Sigil adding nbsp when a simple space should do

[eggheadbooks1]

Hi Kevin,

I apologize if this has been brought to your attention and fixed (I am in a rush and cannot scroll through the forum) but I found another bug in Sigil 8.901:

When in book view, whenever one hits the space bar, Sigil adds the space using the nbsp;, which can create havoc with word spacing on screen, especially when the text is justified.

This makes editing in book view nigh impossible.

The automatic creation of the nbsp instead of a regular space does not happen in code view.

[DiapDealer]

That's how Sigil has always worked when adding a space in Book View. It's not a bug.
Also note that 0.9.0 (soon to be 0.9.1) is the latest version of Sigil. Not 0.8.901.

[eschwartz]

Using spaces instead of   would make double-spaces from the Book View incorrectly collapse down to one space.

Sigil has always done this, deliberately.

One more reason why Book View should be used sparingly, if at all.

[eggheadbooks1]

I don't recall early versions of Sigil doing this, but in any case, I can say from a writer's perspective that it's not a great feature. I have a lengthy book that I am redoing solely as an ebook; it is far quicker to edit the existing ebook in Sigil than to start from scratch in InDesign or Word. Trying to rewrite passages while in code view is taxing. So this feature is one of those things that likely seemed like a good idea from a coder's or book builder's perspective but which did not consider the implications for content creators.

Also, remember that writers often find typos later on after the ebook is built and published, or may wish to make minor revisions. It is far more feasible to work from the ebook itself than the original manuscript and rebuild the ebook from scratch. So if the user is not aware of this feature, and fixes stuff in book view, they are inadvertently creating a problem in their text.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by eggheadbooks1

I don't recall early versions of Sigil doing this, but in any case, I can say from a writer's perspective that it's not a great feature. I have a lengthy book that I am redoing solely as an ebook; it is far quicker to edit the existing ebook in Sigil than to start from scratch in InDesign or Word. Trying to rewrite passages while in code view is taxing. So this feature is one of those things that likely seemed like a good idea from a coder's or book builder's perspective but which did not consider the implications for content creators.

Also, remember that writers often find typos later on after the ebook is built and published, or may wish to make minor revisions. It is far more feasible to work from the ebook itself than the original manuscript and rebuild the ebook from scratch. So if the user is not aware of this feature, and fixes stuff in book view, they are inadvertently creating a problem in their text.

It has never really been a goal of Sigil developers to provide an interface for authors to write their books. And it's not that the implications for content creators was never considered with regard to Book View and spaces vs nbsps--far from it. It's that it's extremely impractical to provide the functionality you desire. Allowing users to enter "normal" spaces in Sigil's Book View is a recipe for disaster. Always has been. The damage that will be wreaked on a document by allowing normal spaces to be entered in Book View far outweighs any minimal damage that using nbsps in place of normal spaces in Book View might cause.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by eggheadbooks1

I don't recall early versions of Sigil doing this, but in any case, I can say from a writer's perspective that it's not a great feature. I have a lengthy book that I am redoing solely as an ebook; it is far quicker to edit the existing ebook in Sigil than to start from scratch in InDesign or Word. Trying to rewrite passages while in code view is taxing. So this feature is one of those things that likely seemed like a good idea from a coder's or book builder's perspective but which did not consider the implications for content creators.

Also, remember that writers often find typos later on after the ebook is built and published, or may wish to make minor revisions. It is far more feasible to work from the ebook itself than the original manuscript and rebuild the ebook from scratch. So if the user is not aware of this feature, and fixes stuff in book view, they are inadvertently creating a problem in their text.

As I already said:

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Using spaces instead of   would make double-spaces from the Book View incorrectly collapse down to one space.

Given two terrible situations, the Sigil developers chose the alternative that caused less damage.
There is no good solution, it's just a matter of how many people to hurt.

[eggheadbooks1]

Allowing users to enter "normal" spaces in Sigil's Book View is a recipe for disaster. Always has been. The damage that will be wreaked on a document by allowing normal spaces to be entered in Book View far outweighs any minimal damage that using nbsps in place of normal spaces in Book View might cause.

How so?

I would think that having an nbsp between every two words in a sentence would potentially cause more damage than having the rare double space collapse into a single space.

And if one needs a double space, it is easy enough to switch to code view to add two nbsp's. Considering how ubiquitous a single space is compared to the odd time one needs a double space, I'm not sure how the choice made causes less damage.

IMHO, it seems more sensible to add a line or two to the guide about how to ensure one's (rare) double spaces than it is to assume users are incapable of doing so and thus automating all spaces in book view.

[eschwartz]

Because it is assumed that people don't draft the book in Sigil.
And because Book View is a WYSIWYG editor. And   is very much a WYSIWYG symbol.


  will preserve the look&feel as expressed in the Book View edit, conforming to one (the most likely IMHO) interpretation of intent.
Using regular spaces means that WYSIWYG fails.

[eggheadbooks1]

Just upgraded to Sigil 9 and this adding of nbsp's for a single space while in book view no longer happens. It only adds an nbsp when the user creates a double space. (So it was a bug.) Glad I can go back to editing text in Sigil in book view.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by eggheadbooks1

Just upgraded to Sigil 9 and this adding of nbsp's for a single space while in book view no longer happens. It only adds an nbsp when the user creates a double space. (So it was a bug.) Glad I can go back to editing text in Sigil in book view.

It wasn't a bug, it was deliberate and intended functionality going back to the earliest Sigil versions.

[eggheadbooks1]

Guys,

Sigil adds an nbsp when one types in a DOUBLE space. But for some reason, on the last version, when typing in book view Sigial was adding an nbsp for EVERY space, resulting in, for example:

Book view: See Jane run. See Dick run.

Code view: See Jane run. See Dick ru n.

That was not normal or intended. It was a bug that seems to have corrected itself. Maybe it was associated with Windows 64bit, I don't know. But upgrading has solved the problem.

In any case, there's another bug in the new version, but I'll start a different thread.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by eggheadbooks1

Guys,

Sigil adds an nbsp when one types in a DOUBLE space. But for some reason, on the last version, when typing in book view Sigial was adding an nbsp for EVERY space, resulting in, for example:



That was not normal or intended. It was a bug that seems to have corrected itself. Maybe it was associated with Windows 64bit, I don't know. But upgrading has solved the problem.

Probably a change in the underlying QPlainTextEdit class in Qt5. I can assure you that no changes were made within Sigil to address this.

Originally Posted by eggheadbooks1

In any case, there's another bug in the new version, but I'll start a different thread.

That one's not a bug in Sigil either.

[eggheadbooks1]

Probably a change in the underlying QPlainTextEdit class in Qt5. I can assure you that no changes were made within Sigil to address this.

Fair enough. Not Sigil. But I'm just a user, not a programmer, so if it's happening in Sigil, it's just Sigil to me.