Calibre Version 1.0 Released After 7 Years of Development 193
Calibre is a feature-laden, open source e-book manager; many readers mentioned in light of the recently posted news about Barnes & Noble's Nook that they use Calibre to deal with their reading material. Reader Trashcan Romeo writes with some news on its new 1.0 release, summing it up thus: "The new version of the premier e-book management application boasts a completely re-written database backend and PDF output engine as well a new book-cover grid view."
Thanks Kovid! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thanks Kovid! (Score:5, Insightful)
So what? Nobody held a gun to his head and forced him to work on it.
Sorry to feed the troll, but this one's amusing. I enjoy the implication that only work performed at the barrel of a firearm should be rewarded.
Re:Thanks Kovid! (Score:5, Funny)
He's analyzed the economic climate and has a very forward looking view of employment conditions in the near future.
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I don't.
But then I don't believe in our current system of labour and government...which is exactly how it works...
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Re:Thanks Kovid! (Score:4, Interesting)
Why would that be?
Some unrelated third party makes the observations that the developer is actively improving an already great program and giving it away free to the world, and that such generosity is deserving of reward in its own right. ( Incidentally this is the basis of a traditional gift economy - where people don't buy stuff, it's given free as a gift, and whoever gives the best gifts is the most likely to receive good gifts in their turn. )
If that observation discourages you from gifting the creator then I would venture a guess that you were unlikely to give such a gift to begin with, and that someone drawing attention to your selfishness aggravates latent feelings of guilt, which you defend against with hostility.
Re:Thanks Kovid! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Thanks Kovid! (Score:4, Informative)
if the author wanted to be rewarded for his work he should charge be charging a fee for the program. Simple as that.
It's only "simple as that" if one has knowledge of only one economic model and is unaware of the studies showing higher overall revenue via the model Kovid is using (effectively executed, of course).
Re:Thanks Kovid! (Score:4, Insightful)
I used to think that when I first ran Calibre. It was kind of ugly (no, scratch that - it WAS ugly) to my eyes. It still isn't pretty, but I got over that. Then I stopped looking at it and started using it for its intended purpose: managing ebook libraries and manipulating ebooks. I discovered that the user interface made pretty good sense - I spend a little time learning it, discovered it was quite efficient at what it did, and developed a workflow that fit with what Calibre could do. Now when I sit down and use Calibre, the UI fades away and work gets done. To me that is the hallmark of a good tool - it gets out of your way and lets you get things done.
Calibre may not conform to the "it must look like every other application" model of user interface design, but it is an effective tool nonetheless. It is certainly nowhere near Blender (http://www.blender.org/) in the CUICM (Custom User Interface Confusion Matrix). Give it a chance. It's the best FLOSS tool out there at what it does.
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that is the tragedy and beauty of Calibre.
it *is* amazingly good at what it does. there really is nothing else that does anything close to what it does.
but Calibre's user interface is shit, and the main programmer thinks his expertise in ebook formats makes him an expert in everything else (including user-interfaces, sending email, how to use http/https proxies, security and more).
he really is an expert in ebook formats. probably one of the world's leading experts in the field.
sadly, he's not an expert - o
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Fun fact: "calibre" means "gun" in French ^^
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Calibre in French refer to the diameter of the gun barrell/size of the shells.
Works for guns, battletanks, howitzer... not sure for self proppelled stuff though.
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Certainly not a Librarian.
Awesome program (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been using this program for over a year first in Windows XP and now in Lubuntu and it's really really good to manage books on my Kindle Paperwhite. There's even a quality check plugin that has an option titled "Fix ASIN for Kindle Fire" which fixes it so that the book cover actually shows up on my paperwhite instead of a generic one. :)
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It has one of the worst user interfaces I've ever seen.
terrible UI (Score:1, Insightful)
7 years and the UI is still shit.
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It may be slightly awkward at first sight, but if someone doesn't perfectly get used to it in seven years, that's probably not the program's fault...
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You obviously have never used Adobe Digital Editions.
Re:terrible UI (Score:5, Interesting)
UI is confusing, to say the least. But that's not my issue with it, it's UNBELIEVABLY slow to click around.
Addressing that second point first: I've been using Calibre for a couple of years, and the new 1.0 release is *much* faster than any of the earlier versions.
As to the "confusing UI", I just don't see how. It seems as straightforward as it can possibly be, unless there's some API I haven't heard about that somehow divines your intentions by reading your subconscious brainwaves.
