Editing Problems

[TheArtfulDodger]

Hello:

This may very well been asked/answered/discussed elsewhere but I couldn't find it so I thought I'd ask. And, yes I've read some of the threads discussing the fact that development of Sigil has stopped.

I like Sigil, don't get me wrong, but is there any way to get Sigil from changing my HTML after I have "fixed" it like I want it? For example, I like to indent by 3 spaces (as an aside, is there a way to set the number of spaces Sigil uses for a 'TAB' character?) but when I save the EPub and reload it, Sigil has the evil habit of changing most of it?

I know this is a nit and has nothing to do with the quality of the EPub, but that's the way I am!!

Thanks in advance.

Sparky

[Toxaris]

Read up on your HTML skills. A tab has no meaning in HTML and will be ignored by readers anyway. Don't use it, it will never work.

If you want an indent, define it in your stylesheet, e.g.:

p.indent {text-indent: 1.2em;}

. In your HTML you can then have

<p class="indent">This will be indented."</p>

. Of course, if your base is that all paragraphs should be indented, you can just set the text-indent on the paragraph tag.

[mrmikel]

Assuming you know that nothing will be displayed that is not laid out in html, there isn't any way to control the layout for the purposes of your editing. The developers had quite enough to do to master the functions without trying to give it all the features of some text editors.

[radius]

Leaving aside the fact that 3 space indents in code are madness, madness...

Have you tried ticking off the clean source checkboxes?

[TheArtfulDodger]

OK, I guess I didn't ask the question well enough! I appreciate all of you trying to help, but...

Toxaris: I don't need to touch up on HTML because I intended to mean the layout of the HTML, not the finished product - I do know how to indent (I use 5%).

MrMikel: You understood what I meant - but I don't think that setting a value for TAB is Rocket Science - I thought there might be an entry (hidden) in the .ini file or something that would allow me to set the size of the TAB character!

radius: One man's trash is another man's treasure! I learned to program when there were only 72 characters for each line of code - an indent was large enough to see but not enough to waste valuable space. Plus I never said you had to use it! Remind me not to give you any of the books I create EPubs from!

So, I would guess from the lack of positive responses that there is no way to do what I wanted to do. Thanks anyway!

Sparky

[DiapDealer]

No way to adjust the tab width, no. But I'm fairly certain someone mentioned turning off all the clean source options in the preferences--which should stop sigil from "prettying" your code. It should leave your code just like you typed it in that case.

[TheArtfulDodger]

I meant to mention that I have turned that off and still Sigil re-formats the HTML - but not the EPub result!

I still think Sigil is a fine product and it's a shame that no one is touching it!

Thanks for trying!!

Sparky

[mrmikel]

I think it is that Sigil uses underlying software (QT) and it would be a matter of having to modify that, without creating another issue. It is written in C++, so it is not so easy to modify as Python. Sigil is open source, so if you can modify it or know someone who can, have at it.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by TheArtfulDodger

I meant to mention that I have turned that off and still Sigil re-formats the HTML - but not the EPub result!

I don't follow what you mean.
When I choose "Pretty Print Tidy" (as opposed to "HTML Tidy") and uncheck both the "Open" and "Save" options in the Clean Source Preferences, then Sigil makes no formatting changes to my HTML code (unless there's a drastic, well-formed issue upon opening, and even then, I get a choice whether to let Sigil fix it or not). The spacing between lines of code, the depth of the indentation--whathaveyou--all remains preserved throughout the opening and saving of documents. Even code prepared externally and imported remains unchanged (with the exception of a few unicode characters that Qt has trouble dealing with).

I'm not sure what you're doing wrong, but if your (x)html is valid to begin with, then turning off the open/save clean source settings will ensure that the formatting of your code is preserved.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by TheArtfulDodger

OK, I guess I didn't ask the question well enough! I appreciate all of you trying to help, but...

Toxaris: I don't need to touch up on HTML because I intended to mean the layout of the HTML, not the finished product - I do know how to indent (I use 5%).

MrMikel: You understood what I meant - but I don't think that setting a value for TAB is Rocket Science - I thought there might be an entry (hidden) in the .ini file or something that would allow me to set the size of the TAB character!

radius: One man's trash is another man's treasure! I learned to program when there were only 72 characters for each line of code - an indent was large enough to see but not enough to waste valuable space. Plus I never said you had to use it! Remind me not to give you any of the books I create EPubs from!

So, I would guess from the lack of positive responses that there is no way to do what I wanted to do. Thanks anyway!

Sparky

Sparky:

You have two statements in your reply that I find confusing. You tell Toxaris that you know to set your paragraph indents to 5%, but then to mrmikel, you say this:

I don't think that setting a value for TAB is Rocket Science - I thought there might be an entry (hidden) in the .ini file or something that would allow me to set the size of the TAB character!

