, and in order for it to be maintained, paid-by-contract programmatic help has to be retained, then, in order to meet Valloric's original stated restrictions, and to keep my firm using it, I may have to fork it. It's as simple as that. I have very different concerns than most of the hobbyist users who frequent this board. That isn't to diminish their skillsets, or anything like that--many of the posters here are extraordinarily skilled and talented--but they're not running commercial firms, and can suit themselves more than I can, or "make do" with an older version of Sigil for far longer than can I.

Hitch
I still don't see what would stop you from making change to the "base" sigil, and have everyone benefit from the changes. Or maybe i missed something.
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Old 09-17-2013, 04:36 PM   #25
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Originally Posted by EowynCarter View Post
I still don't see what would stop you from making change to the "base" sigil, and have everyone benefit from the changes. Or maybe i missed something.
I don't think I can quite come up with the right way to answer this, so...I'll leave it as-is. I did not want you to think, Eowyn, that I was ignoring you. I'm not.

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Old 09-17-2013, 04:37 PM   #26
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I like how Sigil enables me to format how a book file looks without me having to learn or remember complex HTML coding which I'd have to do repeatedly throughout a text. I'm currently going back over some of the books that I have uploaded here at MR with the latest versions of Sigil to make them look better in their formatting. I like how you can not only generate a TOC but can now edit it and even create a HTML document in the file that keeps good formatting.
For me, it's not the HTML-coding or CSS that is the problem, but EPUB itself. I don't know anything about the format, so I rely on Sigil to open the file, and in the end, write it again, taking care of any changes in the structure or things like the TOC.

I heavily rely on this program to pound my (bought!) EPUBs into a presentable shape. Without it, I don't know if e-reading will be possible for me, as fixing an EPUB will become a matter of hours of work, instead of minutes. Maybe there is some sort of equivalent software to switch to if need be... I don't know (yet).

I for one am going to stash away a huge library of EPUB freebies and public domain books, the latest version of Sigil, and my old version of Windows XP. As long as there's a Windows version that runs Sigil, or if need be, a Virtual Machine that runs XP, I'll keep using the latest version.

===

To the developer of Sigil: please do not take the following as an offence, as I do not mean any disrespect to you or anyone.

What is happening here is the one thing I always dread when starting to rely on an open-source product that is not backed by some sort of company or organisation; they are often one or two-man projects, and if something happens, they are in jeopardy of being abandoned.

You are still setting up a repository, and keeping an eye onto the program, maybe to see if there will be contributions in the future, but often even that doesn't happen.

It seems that all open source projects that are not backed by some huge organisation must face this fate some day. SourceForge and other sites are littered with once-promising projects, abandoned because the single maintainer either didn't have the time or the motivation anymore to develop it further. Even in Linux itself, people are often using software with known bus and missing functionality just because there is nothing else, and no-one willing or able to maintain that software.

The mantra "It is open-source, anyone who wants can pick this up" is great in theory, but in practice, it doesn't really work, except for the 800 pound gorilla's of the OSS world. Allthough this world has 7 billion people in it, the chance that someone else will take up development of Sigil is very slim indeed.

Theoretically, I could do it, as I know C++ (and other languages besides). Hoewever, I don't know QT, or EPUB, or writing software for the Mac or for Linux. I write software for micro-controllers (mostly C).

I hope it will happen, that someone who knows stuff like that will take up Sigil, because it's a great program, and, IMHO, as neccesary as Calibre itself. Even if Calibre and Sigil would become commercial products, asking (lets say) $29 for 3 years of upgrades, I'd buy them.

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Old 09-17-2013, 04:45 PM   #27
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami View Post
===

To the developer of Sigil: please do not take the following as an offence, as I do not mean any disrespect to you or anyone.

What is happening here is the one thing I always dread when starting to rely on an open-source product that is not backed by some sort of company or organisation; they are often one or two-man projects, and if something happens, they are in jeopardy of being abandoned.

You are still setting up a repository, and keeping an eye onto the program, maybe to see if there will be contributions in the future, but often even that doesn't happen.

It seems that all open source projects that are not backed by some huge organisation must face this fate some day. SourceForge and other sites are littered with once-promising projects, abandoned because the single maintainer either didn't have the time or the motivation anymore to develop it further. Even in Linux itself, people are often using software with known bus and missing functionality just because there is nothing else, and no-one willing or able to maintain that software.

The mantra "It is open-source, anyone who wants can pick this up" is great in theory, but in practice, it doesn't really work, except for the 800 pound gorilla's of the OSS world. Allthough this world has 7 billion people in it, the chance that someone else will take up development of Sigil is very slim indeed.

I hope it will happen, because it's a great program, and, IMHO, as neccesary as Calibre itself.

Certainly more necessary than Calibre, IMHO.