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Why won't it automatically create a directory if it doesn't exist?
It did for me. (Linux version.)
When I click the button, it opens my web browser to the Calibre web site. Why doesn't it just update directly in the application itself?
You appear to be overlooking the fact that Calibre is a cross-platform application, and the fact that a sensible OS might refuse to let you casually overwrite an application like that.
Why does it have to be a converter, library manager and reader in one?
I think you have to look at the history of the application [calibre-ebook.com] to answer that. I bought my reader device (a Sony PRS-T1) on the basis that it supports the widest range of formats, but now I generally try to only download ePubs. I usually prefer to use Sigil to edit ePubs, though Calibre copes surpris
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> I don't see why any sensible OS would refuse to "casually" overwrite files installed in a user accessible location that is owned by the very user who is logged in
Name a modern OS that stores executable programs in a user-writable location by default. Go ahead - try to go in and modify your Office application directory without administrator privileges. You can't. And for very good reason - that program *does* have security bugs, guaranteed. So if you open a hostile data file, and the application has
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Gah, last-minute mis-edit - the "Worse..." sentence should be at the end of the first paragraph, not the second.
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Who you calling kid, amateur? I've been programming computers since before Windows existed.
Check again - in order to install Office you need administrative privileges. And if you're using an account with unfettered administrative privileges on a day-to-day basis then you're the idiot. Modern Windows does have the nice feature that lets you temporarily escalate to administrative privileges, which lets you get most of the best of both worlds, but that's not quite the same thing, and introduces it's own nuis
Re: terrible UI (Score:2)
Umm...since when is /usr/bin writable by ordinary users in "any sensible OS?" (Or C:\
interesting timing (Score:2)
I purchased my first ebook reader just 8 days ago, (Sony PRS-T1 for $50) and installed calibre (0.9.18 is the version currently in the ubuntu repository) this morning, and I am very impressed with this piece of software, but a little intimidated by the interface, so I will look forward to testing out this new version.
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The GUI didn't change much between 0.9.x and 1.0.0, only a few minor changes.
pdf-epub (Score:4, Interesting)
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My main use case is actually the opposite! I have a Sony PTS-T2 and have found that the epub support is very finicky. Fortunately PDF support works much better, so I've taken to converting my epub files to PDF.
Calibre works great for this, and definitely one of the more user friendly open source programs out there.
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Doesn't PDF effectively lock the text flow and typesetting, making it impossible to change font size or type on the device?
Re:pdf-epub (Score:5, Informative)
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Yes, but you can tell it to size the pdf pages exactly to the size of your device's screen. So then the pdf fits perfectly onto the device, and there is no need to alter the flow of the text due to the width of the device.
Yes, that'll work for your particular current device, and if you're happy with it, fine. I'll note that polishing an epub is really easy with only basic knowledge of CSS, though. Sigil [google.com] is basically an IDE for epubs, and with it you can reformat an epub in minutes, most epubs only require slight changes to CSS. With an "official" plugin you can launch Sigil directly from calibre.
The epub is then usable as-is on most devices, and it is a very good source format if you want a fixed page format like PDF, or oth
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How is ePub support finicky? Sony has been in the ePub business for probably a decade now. Cant imagine they didn't have the format straightened out.
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I have a Sony PTS as well, and have indeed had bad luck with epub.
The core problem is there is no tolerance for error. One out of place tag or invalid character and it just explodes. This usually isn't a big deal for professionally made ebooks, but a lot of not-so professionally made ebooks have minor mistakes in the markup, and while web browsers have been dealing with these gracefully for years, the Sony ereader seems to just throw it's hands in the air and give up.
I too tried converting to PDF as a way a
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That sucks. I had 2 Sony readers. The PRS-505 would reset itself if it came across errors in an ePub. Hadn't had similar issues on the PRS-650. Figured they took care of it.
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The 'o' must have been from a language character encoding the reader doesn't support. I'd see weird chars replace half the letters of a Polish newspaper source I'd download using Calibre.
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I confess I'm been really pleased with my PRS950. Works great.
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The epub thing is frustrating because other than that, I love mine as well.
It's the right size, weight, the touch screen is nice and responsive, it's got physical buttons for turning the page, and I love the lack of gimmicks (or at least that they are well hidden).
I've been hoping they'd put out an update to make the parser a bit less fragile, but I think at this point it's a lost cause.
