Looking for Volunteers to help update Sigil Users Guide

[KevinH]

Hi All,

Our Sigil User's Guide is still at Sigil 1.9.10 level and there has been a number of gui and preferences changes since then.

I would like help from volunteers to bring the manual up to the level of the forthcoming Sigil 2.3.0 (which is in Beta now).

The bulk of the text is fine as is, but additions for new features like the tool to rebase opf manifest ids, a new Bookmark icon, changes to drop high dpi settings, the ability to add and link blank javascript files in BookBrowser, the new Find and Replace settings, new Focus moving menu items, and etc means many screenshots and some text will need to be changed and updated.

I will generate a list of the major changes since Sigil 1.9.10 and post them here.

Once I have done that I would love for people to volunteer to update one or more chapters of the User's Guide (like we did once before) by claiming them in this thread first - to prevent duplication of effort.

We will make a near final pre-release build of Sigil-2.3.0 for use by volunteers to use for screenshots.

Thank you in advance for anyone that volunteers to help update any chapter.

[KevinH]

This place reserved for list of new or changed features since Sigil 1.9.10:

Changes that probably need to be added to the Sigil Users's Guide

-  use of new template files:
    user-template*.xhtml, user-template*.css, cover-template*.xhtml

- ability to cycle through 2 different custom stylesheets (or none) for Preview with an icon click, and where to put those custom Preview css files

- use of Print and Print Preview for xhtml and image tabs, a Sigil's Preview

- document new Preferences to set the Print DPI

- ability to add and edit descriptions for each Checkpoint made

- document the location of Sigil's temp and working files inside the Sigil Preferences folder in the "workspace" folder.

- document new and existing Environment variables, perhaps in a new environment variable chapter, picking up the existing ones and adding the following new ones:
    SIGIL_ALLOW_CODEVIEW_DROP,
    SIGIL_USE_FREETYPE_FONTENGINE
    SIGIL_PREVIEW_TIMEOUT
    SIGIL_DISABLE_NFC_NORMALIZATION

- document the ability to embed a PDF in an epub (supported by ADE and other EPub3 readers) with screen caps

- new menus for advanced keyboard navigation:
    P - &Plugin accelerator
    K - Chec&kpoint accelerator
    Focus On * (one of the qdockwidgets)
    Use of tab to shift focus and (shift tab / backtab)

- document new Accessibility features and their Preferences
    Show Focus Rectangles
    Double Width Cursor

- document new live switching of Dark to Light Mode on Windows and Linux to feature match MacOS, and associated Preferences changes.

- document changes in Find Replace, new Targets
    Selected SVG
    Selected Javascript
    Selected Misc XML files

- document changes in Find and Replace - new regex flag Unicode Proerty (*UCP)

- document changes in Find and Replace using hex to specify unicode: \x{hhhh}

- document that the new max is 60 clips for the new Clips toolbars (30 per bar)

- document the removal of the HighDPI Preference settings.

- document the new Bookmark icon and its toolbar location in screen capturesand text

- document the new epub tool to rebase all manifest ids on current filenames with screen caps of the opf tab  before and after

[KevinH]

I did not realize the list of changes was so long, but the biggest changes will happen in chapters on Preferences, Find and Replace, Advanced Find and Replace, User Interface, and in most of the images needing to be updated.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!

[KevinH]

Okay for those interested in helping bring the Sigil Users Guide up to date with the latest feature set (see 2 posts above) for the forthcoming Sigil 2.3.0 I have posted CI built Beta2 builds of today's master here:

https://github.com/kevinhendricks/Bu...nMac/releases/

The 3 files are:

Sigil-2.3.0-Beta2-Windows-x64-Setup.exe

Sigil.app-2.3.0-Beta2-Mac-arm64.tar.xz

Sigil.app-2.3.0-Beta2-Mac-x86_64.tar.xz

FYI: As these are Beta2 builds, none of them are signed but they are created by our own Github test build code via github actions.


