Sigil-0.9.5 Released

[KevinH]

This Sigil-0.9.5 release is a quick follow-up bug fix release to primarily address some regressions that had snuck into the code over the past two releases.

Bug Fixes

• Fix regression when ImportHTML in gathering HTML based DC. metadata
• Fix regression - remove incorrect use of opf:scheme from dc:creator and dc:contributor under epub2
• Fix regression - the guide reference tag is always a void tag
• Fix issues with hunspell spell checking under Windows when non-ascii paths to dictionaries
• Fix issues with overridding the prefs directory on Windows with non-ascii paths
• Fix broken manual "Check" button on W3C stylesheet validation's generated html form.
• Fix media-type recognition for .m4a and .m4v file extenstions in main Sigil and plugin code
• Treat ruby and rt as inline tags when pretty-printing in Sigils and for plugins

Even our one new feature fixes a bug in which CSS version is used to validate CSS under epub3.

New Feature(s)

• Allow user to choose what level of CSS gets used in the "Validate Stylesheets
  With W3C" tool via user preference (General).

Be aware that Sigil-0.9.5 still enforces the need for epub3 to have and support an NCX so that it generates as backward a compatible epub as possible. This may be relaxed in future releases.

Sigil-0.9.5 like its predecessors passed all of the following tests for epub3 support: iframe, img, audio, video , mathml, svg (except for svg support in the spine), javascript, and of course recognizing and allowing html5 specific tags like section, and etc. Sigil-0.9.5 also supports javascript based local-storage and display of embedded pdfs.

Download Location
The official location for downloading this Sigil release (and all official releases) is:

https://github.com/Sigil-Ebook/Sigil/releases/tag/0.9.5

Downloading binaries from anyplace else is simply not a good idea as they could inject anything into their own downloads. After downloading, please verify the downloaded binary exactly matches what was originally posted by running an SHA 256 checksum on the file **before** installing it. See the file Sigil-0.9.5-CHECKSUMS.sha256.txt for the correct checksums for each file and instructions for how to calculate a SHA 256 Checksum for your download. The Mac OS X Package has also been code signed with my Apple Developer signature.

Linux Users
There are currently no binary releases available for Linux on the Sigil Release page. Please check with your favorite distro's software repositories to see if they have Sigil for installation via your OS's package management system. If not, there are build instructions for compiling Sigil yourself in the source archive's docs directory: https://github.com/Sigil-Ebook/Sigil/tree/master/docs

Don't forget the FlightCrew plugin
Please note, the epub2 validator FlightCrew has been converted to a plugin for Sigil 0.8.900 and later.

This plugin has been updated for Sigil-0.9.3 (and later). It can be downloaded from the official Sigil-Ebook flightcrew repository if you have not already installed it.

https://github.com/Sigil-Ebook/fligh...ases/tag/0.9.1


Attention Mac OS X Users
Per the recommendation of www.python.org (see https://www.python.org/download/mac/tcltk/), due to bugs and the age of Apple's internal Tcl library, you should also download and install ActiveState's ActiveTcl Community Edition. To get the latest bug fixes, Sigil-0.9.5's embedded Python has been linked with the very latest version: Tcl 8.6.4.1

We may *not* redistribute this Package with Sigil due to ActiveState's binary non-redistribution policy.

So please, if you have not already done so download and install this version of ActiveState's Active Tcl Community Edition, until we get a chance to do our own build of Tcl 8.6.4.1 from source for future releases. ActiveState is a primary contributor to www.python.org and a respected and trusted source for python and tcl/tk related binaries on both Windows and Mac OS X.

See: http://www.activestate.com/activetcl/downloads
Version: 8.6.4.1


Some Additional things

When you fire up Sigil for the very first time:

• navigate to the new General Preferences and select the default
  epub version you plan to work with (epub 2 or epub3) so that new
  empty ebooks start with the correct code.
  
• if you plan to work with epub3 epubs, you should change your
  PreserveEntities setting to use ONLY NUMERIC entities.
  For example use & # 1 6 0 ; for non-breaking spaces and etc.
  