Re:pdf-epub (Score:5, Informative)
This has let me fix over-large graphics, incorrect page breaks, constant spelling problems from the OCR, and font problems.
~~
PDF is problematic by design (Score:3)
PDF is generally problematic. One of the reasons is that PDF is pre-formatted with hard line breaks which have to be eliminated to get dynamically flowed paragraphs, and it is quite impossible for a machine to perfectly know without understanding the context whether a specific re-flow is in order or not.
That said, I find the PRS-T2's built-in PDF reflow feature, while far from perfect, better than the PC based conversion solutions I happened to look at so far. I always try to get a "native" epub version of
Awesome! (Score:5, Informative)
Full disclosure: I'm drunk and I'm always more generous when I'm drunk.
Also, you should see The World's End - great movie.
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Full disclosure: I'm drunk and I'm always more generous when I'm drunk.
Same here, but my mod points just expired. Someone want to get this ./er a drink and a +1?
My experience with it. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been using it for format conversions since I got my Kindle and though I have no need for it the reading and library features I'm sure they are adequate.
The one thing that bothers me, as is often the case with open source software, is the interface is a mess of icons in various colors, styles and questionable relation to the functions they're trying to represent.
I guess it's just another case of a developer not being a designer and making his own icons or accepting a patchwork of contributions from various people, but it would be nice if there was one consistent style throughout.
Hell, I might even consider using it for managing and transferring my ebooks if I felt more comfortable with the interface.
Re:My experience with it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Give it time, the interface grows on you. And having the same interface on Linux and Windows is worth learning what the icons mean. (hover works)
Nobody has mentioned that it the ability to send ebooks to your android without cabling up, sucking down newspapers or other periodicals and pushing them to your devices so you can read on the plane, or serving ebooks to your whole household for download via a simple web browser. Or managing multiple ebook libraries, so you can keep the kids books out of your books and vise versa.
I think it looks complicated, because it has a lot of power, but if you sit down and play with one feature a day, it becomes second nature.
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Another great feature is that you can share books by email. My Mom is a constant reader and I will hunt down books for her. I use Calibre to reformat them to .mobi and then can right click on the book and mail it to her kindle account. Works great! Calibre even lets me add a column to the main listing so that I can add a flag the lets me record that I sent the book.
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I was using Calibre the same way as you - for conversions (and to communicate with my Sony PRS-500 reader), exactly because of that unusual interface.
Nowadays I simply reconfigure the interface, using Preferences -> interface - > Toolbar.
I remove all icons from the toolbar and put the functions I want on the menubar.
Do not saw off the branch you are sitting on and first define the menubar, with a prefferences menu and only then remove the toolbar.
Calibre is extremely configurable and *very* powerfull.
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Calibre is extremely configurable
Some people think that's an excuse for having an appalling UI. "Hey, it might be a pile of shit, but you can choose the details of which bits of shit are displayed."
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Calibre is extremely configurable
Some people think that's an excuse for having an appalling UI. "Hey, it might be a pile of shit, but you can choose the details of which bits of shit are displayed."
OK, we get it, you hate the look and feel of calibre. On the other hand I hate the recent trend of giving everything a Web 2.0 look and removing easy access to as much functionality as possible. Let me know if you find some ebook management software which has half the functionality of calibre, half the stability, *and* a beautiful interface, while maintaining usability. I won't hold my breath.
I don't really get what in particular you complain about; if it is "waaaaah ugly" then I frankly can't be bothered t
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Design is not about how it looks. It's about how it works. And Calibre is a bag of features without any overarching design. For sure it's ugly and that's a bad thing. But it's not the reason for me criticising it's UI design.
This is not intended facetiously, "simple" (and not so simple) questions crop up all the time from the millions of calibre users, and there are a lot of helpful people to answer them.
You're arguing my case for me.
offering "simple" and "advanced" interface options has been brought up several times on the calibre forums, but has been rejected
And it would be rejected by me too. Optionally hiding UI elements does not make an ill thought out application into a good one. See Azeureus (Vuze) for the mess this gets you into.
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Design is not about how it looks. It's about how it works. And Calibre is a bag of features without any overarching design. For sure it's ugly and that's a bad thing. But it's not the reason for me criticising it's UI design.
My troll alarm is ringing its bells off... Oh well.
