Calibre facelift

[maara]

Thanks for your opinions. I must say that I am not one of the users who started to use calibre two weeks ago and now are lost - I downloaded and used this app more than year ago for the first time (probably it was one of early 0.7.x version) so I am not confused by the functionality of the calibre. I know exactly what the application can or can't do and how to achieve anything what I need with this piece of software. Maybe this is one of the reasons why I am calling for some ui improvements - I see more and more new features every week when the new version is released but the interface remains nearly the same ugly as it was in the time I started using it...
I know that some of you prefer the functionality more than the design... I do the same but hmmm....well...but this applies mostly for the console applications... The ergonomy and the functionality are bind together very tightly and its not correct to say "this app does what I need even it doesn't looks nice and the controls makes mostly no sense" - this is NOT the way how the software should be done... Its sad that calibre has been / is being done this way because this app has a big potential and I know a lot of people who stopped using it because of its user interface...

[speakingtohe]

Ahh, but the controls do make sense to me and your latest post seems a bit messy and very hard to understand.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Helen

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by maara

I know that some of you prefer the functionality more than the design... I do the same but hmmm....well...but this applies mostly for the console applications... The ergonomy and the functionality are bind together very tightly and its not correct to say "this app does what I need even it doesn't looks nice and the controls makes mostly no sense"

Pardon my ignorance, but could you explain to me what you mean by "this applies mostly for the console applications..."

Originally Posted by maara

The ergonomy and the functionality are bind together very tightly and its not correct to say "this app does what I need even it doesn't looks nice and the controls makes mostly no sense"

I agree. I appreciate this sentiment, but if you interpreted me as somehow saying this then I was misunderstood. In my opinion this app does what I want and provides me an understandable, completely customizable UI.

[maara]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Ahh, but the controls do make sense to me and your latest post seems a bit messy and very hard to understand.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Helen

I am sorry - its too early in the morning and I am not english native speaker so sometimes its a bit hard to explain my opinion...


Anyway - ok... May be you are comfortable with the UI but I am not and I don't feel shy for it. I know that Kovid is hard working on the app but its time to admit that he know how to make an application to work properly but he doesn't know hot to make it look more advanced. To say it without the rose - I don't like it, I think its crap and I think it should be reworked to not look as a children school project.... (I am not talking about the functionality - its all about the design of the application.....)
This thread leads nowhere if most of the people here will try to convince me that its in fact perfect - its not at least for me.....

[maara]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

Pardon my ignorance, but could you explain to me what you mean by "this applies mostly for the console applications..."

When you are programming an application and you spend so much time it mens that you really mean it and you want to make a really good piece of software. And as any other project it should be done complexly because you are releasing one application - not two applications (back end and front end)...
And as the application is complex, you should care about both - the functionality on the back and the design on the front.... Console applications are targeted for a specific segment of users and usage but when you make a gui app you should take in account that the gui is a part of your application and it should be as good as the background of your application because this is the way how the application interacts with the user....

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by maara

And as the application is complex, you should care about both - the functionality on the back and the design on the front.... Console applications are targeted for a specific segment of users and usage but when you make a gui app you should take in account that the gui is a part of your application and it should be as good as the background of your application because this is the way how the application interacts with the user....

Thank you for your explanation.

[itimpi]

The problem it is that is hard to come up with suggestions for a UI re-design that are:

• Agreed improvements over the current design.
  
• Actually implementable in a cross-platform manner. This may mean that some good ideas turn out not to be practical as Calibre runs on multiple OS.
  
• Interesting enough to the developers that they will contribute time to doing it. Since developers contribute their time for free this is an important factor.
• Can be done in an incremental way. With a program that is as large as Calibre, and develops new functionality so rapidly any approach chosen has to fit in with the current Rapid Development methodology.

One should not assume that the current developers are UI design experts, so this may mean that someone who is good at UI desgn needs to become interested enough to actually start putting significant effort into the Calibre project.

[user_none]

Originally Posted by itimpi

Can be done in an incremental way. With a program that is as large as Calibre, and develops new functionality so rapidly any approach chosen has to fit in with the current Rapid Development methodology.

