Interface and preferences questions

[tosca30]

I'm in the process of writing a rather big non-fiction book straight in Sigil, but am being hindered by a couple of behaviours:

1. I work in code mode, but there is sometimes a signicant reponse time for my edits to be processed; more annoying, even a simple selection seem to take time. I guess the program is doing/checking something in the background. Is there a way to deactivate this?
2. I use a default stylesheet in order to do consistent styles definitions for the whole document, especially to integrate fonts. But each time I re-generate the HTML TOC, the connection with the default stylesheet is lost. Is there a way to make it permanent?
3. At this stage, I need to reorganize the titles and their content quite often. How can I do without having to cut and paste code from one location to another of the document?

Thanks for helping.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by tosca30

I'm in the process of writing a rather big non-fiction book straight in Sigil, but am being hindered by a couple of behaviours:

Sigil is primarily an editor not an authoring tool. You may want to consider writing your book with a word processor or a dedicated authoring tool.

Originally Posted by tosca30

I work in code mode, but there is sometimes a significant response time for my edits to be processed; more annoying, even a simple selection seem to take time.

This usually only happens if the whole book is a single .html file. You may want to consider splitting it up in chapters using Split Markers. This will greatly improve the responsiveness of Sigil.

Originally Posted by tosca30

I use a default stylesheet in order to do consistent styles definitions for the whole document, especially to integrate fonts. But each time I re-generate the HTML TOC, the connection with the default stylesheet is lost. Is there a way to make it permanent?

AFAIK, the styles in the default TOC style-sheet (sgc-toc.css) are hard-coded. However, you can add TOC styles to your main stylesheet and link TOC.xhtml to it.

Originally Posted by tosca30

At this stage, I need to reorganize the titles and their content quite often. How can I do without having to cut and paste code from one location to another of the document?

AFAIK, only dedicated authoring tools have this feature, which is one more reason to use Sigil only for fine-tuning the books that they create.

[tosca30]

Thanks for your answer.

Originally Posted by Doitsu

Sigil is primarily an editor not an authoring tool. You may want to consider writing your book with a word processor or a dedicated authoring tool.

Point taken.
I did begin with Writer at first, but found out that the conversion required a lot of manual tuning, especially as I have a lot of images and screencopies to include. As it is, I can now upload the work in progress on the KDP website and check the result in Kindle mode.

Originally Posted by Doitsu

This usually only happens if the whole book is a single .html file. You may want to consider splitting it up in chapters using Split Markers. This will greatly improve the responsiveness of Sigil.

I don't think that is the reason as I already have quite many HTML files. Maybe the number of titles? or images?

Originally Posted by Doitsu

AFAIK, the styles in the default TOC style-sheet (sgc-toc.css) are hard-coded. However, you can add TOC styles to your main stylesheet and link it to TOC.xhtml.

I also use the default TOC style-sheet. But the fonts (and some other standard styles) are defined in another stylesheet that is shared by all the HTML files of the whole document. As for now, I have to re-link this additional sheet to the TOC every time I re-generate the HTML TOC.

Originally Posted by Doitsu

AFAIK, only dedicated authoring tools have this feature, which is one more reason to use Sigil only for fine-tuning the books that they create.

Could it be submitted as a feature request? Sigil already has a lot of very interesting automaticisms; this one would be a good addition, I think.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by tosca30

I don't think that is the reason as I already have quite many HTML files. Maybe the number of titles? or images?

What's the average .html file size and the overall .epub file size?

Originally Posted by tosca30

As for now, I have to re-link this additional sheet to the TOC every time I re-generate the HTML TOC.

That's what I do, too. And while it's somewhat annoying, it doesn't bother me enough to make a feature request to change this behavior, because only do this once per book.

Originally Posted by tosca30

At this stage, I need to reorganize the titles and their content quite often. How can I do without having to cut and paste code from one location to another of the document?

Could it be submitted as a feature request? Sigil already has a lot of very interesting automaticisms; this one would be a good addition, I think.

That depends on the feature(s) that you have in mind. What kind of feature(s) would you like to see?

[tosca30]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

What's the average .html file size and the overall .epub file size?

Around 10/15 Ko, the HTML TOC being 27 Ko.
And 4.9 Mo for the whole EPUB.

Originally Posted by Doitsu

That's what I do, too. And while it's somewhat annoying, it doesn't bother me enough to make a feature request to change this behavior, because only do this once per book.

I do it quite often as the HTML TOC is the easiest way to navigate through the book. I guess I don't need to relink the sheet each time, though...

Originally Posted by Doitsu

That depends on the feature(s) that you have in mind. What kind of feature(s) would you like to see?

From what I see, promote/demote a title is possible using the TOC generate function. What is missing is the ability to move a title elsewhere: I can see the buttons in the TOC edit window, but they don't seem to act on the document itself; only on the TOC file.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by tosca30

Around 10/15 Ko, the HTML TOC being 27 Ko. And 4.9 Mo for the whole EPUB.

Average ePubs are usually in the 300KB to 1MB range. If your html pages reference a lot of large images, maybe downscaling them might reduce the overall file size and the overall responsiveness of Sigil.

Originally Posted by tosca30

From what I see, promote/demote a title is possible using the TOC generate function. What is missing is the ability to move a title elsewhere: I can see the buttons in the TOC edit window, but they don't seem to act on the document itself; only on the TOC file.

