Quote:
Originally Posted by bounce
... so what I'm curious about is what advantage does its library management offer over a well maintained file structure of folders?
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Calibre is a powerful database disguised as a nice GUI. So you can make more complex searches than with manually maintained structure of folders. You can have saved searches and you can do many compex things just by clicking.
Wherever possible Calibre authors have given us possibility to fully harness the power of underlying Python interpreted language, so in many places you can use powerful Regular Expressions instead of simple strings.
When you change author name in Calibre it adjusts its folders and metadata. In file structure you have to do all that change manually.
In calibre you can do complex replacements using Regular Expressions - extremely powerful tool.
Calibre can download metadata and covers automatically from the net. This is wonderful functionality. And you can search using those tags and metadata.
You have "cower flow" browsing, using covers automatically downloaded from the net. It is like browsing covers in a shop or library.
You can select any number of books using various criteria and have Calibre to make "Catalog" of those books. Catalog is a very nice e-book listing authors, titles, series, tags, covers, metadata, all very nicely hyperlinked against each other. You load those books to your e-book reader and then load the catalog, so you have a VERY nice catalog of your books available on your device.
You can use "export to directory" function and have Calibre to create almost any imaginable file and directory structure. You can use "plugboards" to perform many things on exported books.
You can use Calibre built-in web server and browse your entire collection from a netbook, pda or e-book reader with WiFi within your LAN. If you have static IP you can browse your collection from any Internet connection.
Then there are Plugins. Do have a look. Using plugins you can do many things automagically. You press a keyboard shortcut and a browser opens one of many sites that can be used for looking up details about an author or book title or cover or whatever with all the data filled in. There are also unofficial plugins, not available for download through Calibre interface, that can be used for example for removing DRM (strictly for archiving/backup purposes
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There are many other interesting features, but you asked specifically about Library Management.