[fidvo]

Originally Posted by smallhagrid

Fidvo, very few people understand that in the win-doze world, structure is key.
In the appleOS sector it is nothing at all; and in the Linux world - 'home' is all one needs to know, really.

As per the above, and as said before...until such time as I become a full-time Linux user, Calibre is a poor choice and as such - is dismissed.

My windows PC will not be entreated to becoming a trash can of dupes because of ANY application developer's idea of how things MUST be.

Fair enough. I mostly agree with you.

Originally Posted by smallhagrid

Once again I say:
Calibre violates the idea of being a database by enforcing it's own media storage idea.
This is not acceptable to me for use under windows - period.

Not sure how that violates the idea of being a database. In my opinion, a database that points to external files is more of a violation of being a database, because it's not entirely self-contained. The point of a database is that you don't have to go poking around in external files to view or maintain the data; it's all centralized.

But ignoring that argument because it's only tangentially related to the main subject, you prefer to keep your ebooks in a hierarchical file structure, and I can't really fault you for that.

Originally Posted by smallhagrid

This persistent smashing of Calibre into my face is highly disturbing; and it brings to mind folks who know ONLY 'iphone' and 'itunes'.

To that ilk I say:
Mediamonkey is a great program - it respects the user's choices about file structures and allows them to remain intact; it is very easy to get along with.

Too bad the ereader sector is shrinking instead of growing now - or maybe the Mediamonkey folks would have made a very similar application for use with ebooks.
But at this late date it is doubtful any such thing will happen at all.

Finally - for those who care nothing about data integrity, structure or having their own organizational structure, getting ever bigger hard disks is a great solution, and good for them, I say.

As for me - here is my 'library management' application of choice:
Windows Explorer.

My choices=> my files=> my media=> my stuff=> stored MY way=>
That facet of ebook 'management' is not what I posted about, and in regards to myself my data storage is handled according to MY personal choices/preferences and is NOT open to discussion. Thank you.

Believe me, I know where you're coming from. I'm the same way. When I first started using Calibre, I didn't like it for exactly the same reasons. I thought it was too itunes-like. I want to store the files in my own structure, thank you very much. I bought an off-brand ebook reader specifically because it was one of the only ones on the market at the time that stored books as files in a hierarchical directory structure that I could access through Windows Explorer. Same with my MP3 player. And don't even get me started on tablets.

So I'm definitely not one of those people "who know ONLY 'iphone' and 'itunes'."

Originally Posted by smallhagrid

Had I wished for advice in a 'library management' application, I'd have asked that specifically...but that is not what my posting is about.

My query is for a (preferably freeware) alternative for ebook file conversion functions - and my query remains unanswered as of this time.

Thank you.

Library management features aside, is there any reason why you can't use Calibre just to convert the files? Drag-and-drop into Calibre, convert, save to disk, delete from Calibre. That gets rid of the issue with having duplicates because those duplicates only exist for a few minutes at most.

That's how I get my ebooks into HTML format for manual cleanup before importing into my main library. I use a second library just for this task, which never has books in it except when converting.