Sigil 0.7.4 won’t start (Windows 7 64-bit)

[seanos]

After not using Sigil for some months I find that it either doesn’t run at all or silently crashes on startup now. Watching Task Manager while running it as Administrator, its process briefly appears then disappears almost immediately. I know I’ve had a problem similar to this before with Sigil, but I’ve not been able to get it working this time.

I’ve tried renaming sigil.ini (& all the .inis), I’ve tried reinstalling, uninstalling and reinstalling, reinstalling running as Admin, stepping back to 0.7.3 & 0.7.2 - pretty much everything I can think of with no luck.

I’m certain it used to run. Much as I like Calibre (and the new editor looks very solid) the lack of embedded font display is a problem for me.

I realise development is at a standstill, but any suggestions would be welcome.

[Toxaris]

You could uninstall with Revo (or something alike) to really remove everything. I think you have some leftovers from the QT framework.

[mrmikel]

Calibre does display embedded fonts, I am editing a book with them now where I have to use one to get an o with a line over it. But it does not display them in certain circumstances, aliased, whatever that means.

I am running .0.7.4. under Windows 7 64 bit so it can be done.

Sigil .ini may have got banged up, so if the uninstall program doesn't work, try renaming it and Sigil will make a new one. Then you can copy over whatever is missing in the new one, carefully.

[theducks]

to (calibre editor) displaying embedded fonts.

IMHO Both editors share a few of the same display quirks (because they use some of the same code libraries). But I get the feeling that Calibre has a few less.

I am liking Calibre's equivalent of Flightcrew over Sigil's.
My jury is still out on the TOC generator.

Remember, the 'Editor' is not done, whereas Sigil development is known to be stalled.

[kovidgoyal]

The calibre editor most definitely supports embedded fonts, with the single caveat that the font-family name declared in the @font-face rule must be exactly the same as the font family name inside the font itself. The Check Book tool in the editor will warn you if that is not the case in the book you are editing, which can then be easily fixed.

[mrmikel]

It even tells you what the right name should be. Thanks for that!

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

The calibre editor most definitely supports embedded fonts, with the single caveat that the font-family name declared in the @font-face rule must be exactly the same as the font family name inside the font itself. The Check Book tool in the editor will warn you if that is not the case in the book you are editing, which can then be easily fixed.

Kovid
Sometimes the Family (for normal, bold, italic, bold-italic) is not complete (or a member looks lousy), so I may substitute a font assignment.
Now all the internal names are not in alignment.

Is the (proper?) way to work around this, is to use the true name in the @font
and add each name to the font-family: list in the selector?

[kovidgoyal]

It doesn't matter if the family is not complete. You just have to make sure the font names match in the @font-face rule. Then in the actual CSS style rule you can use as many fallbacks as you like.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

It doesn't matter if the family is not complete. You just have to make sure the font names match in the @font-face rule. Then in the actual CSS style rule you can use as many fallbacks as you like.

[st_albert]

Originally Posted by seanos

I realise development is at a standstill, but any suggestions would be welcome.

Have you tried running sigil.exe from a command prompt, to see if there are any (additional) useful error messages?

[seanos]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

The calibre editor most definitely supports embedded fonts, with the single caveat that the font-family name declared in the @font-face rule must be exactly the same as the font family name inside the font itself. The Check Book tool in the editor will warn you if that is not the case in the book you are editing, which can then be easily fixed.

Ah...thanks Kovid. I was a little puzzled by that element of the Check Book routine. It just seemed overly fussy to me as I’ve never encountered that problem. I do in general prefer sane, human-friendly names, but if it will lead to an easier life I might submit. 8-)

I do have a loathing for programmers’ problem with spaces though. Because of the use of spaces as delimiters, or bad assumptions about where you can put a space many, many organisations have never been able to actually record my surname correctly. I keep hoping programmers will get their act together before I die, but I’m not holding my breath.

Another thing I miss in the Calibre Editor is spell-checking. Is that planned?

[seanos]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

You could uninstall with Revo (or something alike) to really remove everything. I think you have some leftovers from the QT framework.

I don’t entirely trust third-party uninstallers. Sigil seems to put all of its QT libraries in its own folder and I’ve confirmed that everything is deleted except dictionaries.

A more interesting possibility is that I’ve installed something else that uses QT in the meantime and there is a conflicting library already loaded, though I still think it would give preference to its local libraries. Anyone more familiar with Windows programming like to venture an opinion?

Edit: I have installed Mumble which uses QT 4.8.6. Sigil 0.7.4 seems to use 5.1.0.0, but still don’t think this should interfere.

Originally Posted by mrmikel

Sigil .ini may have got banged up, so if the uninstall program doesn't work, try renaming it and Sigil will make a new one. Then you can copy over whatever is missing in the new one, carefully.

First thing I tried. Thanks anyway.

Originally Posted by st_albert

Have you tried running sigil.exe from a command prompt, to see if there are any (additional) useful error messages?

Sadly Windows is not Linux. No output of any kind from regular or elevated command prompt.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by seanos

Another thing I miss in the Calibre Editor is spell-checking. Is that planned?

Total speculation follows:

There is a new branch on the GitHub source code, called "spell", which seems to be the spellchecking that Kovid promised would come around at some point.

It hasn't been updated in 18 days though (unless you count merging in the latest code from the master branch) but I'm assuming that is because all the work so far has been stuff which isn't ready to be pushed to the repository. Plus the commits to the master branch have been (relatively speaking) either easy updates or requested bugfixes. (Plus the Quick open file feature completed 10 days ago.) So I'm assuming he's devoting most of his attention at the moment to implementing the spellcheck.

Keeping that in mind, I have a different question: Kovid, can you tell us what the status is?

[kovidgoyal]

I dislike commenting on WIP. It will be done, when it is done

My work style is somewhat non-linear. I will spend a few days working on a large feature, reach a point where I get fed up with it and move on to something else for a while. Then return to it and work upto the next saturation point and so on. You can see that with the spell check feature. I reached a point where I got fed up with it, and switched to working on quick open. Since quick open is now done, I will probably return to spellcheck soon.

[eschwartz]

Fair enough.

We will wait. Plenty of goodies to use in the meantime.