What do you mean by "overarching design", and how is lack of it a hindrance to you? Please be specific, don't just spout vague criticism. In fact, from your posts on this story you seem very similar to a guy who posted a few times on the forum with extremely vague (but very vocal) complaints about the "bad UX". When asked repeatedly by exasperated forum members, he was not able to communicate what, exactly, his problem with the GUI was. Obviously he didn't
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You clearly know Calibre has a bad UI, as you're not defending it directly. You're making excuses. That you care more about functionality, or that there's support available for people who can't work the UI out. Remember, any poster on a forum looking for advice on how to get an app to do something of which it actually is capable is a failure of the UI.
As to be being a troll. You've admitted that there are people on Calibre's own forums that say that. And I'm not the only one commenting on this Slashdot to s
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Sorry I'm not going to be specific.
Wow, what a surprice. Have a nice day :)
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In the right-bottom corner, uncheck all the buttons except the right-most one (with the icon of a tiles).
Here you go - a modern interface! Wasn't that hard to find too.
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If the icons really bother you so much, just take a peek in "Calibre2InstallDirectory/resources/images". You will find all icons used by Calibre there. Replace them with whatever you wish.
It's a shame because there could easily be a skin-pack applier interface for Calibre, since the icons etc. are individual files and not packed into the executable.
Proofread much? (Score:1)
3 lines is an article now?
Also, it's "its", not "it's". You would think an editor on an English-language website would have at least a rudimentary understanding of English grammar rules.
7 years in a cave! (Score:3, Funny)
He locked himself in a cave for 7 years to build this. Somebody should have told him that apps like these nowadays have a web based front-end. Doh! Back in the cave for another 7 years to make it web-based!
ps. I'm only kidding, kudos to him for making a very feature rich app and releasing it open-source.
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Excellent! One item of criticism: no library sync (Score:5, Informative)
Library sync is still a major problem, because it becomes virtually impossible once you start adding books to different libraries.
While calibre /can/ run in server mode, which in theory could very much eliminate the need for synchronizing libraries, the web frontend isn't quite as good as the normal calibre UI, so I don't like the option too much.
Right now, I'm keeping my primary calibre library on a netbook, I don't add books in any other library, and I synchronize other libraries by simply copying from the netbook.
That said, calibre is nevertheless THE all-in-one solution for everything I need to do with e-books, and it's truly excellent.
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"thus" (Score:1)
FTFY
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From the thesaurus on my laptop (see bottom):
thus
adverb
1 the studio handled production, thus cutting its costs: consequently, as a consequence, in consequence, thereby, so, that being so, therefore, ergo, accordingly, hence, as a result, for that reason, ipso facto, because of that, on that account.
2 all decent aristocrats act thus: like that, in that way, so, like so.
PHRASES
thus far thus far, we've avoided any unanticipated expenditures: so far, until now, up until now, up to now, up to this point, hithert
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Bad Grammar Nazi loses war: http://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=thusly [ahdictionary.com]
Android client? (Score:3)
I've used Calibre on my desktop for a few years - it was the best tool I could find, but it was frustratingly slow Version 1.0 seems to have that fixed I'm officially impressed.
What I'd like to do is access my (ever growing) library from my Android tablet (a Nexus 10 which I bought for its near-laser-printer screen resolution). I'm a real tight-arse when it comes to paying for software... but I'd pay for an application that gave me seamless access to read my Calibre library (on my LAN) from my Android device (with limited local storage).
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Like "Calibre Companion" ???
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Quite possibly... I might need to jump through some hoops to get this working on my LAN... but, on the surface, it looks as if it might be exactly what I need. Thanks. :)
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Just installed Calibre so I'll see how it works in regards to the number of files I have (380k+).
I think that might be quite taxing for calibre, in particular the import process *will* take a good many hours. I just tested importing 3930 books (novel length), it took about half an hour, so it seems that you look at at least two days of unsupervised imports. Then again, doing *anything* with 380k files is bound to take time :)
Look at partitioning your library into several libraries if you have logical ways of dividing your collection. calibre also supports something called virtual libraries [calibre-ebook.com] which I have
Okay, what about ZTerm? (Score:3)
Will it ever reach 1.0? I need to get to my BBS!
Brilliant App (Score:2)
Annotations, and long-term integrity of ebooks? (Score:3)
I'd love to use ebooks and get rid of all my paper, but my books contain a lot of valuable knowledge and I always have these two concerns:
1) Annotations: Is there a way to efficiently make annotations (roughly as quickly as a I can using paper), in a way that I'll be able to read 10-50 years from now?
