
Sigil – A free, open-source, multi-platform eBook editor - bryanrasmussen
https://github.com/Sigil-Ebook/Sigil
======
thomascgalvin
I prefer markdown -> pandoc -> epub. That way I can use whatever editor I
like, _and_ I'm not stuck editing HTML by hand.

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Phenix88be
I m really frustrated that I can't find a single screenshot of your
application. Nothing on Github or the official website.

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captn3m0
I took a screenshot:
[https://i.imgur.com/tdCGcqS.png](https://i.imgur.com/tdCGcqS.png)

I've used it in the past, and it is quite decent.

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hombre_fatal
What are the puzzle pieces at the top for?

Reminds me of a similar looking UI contraption I saw recently:
[https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/1704/images/921/92...](https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/1704/images/921/921-1548064715-683451220.jpeg)
(the multicolored database icons at the top)

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captn3m0
Quickly-running plugins. I haven't used them, but it seems like a important
aspect of the editor. Here's the plugin preferences window:
[https://i.imgur.com/HAtJ5ej.png](https://i.imgur.com/HAtJ5ej.png)

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andrewla
I haven't played much with any of this stuff, but one thing that I'm curious
about is what is the advantage of having a container format like this, rather
than just having a single giant HTML file (with embedded CSS & data: uri
images)?

For editing this would be ridiculous, but for transport and presentation it
seems much more compact and useful. It is easy to target as an output format
for a variety of tools, without understanding a bunch of quirks of the format.
It would be easier to render, since the application has to make all the
decisions about where to place content and support reflowing anyway.

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hombre_fatal
An .epub is already what you describe; it's a .zip of .xhtml, images, and
supporting files you edit directly seen in the sidepanel:
[https://i.imgur.com/tdCGcqS.png](https://i.imgur.com/tdCGcqS.png)

An ebook editor just entails helping you edit those .xhtml files in a slightly
more domain specific way, generating a few extra files (like table of
contents), and producing the distributable zip.

Though I may have misunderstood which "container format" you were referring
to.

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andrewla
No, what I'm describing is a single .html (or .xhtml file, if you like),
compressed and sent on its way. Editing it as a series of xhtml, css, img, and
manifest files makes perfect sense -- it allows a human to craft a book using
the level of tooling that makes the most sense for them (from a word document
to raw html to markdown to more sophisticated tools) but all of those tools
can then retarget to a monolith that is easy to define and consume.

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hombre_fatal
One big file is hard to handle. Ereaders choke on them just like the browser
does.

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andrewla
They do; probably xhtml/XML is not really an ideal format because it isn't
easily linearalizable, but if ereaders are using a reduced set of the
functionality, then they can probably safely assume that they can just split
the file at a <p> or <mpb:chapter> tag without loss of fidelity, and just
consider that all style-related content needs to occur in <head>.

My comment below has some remarks on pagination and reflowing that mean that a
reflowable HTML file capable of being rendered by an ereader is likely subject
to certain restrictions on the content to make it work. There would probably
have to be a one-time indexing job (noting paragraph and chapter breaks to
allow random-ish access into the file) but I think that's not crazy even for a
very large document.

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wegs
What's the best eBook reader? I'm getting fed up with Amazon, and I'd like to
have some kind of clone of the Kindle. Key thing is SaaS -- I'd like my
reading positions, notes, etc. to sync between machines and available through
a web interface.

Glad to pay a modest amount for hosting on AWS or similar, if I'm in control
of my data. Not so glad to do another corporate lock-in.

~~~
popup21
Thorium Reader is an absolute pleasure to use. Open-source and regularly
updated.

[https://www.edrlab.org/software/thorium-
reader/](https://www.edrlab.org/software/thorium-reader/)
[https://github.com/edrlab/thorium-reader](https://github.com/edrlab/thorium-
reader)

~~~
onyva
Is it more than just an ePub reader? You really feel it’s justified to spin-up
an electorn app (!!!) to read an ePub? I use Emacs’ nov.el or Foliate which
are not only low on resources but also instantaneous to open files.

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ognarb
I have a bad news for you, recently I was interested in how could I write a
good QML/Kirigami based ebook reader and looked at all the existing Linux epub
reader and each one was using a webview for the epub rendering. But they
usually try to integrate better with the rest of the app and your DE so you
just don't see it.

EDIT: the only epub reader I know that doesn't use a webview is Okular and the
rendering using QTextDocument basic html support is horrible.

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xbmcuser
Koreader and coolreader both based on crengine and dont use webview. Koreader
devs forked crengine and now seem to be in the process of merging back.
[https://github.com/koreader/koreader](https://github.com/koreader/koreader)
[https://github.com/buggins/coolreader](https://github.com/buggins/coolreader)

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amzil
What's the value of your tool over using asciidoc tools
[https://github.com/asciidoctor](https://github.com/asciidoctor) ?

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captn3m0
It's WYSIWYG, and I can edit existing EPUB files, which is always nifty.

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formerly_proven
Is it, though?
[https://i.imgur.com/tdCGcqS.png](https://i.imgur.com/tdCGcqS.png) Doesn't
look like WYSIWYG to me.

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GiorgioG
The WYSIWYG view/editor has been removed:
[https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4020780&pos...](https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4020780&postcount=2)

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bartvk
Wonderful. It even supports dark mode. If you want to try and install it under
macOS, simply type:

    
    
      $ brew cask install sigil
    

If you don't have homebrew installed, go to [http://brew.sh](http://brew.sh)

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jesselawson
Sigil has been around for a while. I used it a few years ago to typeset a sci-
fi novel I published through Amazon KDP. Unfortunately it was not as easy for
me to use as Apple Pages, which supports saving to ebook directly.

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amzil
what is the value of your tool over AsciiDoctor
([https://github.com/asciidoctor](https://github.com/asciidoctor)) ?

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wingi
Is John Romero informed?