So what I am looking for is that each volunteer to claim a single chapter at a time from our Sigil User Guide, reading it over and looking at the list of new features in the post 2 above and adding/modifying that chapter to include anything thing from that new feature list that might be relevant to their chapter. Updating any screenshots if needed.

Then upload just the changed chapter files and any images in a zip archive and attach it in a post in this thread.

Many chapters will hopefully not need any updating at all. Some will just need new screen capture images.

I will then collect all changed chapters and any support files and update them in the Sigil Users Guide itself.

Many thanks in advance for any help. Keeping up the Sigil Users Guide is very important but we just do not have enough volunteer time to handle that and create new code, releases, and features for Sigil. So any help will be welcome.

Thanks!

[KevinH]

The very latest Sigil User Guide can be downloaded from here:

https://github.com/Sigil-Ebook/sigil...tag/2022.05.17

[KevinH]

I have created a new "Advanced Topics" chaptersw with sections on the following topics:

1. Sigil's Environment Variables
2. Using Sigil's Template Files
3. Using Preview's Cycle Custom CSS
4. Embedding a PDF into an Epub with Working XHTML FallBack

I have attached the new chapter here in case anyone wants to improve upon it or extend it.

[odamizu]

Does the cover template work the same as the user-template*.xhtml and user-template*.css templates? If so, I can take the add_cover chapter.

That may be as far as my abilities go, though, as the rest of the updates are things I don't understand

[User_Z]

>Then I think we probably should create a new "Advanced Chapter" with sections on the following topics:

In my translation of the user guide, I also added the sections "How to change the appearance of the buttons in the Find & Replace window?" and "How to recover an EPUB file after a crash?" - this one is in PDF format.
(Thanks to BeckyEbook for the clarifications and advice.)

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by odamizu

Does the cover template work the same as the user-template*.xhtml and user-template*.css templates? If so, I can take the add_cover chapter.

That may be as far as my abilities go, though, as the rest of the updates are things I don't understand

Yes, it does.

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by User_Z

>Then I think we probably should create a new "Advanced Chapter" with sections on the following topics:

In my translation of the user guide, I also added the sections "How to change the appearance of the buttons in the Find & Replace window?" and "How to recover an EPUB file after a crash?" - this one is in PDF format.
(Thanks to BeckyEbook for the clarifications and advice.)

Yes if there are English versions of both, they would be good things to add to an Advanced Chapter.

[User_Z]

>Yes if there are English versions of both, they would be good things to add to an Advanced Chapter.

I am not a native English speaker, so I will not translate.
If anyone is interested, I can send a text file with the code of these sections and additional files.

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Yes, it does.

Okay, I can do the add_cover chapter if no one more knowledgeable wants to claim it.

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by odamizu

Okay, I can do the add_cover chapter if no one more knowledgeable wants to claim it.

It is yours. Thank you!

[KevinH]

@odamisu,

I forgot that the cover template uses PLACEHOLDERS that are not used elsewhere in the template files.

This is pretty obscure so I have added a new chapter to the sigil-user-guide called advanced_topics.xhtml that has a section on this cover-template*.xhtml and its PLACEHOLDERS and many other things.

So the best way for you to deal with this is in add_cover.xhtml might be to just mentions that using your own cover template file is possible and putting a link to the "advanced_topics.xhtml" chapter.


(ps I posted a preview of this advanced_topics chapter in one of the earlier posts)

Thanks!

Kevin

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by User_Z

>Then I think we probably should create a new "Advanced Chapter" with sections on the following topics:

In my translation of the user guide, I also added the sections "How to change the appearance of the buttons in the Find & Replace window?" and "How to recover an EPUB file after a crash?" - this one is in PDF format.
(Thanks to BeckyEbook for the clarifications and advice.)

FYI, there is a simpler way to handle the Find and Replace buttons in case you are at all interested that does not require qss changes at all:

Simply edit your sigil_v6.ini file and add the following line to it under [find_replace]

frbuttonstextonly=true