2) Preservation: Will I be able to read and use the ebook at all in 10-50 years?
Obviously, these needs require a widely-accepted standard format and software that strictly observes it (i.e., doesn't subtly corrupt the format). For example, in the world of PDFs, there PDF/A format. Is there anything similar for ebooks?
Mod App Up (Score:2)
still no DjVu support (Score:2)
Re:Does it do custom folders? (Score:4, Interesting)
So far you had to import all of your files into calibre, it can't reference external files. So it is pretty much unusable for importing larger existing libraries, and you get locked in.
For me, I think this is a feature.
It ensures that no matter what plugins / convertors / bugs calbre has at the time, your original files don't get mucked up. So you can merge records, mess about with meta data, and not have to worry about losing anything.
The copies that are imported into calibre's own library folder are just that: plain copies. I don't get your point about "locked in". You're as locked in as you were with your original files. The directory layout may be different, but nothing gets obfuscated.
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You read lots of BIG picture books.
You have your OS installed on a small SD card and can't spare the space.
The books you read are so large that the text runs to multiple gigs per book and you are working off a small SSD.
The problem you're referencing was solved in the 90s. This design concept has been implemented in much more mainstream programs (iPhoto) and the world seems to be turning just fine so far.
Re:Does it do custom folders? (Score:5, Informative)
So far you had to import all of your files into calibre, it can't reference external files. So it is pretty much unusable for importing larger existing libraries, and you get locked in.
Almost everything you said is NOT true.
Import into Calibre is simply drag and drop, or select from a file browser, and you can keep your existing library. Once in Calibre the file are easily Exported. Further you can use them in place, right out of the Calibre directory, because the files stay in what ever format you wish.
You can even keep your ebooks in multiple formats, because it converts between multiple virtually flawlessly. It fetches covers and metadata and its just a joy to use.
I've dragged and dropped my entire ebook collection into it. Most of them I converted to epub, but in a few cases I retained the existing format as well. It handles it all. It has an export function that will export any given format, all formats, all formats with metadata and covers. Its just a stupendous piece of work. (Yeah, I sent him $50 some years ago).
There is no lock in. Its the most versatile program for ebook management I've ever seen.
And, yes, if you hunt around you will be able to find third party DRM removal plugins, so when your old DRM device dies, or your old format with DRM goes out of use, you can convert to almost any other format and leave the DRM behind.
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Yes, there is a lock-in.
Calibre can't use an existing file structure. All my books are organized into a genre->author directory hierarchy and Calibre will not use it. You're forced into allowing Calibre to manage your books.
Back in the early days at mobileread.com Kovid was asked to to include an file management opt-out feature like iTunes, and he was 'meh, code it yourself'. So yes, importing a large library into Calibre is a daunting task, and you're forced to work the way it wants you to work regardin
Re:Does it do custom folders? (Score:5, Insightful)
He realized tags made way more sense than odd-ball sorting into directories.
Any directory structure is a lock in, as soon as you realize it doesn't work.
So he added tagging with your tags or standard tags.
But For people who insist on organizing in some antiquated way he created Save to Disk settings where you can change the
order used when exporting. You can customize to create any sort of directory structure for your exported files.
So lock-in go Poof, vanished before your very eyes.
Further you can also create the custome structure when sending books to a device (e-reader), and guess what... It can be
different than you use for exporting. So when you find that your eReader doesn't support sorting by Genre, you
can change that back to something sensible.
Tagging is way better than structured directories. You can sort by any tag within Calibre, and output in any order you want.
There is no lock in.
(Its 2013. Tagging is where its at. Obscure Structured directories are so 1999.
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I love calibre for it's tools, but prefer how iTunes or XBMC handle my media collections. With iTunes (OS X) I check a box and it totally leaves management of my files alone, storing only metadata and file location in the database. It doesn't get in my way. XBMC doesn't even offer to manage my files; It builds a database of metadata only, including a link to the file in question.
I'm comfortable with a 1999 file directory hierarchy. It's easier to work with from a command line, I make sure my file/directory
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Its 2013. Tagging is where its at. Obscure Structured directories are so 1999.
Different needs, different uses. Directories are great for namespacing, foo/README.TXT is different from bar/README.txt. When the entire "work" is contained in a single file with an unique title (artist/title/album/series/season/episode) then I agree, tagging works better. Still, for anything that takes huge amounts of space (anything >10GB at least) I want to know where I keep it, in case I need to clear up my SSD, move HDDs or whatever. But for eBooks.... well the whole collection will fit in a tiny li
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True, but when it comes right down to it, you can just tag the set with a unique tag that is effectively the full path. To be truly equivalent you also need to tag them with each parent path as well unless you can search by partial tag names.