...except there is literally no such thing as the 'tab character' in HTML, which is what Toxaris said to you initially. There's nothing called a "tab" in HTML, XHTML or CSS. There's no point in using it in BookView, as it will disappear entirely in the code view, which is all that matters. What you 'see' in Bookview won't be what shows up in your ePUB, if you are using tabs to try to "prettify" your book in BookView. To demonstrate this, use the TAB character and then switch to Codeview and look at the paragraph; you'll see that there is nothing there. That's because there is no tab character in HTML. (sorry to keep saying it, but there seems to be a real disconnect here).

Do you understand what I mean? Your ePUB will be built (as will any derived mobis) from the code, not from whatever is in Bookview. Bookview is merely a convenience, not a definitive "view" of the output. For that, use "Preview." Perhaps that will assist you.

Hitch

[radius]

Originally Posted by Hitch

You have two statements in your reply that I find confusing. You tell Toxaris that you know to set your paragraph indents to 5%, but then to mrmikel, you say this:

Think of the code Hitch...

What the Dodger is saying is that in the code view, when he hits the tab key, he wants the line to be indented by three spaces.

In many editors and integrated developments (and heck in word processors I guess) you can set the tab size to whatever you want so that your code will display wider or narrower depending on your preferences.

The standard is used to be eight, and now is commonly four, but two is not unheard of. I've never seen three in use personally

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by radius

Think of the code Hitch...

What the Dodger is saying is that in the code view, when he hits the tab key, he wants the line to be indented by three spaces.

In many editors and integrated developments (and heck in word processors I guess) you can set the tab size to whatever you want so that your code will display wider or narrower depending on your preferences.

The standard is used to be eight, and now is commonly four, but two is not unheard of. I've never seen three in use personally

Radius:

So...he wants to be able to change the indent--not the tab, but the indent--used for the various elements, i.e., the indents we all commonly use for the CSS for an element? That's the discussion? Indent, not TAB?

I use NTPro (Note Tab Pro) and you cannot change the tab size, so I suspect that this isn't something I ever noted. In Word, sure; but that's word-processing. {shrug}. I think, even if someone picked up Sigil and ran with it, this would be pretty far down on the "to-do" list. But I suppose if it matters to the Dodger, it matters. The way he expressed it obviously wasn't clear to me. (And I well remember the 80-column punch card!)

Thanks for the clarification.

Hitch

[elibrarian]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Radius:

So...he wants to be able to change the indent--not the tab, but the indent--used for the various elements, i.e., the indents we all commonly use for the CSS for an element? That's the discussion? Indent, not TAB?

I use NTPro (Note Tab Pro) and you cannot change the tab size, so I suspect that this isn't something I ever noted. In Word, sure; but that's word-processing. {shrug}. Hitch

Hi -

Not that it's very useful in the resulting HTML, but you actually can. Try pressing CTRL+I in a paragraph in NTPro ...

You set the values in Options --> Tools (indent values) and in Options --> Document (tab values, use fixed tabs to insert spaces when tabbing).

Regards,

Kim

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by elibrarian

Hi -

Not that it's very useful in the resulting HTML, but you actually can. Try pressing CTRL+I in a paragraph in NTPro ...

You set the values in Options --> Tools (indent values) and in Options --> Document (tab values, use fixed tabs to insert spaces when tabbing).

Regards,

Kim

Hey, Kim:

I'll have to tell NTPro to update their Help. I specifically looked through it, after reading this, to see if it was supported. They expressly state that it isn't. ;-) (In looking at your directions, we may be running slightly different versions of NTPro, but I was able to find "indent with tabs" and "indent size" under VIEW-->Options.) I freely admit I am no NTPro expert; I barely use 1/10th of 1% of what it can do.

I suppose that if you're working on a small screen, being able to set a smaller level-indent might be useful?

Hitch

[elibrarian]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Hey, Kim:

I'll have to tell NTPro to update their Help. I specifically looked through it, after reading this, to see if it was supported. They expressly state that it isn't. ;-) (In looking at your directions, we may be running slightly different versions of NTPro, but I was able to find "indent with tabs" and "indent size" under VIEW-->Options.) I freely admit I am no NTPro expert; I barely use 1/10th of 1% of what it can do.

I suppose that if you're working on a small screen, being able to set a smaller level-indent might be useful?

Hitch

I'm using the latest NTPro (7.1). I don't use this function, just happen to know it's there (sometimes press ctrl+i instead of ctrl+u, which is quite irritating. Those old fingers ...

Anyway, it's close to midnight here in Denmark, so I'm off to bed - nighty night ...

Regards,

Kim