Sigil-2.1.0 Released

[st_albert]

First of all, Thanks to you developers for all the work you do.
I have one comment related to building Sigil on Kubuntu 23.10, which still uses Qt 5.15.10, and might apply to the next version of Kubuntu shortly to be released, 24.04, and then another question requesting your advice. So here goes:

My system is Kubuntu 23.10 (Mantic Minotaur) and the system installed Qt is 5.15.10 as specified above.

When building Sigil 2.1.0, following the instructions in ~/sigil-2.1.0/docs/Building_on_Linux_older.md, as I always do, I executed the instructions to install the required and optional system dependencies. All required and optional packages had already been installed.
However, cmake failed because libqt5svg-dev was not installed. After I installed it, everything worked as expected. So maybe that package should also be listed in the instructions.

Second question: Given that the next upgrade of (K)ubuntu to 24.04, which is a long term support release, still seems to include Qt 5.15.x as far as I know (only looking at pre-Beta builds, but no hint that the final release will be 6.x that I can see), would you recommend going ahead and installing Qt6x, (which is in the repositories now), or just waiting until it finally shows up in the distribution?

Thanks again for your work!
Albert

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by st_albert

However, cmake failed because libqt5svg-dev was not installed. After I installed it, everything worked as expected. So maybe that package should also be listed in the instructions.

Yes QtSvg was a very recent addition as a requirement for Sigil. You are right we should add it to the build docs.

Second question: Given that the next upgrade of (K)ubuntu to 24.04, which is a long term support release, still seems to include Qt 5.15.x as far as I know (only looking at pre-Beta builds, but no hint that the final release will be 6.x that I can see), would you recommend going ahead and installing Qt6x, (which is in the repositories now), or just waiting until it finally shows up in the distribution?

I personally recommend going with Qt6 if at all possible. As Q5.15 is quite old and fixes are being delayed for over a year, and support for new platforms will not be backported to Qt5.15 anymore.

In addition, I no longer make Qt5 based releases, so it is not tested as much as Qt6 releases.

We think Qt 6.6.2 or Qt 6.6.3 are really quite stable. So if they are available to you, I would go that way.

[DiapDealer]

Also note in our sticky post in July of last year: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=355274

We understand that this change may leave users of older Linux, Mac, and Windows machines behind. So we plan to keep the Sigil and PageEdit source code buildable using Qt5 on older platforms for at least the next year, but leave producing those release binaries up to interested parties.

That one year window is quickly closing. We're obviously not going purposely break Qt5 compatibility come July (and we'll try to fix any simple oversights that accidentally break building with qt5 if we can). But make no mistake: there will come a day when keeping the latest tagged versions of Sigil/PageEdit's code base compatible with both Qt5 and Qt6 will be more trouble than it's worth.

[st_albert]

Originally Posted by KevinH

I personally recommend going with Qt6 if at all possible. As Q5.15 is quite old and fixes are being delayed for over a year, and support for new platforms will not be backported to Qt5.15 anymore.

Thanks, KevinH and DiapDealer, for your advice and encouragement. It was an interesting challenge figuring out all the bits and pieces of Qt6 that were needed to keep cmake happy, but I now have both Sigil and PageEdit up and running on Qt 6.4.2, not to mention a new skill: reading between the lines of cmake's error messages (which are very helpful, don't get me wrong).



Albert

[KevinH]

Glad to hear you have it working!

[graycyn]

Any issues with just installing v2.1.0 over Sigil v1.70 or should I uninstall the old first?

[DiapDealer]

There wouldn't be any problem installing over top, but I usually recommend uninstalling the old version first on Windows. Mostly for neatness. Some older libraries might not be removed if newer ones are being installed. I've never had it cause any problems--i just don't like old, unused files lying about taking up space. Regardless of which way you go, existing plugins and preferences will be retained (that's provided you use the uninstaller and don't manually delete anything).

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

There wouldn't be any problem installing over top, but I usually recommend uninstalling the old version first on Windows. Mostly for neatness. Some older libraries might not be removed if newer ones are being installed. I've never had it cause any problems--i just don't like old, unused files lying about taking up space. Regardless of which way you go, existing plugins and preferences will be retained (that's provided you use the uninstaller and don't manually delete anything).

Works for me, getting on it. I tend to be horrid at keeping Sigil updated on a regular basis, but it seems time, LOL!

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by graycyn

Works for me, getting on it. I tend to be horrid at keeping Sigil updated on a regular basis, but it seems time, LOL!

Note that moving from 1.7 to 2.1.x will result in your ini files being migrated to v6 versions for Qt6, but the originals will be retained should you need/want to roll back.

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Note that moving from 1.7 to 2.1.x will result in your ini files being migrated to v6 versions for Qt6, but the originals will be retained should you need/want to roll back.

Updated this AM, all seems well so far! Thanks for your advice and help!