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First you realize that you aren't talking about an ebook.
Then you move on from there.
No clue what you just bought, but ebooks don't come on DVDs.
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This is fairly common for large multivolume ebooks to come in this format, a DVD with an index file and hundreds or thousands of pdfs. Springer does it for example.
That is not an "ebook", it's a library comprising thousands of ebooks. You wouldn't call the whole children section of your local library "a book containing thousands of books", would you?
Unless your goal is to confuse the issue (indeed it seems so when reviewing your post), it's generally useful to employ the same terminology everyone else uses.
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Now if I have all my other (thousands) of ebooks in a single folder
Really?
The mind boggles!
The discussion here is about people who sort their ebooks into non-standard directory structures, and complain
that Calibre does not work with those odd-ball structures. But it can import those ebooks just the same,
and it can export them back to what ever goofball structure you want.
But within its library it works with its own structure. And this is said to be a lock in.
Its clearly NOT a lock in since it will export back to your structure if you want.
This whole argument is the last
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Back in the early days at mobileread.com Kovid was asked to to include an file management opt-out feature like iTunes, and he was 'meh, code it yourself'.
That's not a bad response at all, calibre is open source. "Code it yourself" does not meant he would not accept the patch, it just means he does not feel like doing it himself, which is reasonable
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I agree. Kovid's awesome and I wasn't complaining about his response.
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This. Pretty much why I don't use my Mod points when I get them any more. I'm a daily /. reader, but even then, everything worth modding is already modded :( It's like the system hands out mod points to EVERYONE all on the SAME day, about ONCE a WEEK...
-Jar
Re: Does it do custom folders? (Score:3, Insightful)
You have no idea what lock in means, do you?
Re: Does it do custom folders? (Score:4, Informative)
In this case, it means that all files are only accessible through calibre and not through the file system.
Nonsense.
The ebooks in the Calibre library are store as common eBook formatted files, and can be accessed by simply looking for them with your file browser. You can search them with your desktop search facility, click them to open them for reading with your favorite ebook reader.
Because the files are simply FILES, you can point your favorite ebook reader at the directory and it works perfectly.
Please stop spreading fud.
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Well, you could have coded it yourself, or you could have paid someone to get it coded.
If he had said "I'll never let that into the code" that would have been different. But since he doesn't take money for it, he is under no obligation to add features he doesn't feel like putting in.
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You're forced into allowing Calibre to manage your books.
Why are you using an ebook manager if you don't want it to manage your ebooks?
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Import all your books into calibre and you'll be using Kovid's directory structure and file naming conventions unless you want to take the time to manually change everything back. After all that effort, you're pretty much locked in. Just because you can manually back everything out doesn't change that. It would be one hell of a task for a signifcant amount of books.
Re:Does it do custom folders? (Score:5, Informative)
"unless you want to take the time to manually change everything back."
Preferences -> Saving Books to Disk -> Save template. The default is {author_sort}/{title}/{title} - {authors}
Select All
Save to disk
I don't know the command line equivalent off the top of my head
Re: (Score:3)
You have a rather unusual understanding of the term "lock-in". I don't think that you'll find anyone who agrees with you.
Re: (Score:2)
...if you hunt around you will be able to find third party DRM removal plugins, so when your old DRM device dies, or your old format with DRM goes out of use, you can convert to almost any other format and leave the DRM behind.
I would recommend doing this before your device dies or the DRM goes out of use. Some formats require an active DRM server to decode against.
Re: (Score:2)
"Larger existing libraries" usually come with their own management software. If your private library has several thousands books, then it is not "large", it is small. "Large" libraries are in tens thousand and more.
Import into Calibre has only the effects: it copies the book into Calibre library (or any library you have configures/selected), it extracts the cover and it extracts the meta-data into OPF file. If you do not have library management software, the cover and meta-data extraction are the steps yo
Re: (Score:2)
Check out the toggle-buttons in right-bottom corner.
Check the "Cover Grid" and uncheck the "Cover Browser", "Tag Browser" and "Book Details". Looks better now?
The last touch: do not use the hideous right-click pop-up menu - but learn to use the buttons on the top. All the functions are there.