Refresh files in Sigil when html files have changed outside Sigil

[DiapDealer]

I, myself, don't really see much advantage to opening a single xhtml file for editing in PageEdit (via Book Browser's Open With) vs. opening PageEdit with all resources available and the selected xhtml resource open for editing (via the Launch External xHTML button). But people are free to define their external editors for Book Browser's "Open With" any way they like.

I agree we shouldn't complicate Open With's purpose of monitoring one file at a time.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by KevinH

I do think we should still check if the current tab is an xhtml file or an opf file and if not return an error like we did back in the Sigil 1.5.1 timeframe with launchWithXEditor.

Agreed. That was my intention. It's not that big of a deal that it will work with any file selected in Book Browser (when PageEdit is defined as the special external xhtml editor), but it still could lead to confusion.

[KevinH]

Pushed that fix to master (ie. PageEdit can only be launched when current tab is xhtml or opf tab).

BTW, in Resource.cpp it seems the we note the file system last modified date on that resource file and if it ever changes, we emit a ResourceUpdatedOnDisk signal which ends with a call to LoadFromDisk.

I am not sure if this does exactly the same thing as a FileWatcher does but it might be enough to allow "Open With" on PageEdit's OPF to work for BetterRed without specifically
watching all of the xhtml files.

I am just not sure. I could not find any other mechanism that would allow an xhtml resource to detect its disk version has been modified underneath it (other than the official FileWatcher).

[BetterRed]

should have let you know I only upgraded Sigil and PageEdit from 1.0 to 1.7 on Wednesday 18th inst, so what I described was based on my usage in 1.0.

I can reinstall Sigil/PE 1.0, there was no compelling reason for me to upgrade to 1.7. Given the ongoing question marks about launching Sigil via calibre's Open With I've switched to using the calibre ebook editor for code editing.

I'd prefer to use PageEdit independently of Sigil, like this:



BR

[FriedGopher]

I have a quick related question about the ePub book I'm working on with separate files for each chapter. I'm OK with deleting and importing the files/chapters in Sigil when they change, but I have a single CSS file for all chapters.

If I put a link to that CSS file in all 57 chapters (I can explain why I want to do that if anyone cares), will that cause any problems in Sigil?

Should I delete those links before publishing the book, or are the readers smart enough not to bother reloading the CSS 57 times?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by FriedGopher

I have a quick related question about the ePub book I'm working on with separate files for each chapter. I'm OK with deleting and importing the files/chapters in Sigil when they change, but I have a single CSS file for all chapters.

If I put a link to that CSS file in all 57 chapters (I can explain why I want to do that if anyone cares), will that cause any problems in Sigil?

Should I delete those links before publishing the book, or are the readers smart enough not to bother reloading the CSS 57 times?

Having link to the main CSS stylesheet and any other CSS stylesheets from every xhtml file they apply to is pretty standard behaviour. How else is the renderer going to know which CSS to apply to the file?

I'm not sure why you would be editing separate files stored outside the epub .zip container. Even if I use a external editor, it is called from within Sigil using the setting under General/Basics/Set your preferred external xhtml editor.

[FriedGopher]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I'm not sure why you would be editing separate files stored outside the epub .zip container. Even if I use a external editor, it is called from within Sigil using the setting under General/Basics/Set your preferred external xhtml editor.

Thanks.

I would try an external editor, but I've never gotten that to work. I set the setting, but it has no effect, and I don't see an option anywhere to invoke the external editor.

[FriedGopher]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Even if I use a external editor, it is called from within Sigil using the setting
under General/Basics/Set your preferred external xhtml editor.

I created that setting, but it has no effect. If there's a way to launch the external editor, I haven't found it. Maybe I'm missing something.

[DiapDealer]

The toolbar button for launching the external editor? It's explained in the user guide. The default keyboard shortcut for it is F2. But keep in mind that it's designed as an external xhtml editor. Use the Open With feature to define/launch external editors for other file types. You can right-click on files in the Book Browser to do that.

All will be watched and Sigil updated whenever the external editor is saved/closed.

The main thing is to stay out of Sigil's temporary working directory. Manually messing with those files while Sigil is running is strenuously discouraged.

[FriedGopher]

Thanks! I had searched the User Guide, but couldn't find that.

That does work, but as I should have guessed, there's no way I could find to make it edit exported files, rather than the data in Sigil.

That means I can't use Git for version control on the individual files and for backing up the revision history to GitHub. It also means there's no easy way to use SCSS, and no way to run the utility programs I've created for modifying the files.

Some CMS systems I've worked with have the option to store files on disk or in their local data storage. I know that feature would be really helpful to me, but I can understand if you don't think enough people would use it to make it worth adding.

[DiapDealer]

Have you looked at the FolderIn/FolderOut plugins? Those were designed with CVS in mind. Sigil's own checkpointing feature also creates local git repositories for epubs in the Sigil Preference directory. There's no reason those repos couldn't have github remotes defined so that commits could then be pushed. I can't speak to the SCSS aspect, since that's not valid in epubs, but there's a few ways that Sigil can be used to edit content maintained in CVS.

[KevinH]

You can use git. Simply use FolderIn and FolderOut plugins to write/load files to/from the repo. We do this with our User Guides for Sigil and PageEdit.

So the workflow is to use FolderIn to load the epub from a github repo. Make any changes you need in Sigil using its editors or OpenWith and your favourite editors and when ready use FolderOut to write the files to the repo and do you commits if you desire.

In addition, Sigil's Checkpoint feature already creates a github repo to store files in in case reversions are needed. That internal github repo is stored in the Sigil Preferences directory. It can be accessed and manipulated like any git repo. Making a Checkpoint creates a tagged commit to this internal github repo.

[DiapDealer]

You could also do something with git subtrees. Have some sort of automated process that generates the css from your SASS and use Sigil to edit the subtree epub source. Just keep in mind that anything done to the css in the epub is not going to be able to be replicated back to your SASS. Editing SASS in Sigil isn't going to be feasible. You're going to need to somehow externally preprocess your scss before using Sigil to preview/edit the epub. As I said: some judicious use of subtrees and some preprocessing scripts could work with Sigil and its CVS options.

[FriedGopher]

Great information. Thanks!