• We strongly recommend enabling Mend On Open in your settings
  for best performance with Sigil

[pete6055]

Nice release! I’ve tested it and have had no problems. Thanks also for resolving the issue of CSS validation in such a democratic fashion – Choice always works for me.
In the next maintenance release can you look at:
1) Making it possible to copy /paste between the meta data editor and html files while both are open? This was the case before version 9.4.
2) Allowing the Case tools to function in the meta data editor? This would be a new feature.
Both are minor usability issues that can be put near the bottom of your list of priorities.
Thanks and best regards…

[KevinH]

Glad to hear it is working well.

Originally Posted by pete6055

1) Making it possible to copy /paste between the meta data editor and html files while both are open? This was the case before version 9.4.
2) Allowing the Case tools to function in the meta data editor? This would be a new feature.
Both are minor usability issues that can be put near the bottom of your list of priorities.

Sorry but the metadata gui dialog has become a modal dialog. The reason behind that was it allowed it to be built on the fly with an embedded python script doing much of the heavy lifting for epub3 (integrating in refines into the related dc meta tags and extracting them out again). This change also prevents a rare but nasty segfault due to Qt bugs when closing the MainDialog Window. It also prevents the user from editing the opf directly (or running plugins) while in the middle of metadata gui editing, all of which used to be potential issues in the past.

So that dialog will not be reverting to how it used to work. Copying to and from the clipboard still works. What exactly are you copying from an html file into the metadata gui editor and visa-versa, as the html metadata format is quite different than the opf metadata format? If you just want to copy pieces of an existing title page you can copy that page and paste into any other text app to grab before invoking the editor.

Also I am not sure what you mean by "let the Case tools to function in the metadata editor".

KevinH

[pete6055]

Hi Kevin,

Had I thought about it more, I might have realized that meta data conversion to a modal dialog would inhibit my copying and pasting to html while the dialog was still open. I also assume that's why the case buttons do not work within the meta data dialog, say on a copy from the clipboard into a title entry. Of course I can convert the case in the html before I copy the snippet into the meta data dialog.

Pete

[DiapDealer]

The uppercase/lowercase/titlecase buttons on Sigil's toolbar won't work in the Metadata editor because they only work on highlighted text in Book View/Code View. That's not likely to change.

What you CAN do is open the opf file in Code View (after you're done using the Metdata Editor) and highlight the metadata text you just created and use the Case Change buttons on the entries there.

[exaltedwombat]

All seems to be working well. Just one quibble. The Add Semantics page no longer indicates what semantic IS applied. Intentional?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

All seems to be working well. Just one quibble. The Add Semantics page no longer indicates what semantic IS applied. Intentional?

an aside
Balloon help (hover) over file name, still does

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

All seems to be working well. Just one quibble. The Add Semantics page no longer indicates what semantic IS applied. Intentional?

You can see the semantics if you move the mouse pointer over a file in the book browser.

[exaltedwombat]

So you can! That'll do.

[bookman156]

What's the purpose of adding semantics?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by bookman156

What's the purpose of adding semantics?

Identifies special parts of the book.

EG cover page and Cover image. If they are not declared, programs like calibre Add a New one, rather than updating

Same for inline the TOC Add vs Replace existing

[bookman156]

Originally Posted by theducks

EG cover page and Cover image. If they are not declared, programs like calibre Add a New one, rather than updating

I haven't had that happen in Calibre on the EPUB I'm working on, where no semantics are declared on anything. I thought the content.opf told the reader program what it needed to know anyway. But I gather semantics is making sure in certain readers?

[bookman156]

Oh, hang on, I see the cover image is semantically identified in my EPUB but not the cover page. Interesting.

[exaltedwombat]

"Cover" is required, for the page and the image. "Text" can affect which page is displayed when the file is first opened. It isn't universally recognized, but you might as well try! I don't think any of the others are noticed by a reader, as yet?

Those who only create ePubs for their own use on a known device may be able to ignore such things.

[bookman156]

Is it worthwhile identifying things like Bibliography, Glossary, Index? Nothing wrong with thinking ahead I guess.