And, if memory serves--I could be wrong, God knows--I think I said when Valloric said he was leaving that this was exactly what I thought was going to happen. Without making it a paid product--for which I was thoroughly castigated as an evil capitalist scumbag, at the time--there's inadequate support to make it worthwhile for the developer. And now...we're here. And believe me, I feel very sorry for John. This certainly wasn't what he agreed to do, be the main developer for the project, and I doubt we're going to find a boatload more volunteers to support the coding. I could--and I hope I will be proven to--be wrong.

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Old 09-17-2013, 04:46 PM   #28
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For my own use, in my own firm. It's easy to say that Sigil won't suddenly become unusable, but if John decides to drop it, it could go the way of many previous products fairly quickly. And in the ever-changing world of ebook-making (remember: we do this commercially), I may need other things to be added. It has nothing to do with "development that people will not approve of," it has to do with paying someone to make development or addons or whatever for my own use.

I don't know what the "standard" level of support is for Sigil, in terms of money. I can say that we've supported Sigil to the best of our abilities and, I believe, paid quite a lot more than we would have for X licenses of a commercial product. If the point of push has met shove, and in order for it to be maintained, paid-by-contract programmatic help has to be retained, then, in order to meet Valloric's original stated restrictions, and to keep my firm using it, I may have to fork it. It's as simple as that. I have very different concerns than most of the hobbyist users who frequent this board. That isn't to diminish their skillsets, or anything like that--many of the posters here are extraordinarily skilled and talented--but they're not running commercial firms, and can suit themselves more than I can, or "make do" with an older version of Sigil for far longer than can I.

Hitch
Dear lady,
If you were willing to pick-up Sigil and develop it as a commercial product, I for one would be willing to pay a fair price for it. This is especially true if buyers were able to recommend changes and additions and pay for upgrades This would also ensure that all your requirements are met and also offset some of your costs and possibly make a profit. I am also interested only in windows.

Now I will duck behind a barricade.

Last edited by crutledge; 09-17-2013 at 04:49 PM.
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Old 09-17-2013, 04:58 PM   #29
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And, if memory serves--I could be wrong, God knows--I think I said when Valloric said he was leaving that this was exactly what I thought was going to happen. Without making it a paid product--for which I was thoroughly castigated as an evil capitalist scumbag, at the time--there's inadequate support to make it worthwhile for the developer. And now...we're here. And believe me, I feel very sorry for John. This certainly wasn't what he agreed to do, be the main developer for the project, and I doubt we're going to find a boatload more volunteers to support the coding. I could--and I hope I will be proven to--be wrong.
Tell me about it. There are not many e-book readers that see the need for Sigil. The just buy a book and read it as-is, but that's not for me. If it's not to my liking, I have to be able to fix it, somehow, and Sigil has been my go-to program. It was one of the reasons for me to get back into e-reading again (after being in- and out of it in 2007-2008).

As I said, the open-source adagio "Anyone can help, and then the software will be open, and free, and improved very fast all the time" only counts for some huge projects that serve *a lot* of people.

Smaller programs could be open source of course, in the same way as Red Hat Linux is. "There's the code. Good luck. If you want an out-of-the-box installable version, support, and great stuff like documentation, you have to buy the boxed package."

People who don't want to pay are always a bit behind the latest version (see CentOS et al in the case of Linux) with less documentation, less support, third party software not officially tested for that distribution, but they can have a Red Hat clone for free. People who want the latest and greatest and have to *rely* on it and need support and guaranteed bug fixes ASAP, they buy Red Hat itself.

If Sigil (and Calibre) worked like that, I'd probably pay for the boxed version too.

Another set of projects that I heavily rely on are the music typesetter LilyPond and it's main editor Frescobaldi. LilyPond is a bit like TeX/LaTeX for music, and Frescobaldi is comparable to Sigil, but for sheet music. Last time I looked, LilyPond had two official developrs, and Frescobaldi had one... and one contributor.

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Old 09-17-2013, 05:13 PM   #30
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Dear lady,
If you were willing to pick-up Sigil and develop it as a commercial product, I for one would be willing to pay a fair price for it. This is especially true if buyers were able to recommend changes and additions and pay for upgrades This would also ensure that all your requirements are met and also offset some of your costs and possibly make a profit. I am also interested only in windows.

Now I will duck behind a barricade.
Charlie:

You're a darling laddie, but a) not in the software development business, and what I know about what makes Sigil tick would rattle around inside a peanut shell, and b) I actually think--although I could be wrong--that Valloric's original TOS or license specifically prohibited that, didn't it? And, seriously--I could be wrong about that. That's what I think were the stipulations, but I'd have to go back and look. I know he never objected to private forkage, but I think--think--that he didn't want forked commercial product. Think.

If we fork it, I'll just go find someone who can work with it, and tweak it as we need it. I'm in no position--I'm really not--to provide paid software or software support. I'm not. I just don't have the manpower or the resources to do a decent job of it--which tells you how much blood sweat and tears user_none has put in this past year or so.

Hitch
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