Changes don't have to be incremental. Typically when one or two big massive changes are started they're worked on in a separate branch. Once they get close to being finished they're integrated (if possible) into the main branch as a option. Some beta's are put out and tested by users. At this point the old functionality (if it replaces something existing) is removed and a new release is made with an incremented middle version number. This is how the 0.X majore releases are handled.

Originally Posted by itimpi

One should not assume that the current developers are UI design experts, so this may mean that someone who is good at UI desgn needs to become interested enough to actually start putting significant effort into the Calibre project.

100% true and I want to put emphasis on significant effort. You don't have to know how to code just provide mockups and rational. It's going to turn into an argument as to why you're changes are better but if you can provide clear and valid reasons as to why the changes are a functional improvement or at least don't remove functionality then they will be accepted.

So far most threads I've read with suggestions for improving the GUI have ened with:

• The changes being platform specific (OS X only redesign).
• The changes removing functionality.
• The submitter not being able to provide as argument as to why the changes are a benefit.
• The submitter not being able to handle criticism and storming off in a puff.

That said there is currently work to redesign the Web interface and it appears to be going well. It has significant UI changes. No one is opposed to changing the UI for the better but "it's ugly" honestly isn't helpful.

[theducks]

@maara
There are tweaks that change portions of the UI

I like and use the one(s) from chaley for the Metadata edit;

2 column view for custom fields. << a Tweak
Edit metadata (single) << on behavior configuration

[kovidgoyal]

@maara: Lots of people have, very politely (far too politely in my opinion) asked you for specific improvements that you have to suggest. You obviously do not. Move on. You are wasting people's valuable time.

Let me emphasize, once again: Your suggestions must not remove functionality from the interface.

On a general note. I choose to believe that calibre's users are not children. They are capable of learning to do complex things and they appreciate the option to do so. That said, the basic use case of calibre, add a book, connect device, send to device is utterly simple, as evidenced by the millions of people that use calibre. calibre only becomes complex if you want to do complex things.

And finally, the calibre UI is an example of beautiful and careful design. It is design that allows you to do the tasks that you need to do with the minimum of effort. That design has been refined over years of specific feedback from people that use calibre.

About the only criticism of the UI that I'd agree with is that it lacks graphical effects like shading/rounded corners/translucency etc on windows and OS X, which gives it a "outdated" appearance.

[speakingtohe]

I am sorry - its too early in the morning and I am not english native speaker so sometimes its a bit hard to explain my opinion...


Anyway - ok... May be you are comfortable with the UI but I am not and I don't feel shy for it. I know that Kovid is hard working on the app but its time to admit that he know how to make an application to work properly but he doesn't know hot to make it look more advanced. To say it without the rose - I don't like it, I think its crap and I think it should be reworked to not look as a children school project.... (I am not talking about the functionality - its all about the design of the application.....)
This thread leads nowhere if most of the people here will try to convince me that its in fact perfect - its not at least for me.....

Not much in life is perfect and I do not say calibre is. But it is not crap and not like the work of schoolchildren. If it was even someone like you could possibly do better:P

You started this thread by complimenting calibre and you sounded like a nice person with some issues. Now you don't

Helen

[gweminence]

I've often thought that being able to skin Calibre would be useful, or at least interesting. However, it's so far from being an issue that would cause me to jump ship that I almost don't even want to post this reply.

[The Terminator]

I think all you are doing is insulting the Developers. And Calibre is not ugly in my opinion.

[beckywc]

Hey Kovid, on the title field can we get the option to word wrap. If the title is longer than the field can it wrap to a second line. That would be awesome.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by beckywc

Hey Kovid, on the title field can we get the option to word wrap. If the title is longer than the field can it wrap to a second line. That would be awesome.

Word wrapping a field means that different rows will have different heights, which in turn means that calibre would have to calculate the height for every row individually in order to layout the book list and that would cause performance to become unacceptable for larger libraries. Indeed, very old versions of calibre used to do this, but it was removed for performance reasons.