I'm assuming that you mean chapters/subchapters by "titles." While you cannot rearrange chapters in the Generate Table of Contents dialog box, you can easily rearrange the order of chapters in the Book View window using drag & drop. You can also change their levels by changing the heading types from h1 to h2..h6 or vice versa.
If you know your way around a programmer's text editor you can also directly rearrange chapters by editing the spine section in content.opf. However, if your edits result in an invalid .opf file, Sigil will regenerate the whole .opf file.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by tosca30

Thanks for your answer.


Point taken.
I did begin with Writer at first, but found out that the conversion required a lot of manual tuning, especially as I have a lot of images and screencopies to include. As it is, I can now upload the work in progress on the KDP website and check the result in Kindle mode.


I don't think that is the reason as I already have quite many HTML files. Maybe the number of titles? or images?


I also use the default TOC style-sheet. But the fonts (and some other standard styles) are defined in another stylesheet that is shared by all the HTML files of the whole document. As for now, I have to re-link this additional sheet to the TOC every time I re-generate the HTML TOC.


Could it be submitted as a feature request? Sigil already has a lot of very interesting automaticisms; this one would be a good addition, I think.

Sigil HTML TOC uses its own stylesheet. If it exists in the book, it will not be replaced upon regeneration.
Copy your stylesheet to the TOC stylesheet. (Do Not Change the name of the Sigil TOC sheet)
Clean it (only the Styles that are used on the TOC.xhtml remain) These styles may not be needed in the master sheet and will be cleaned IF you don't link the master to the TOC
The file size penalty is almost zip in the end

[tosca30]

Originally Posted by theducks

Copy your stylesheet to the TOC stylesheet. (Do Not Change the name of the Sigil TOC sheet)
Clean it (only the Styles that are used on the TOC.xhtml remain) These styles may not be needed in the master sheet and will be cleaned IF you don't link the master to the TOC
The file size penalty is almost zip in the end

Thanks for your input.
Do you mean I should use the TOC stylesheet as my default sheet?
It is not a matter of file size, but in order to avoid redundancy: I don't see any point in having the @font-face clauses defined in several different sheets, as they are the same for the whole document.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by tosca30

Thanks for your input.
Do you mean I should use the TOC stylesheet as my default sheet?
It is not a matter of file size, but in order to avoid redundancy: I don't see any point in having the @font-face clauses defined in several different sheets, as they are the same for the whole document.

Use both in your book (IMHO having a separate, dedicated CSS for single/limited use pages (eg all those boilerplate pages), is better than 1 big monster CSS

How many fonts are you using on the TOC?
Saving Half a dozen lines does not seem worth the hassle.


BTW WayBack when the HTML TOC feature was added to Sigil, there was a provision to set a customized DEFAULT sheet for the TOC, which might be useful if you always use the same styling

[tosca30]

Originally Posted by theducks

How many fonts are you using on the TOC?
Saving Half a dozen lines does not seem worth the hassle.

Currently, I have 6 of them. But it is still a work in progress as I work concurrently on the document content and on its layout.
So I'd rather keep them in one place only, and just keep on checking this one sheet link every time I need to check the HTML TOC layout.

Originally Posted by theducks

BTW WayBack when the HTML TOC feature was added to Sigil, there was a provision to set a customized DEFAULT sheet for the TOC, which might be useful if you always use the same styling

You could always use the "add existing file" feature once, if the issue is to reuse the same style sheet from one document to another.
I'm much more interested in keeping the styles consistent through the whole document, including its TOC; and regrets that the link that has been established once is lost every time the TOC is generated.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by tosca30

Currently, I have 6 of them. But it is still a work in progress as I work concurrently on the document content and on its layout.
So I'd rather keep them in one place only, and just keep on checking this one sheet link every time I need to check the HTML TOC layout.


You could always use the "add existing file" feature once, if the issue is to reuse the same style sheet from one document to another.
I'm much more interested in keeping the styles consistent through the whole document, including its TOC; and regrets that the link that has been established once is lost every time the TOC is generated.

Why regenerate until the end

The HTML TOC is derived from the NCX. Keep that up-to-date (for testing)
IMHO use that during the books creation and update the 'place holder' TOC at the end.

It is all about logical work flow

[tosca30]

Originally Posted by theducks

Why regenerate until the end

Seems easier to navigate through the document.

Originally Posted by theducks

It is all about logical work flow

Logical work flow requires some software appropriation... that in itself requires some trials/errors/questions.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by tosca30

[*]At this stage, I need to reorganize the titles and their content quite often. How can I do without having to cut and paste code from one location to another of the document?[/LIST]

If the content is in a separate HTML file, you can quickly reorder by just moving the files in the book browser.

[tosca30]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

If the content is in a separate HTML file, you can quickly reorder by just moving the files in the book browser.

Yes, thanks.
That's what I do with the highest levels; but I have up to 5 levels in some part and don't have a separate HTML for each of them.

[theducks]

I think you are stubbornly fighting doing it the Sigil way

Sigil uses H levels (in your case h1-5) to auto generate the NCX
(your CSS can assign the same style to all those, if that is what you want in the book). Ctrl+the H digit to quick reassign the current cursor BLOCKS TAG to the H#

Toxaris suggestion to drag the HTML section files to the proper order. (I have touched up books with 150+ TOC items. No problem)
Then regenerate the NCX . You can adjust the levels here. You can even Edit that heading here. click OK

BTW If you hover over the column head in the TOC generator, you will see a summary count of each level