Calibre just destroyed my hard drive data

[speakingtohe]

I think it is you who is lacking in manners. You hurled insults at me only because i criticised your program. The statements i made were truthful and I am understandably angry about what your program did to my data. Hurling insults at someone who has uncovered a serious bug in your program and has had data wiped because of it does not strike me as a smart thing to do. You should be using your time and energy to fix this problem.

Perhaps Kovid should fix your operating system as well. No software is idiot proof in my experience.

Kovid et al have been very reasonable in their replies considering the level of rudeness and abuse you are dealing out.

Even asking for replacement software recommendations in a calibre forum is nasty unless you are indeed unable to figure out google, or to ask this question in another mobile read forum.

Maybe you should ask for your money back I imagine you have donated thousands to be this angry over something that you inadvertantly did.

Helen

[user_none]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

I doubt that would help. If the OP cannot be bothered to read a single sentence, what are the chances he will scroll down a list of hundreds of files and figure out that he doesn't actually want the delete to happen?

I was was being facetious and referring to the current dialog.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by user_none

I was was being facetious and referring to the current dialog.

Ah

[Manichean]

[jgaiser]

Typical Microsoft Luser. The dialog box says "All" files in username\Desktop and he hits "Yes" anyway. There will be no satisfying this kind of user.

[dz1]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Sigh, I see you are just not going to accept that you made a mistake. I'll try to explain what you did to you one last time:

1) You chose your desktop as the calibre library
2) You then created a new library
3) You asked calibre to delete your old library, which was your desktop
4) calibre then asked you the following question:

All files from C:\Users\your username\Desktop will be 
                permanently deleted. Are you sure?

5) You clicked Yes.
6) calibre deleted, as it said it would, all the files in C:\Users\your username\Desktop
7) Then you decided to throw a hissy fit, in public.

Grow up.

So make any deleted files go to the recycle bin rather than having them permanently deleted. It's a simple solution that you should have thought of before, and it would have saved me a lot of aggravation if you had included such a simple safeguard in your program.

[netseeker]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

1) You chose your desktop as the calibre library
2) You then created a new library
3) You asked calibre to delete your old library, which was your desktop
4) calibre then asked you the following question:

All files from C:\Users\your username\Desktop will be 
                permanently deleted. Are you sure?

5) You clicked Yes.
6) calibre deleted, as it said it would, all the files in C:\Users\your username\Desktop
7) Then you decided to throw a hissy fit, in public.

Grow up.

I doubt that. Just try it. Create two libraries and switch between both. Then try to delete the currently used library. The deletion-dialog will ask you for the wrong library path. (It happens at least with my Calibre installation)

I have two libraries: One in my home directory (/home/netseeker/ebooks/) and one on my USB-drive (/media/Michas USB-Laufwerk/). While using the latter one and asking Calibre to delete it, it wants delete the wrong library directory. Also "rename library" will rename the wrong library.

[kovidgoyal]

You cannot delete the currently used library, since the currently used library does not appear in the delete libraries list.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by dz1

So make any deleted files go to the recycle bin rather than having them permanently deleted. It's a simple solution that you should have thought of before, and it would have saved me a lot of aggravation if you had included such a simple safeguard in your program.

The delete operation is meant to be permanent. That's a feature. Delete library is an action that is meant to be

1) rare, you do not typically delete libraries in daily use
2) permanent.
3) A library can potentially be many GB of data. It would take forever to move all the files into the recycle bin and IIRC recycle bins typically have a max capacity

If you delete individual books from a library, they will be sent to the recycle bin.

[montsnmags]

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[netseeker]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

You cannot delete the currently used library, since the currently used library does not appear in the delete libraries list.

Don't you see any problem with that? In my case, both libraries are called "ebooks"...

/home/netseeker/ebooks/
/media/Michas USB-Laufwerk/ebooks/

(Well, i know: Same name = , though a program should expect that the user might be a DAU like me)

[kovidgoyal]

I actually spent a while worrying about users like you. However, in order to accommodate users like you, I would have to put in the full path (or atleast more of the path) in the menus. Which would make them much less usable for everyone else.

[kovidgoyal]

So that this thread does not go to waste, I've improved the confirmation dialog, see attached screenshot.


Any suggestions on how to make it even clearer are most welcome.

[MmavisO]

I think this is a great example of the old saying "You can please all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time. But you can't please all of the people all of the time." Kovid and all the other contributors to Calibre work very hard to make Calibre as useful and "pleasing" to as many people as possible. And they do a great job of it. But there is no way of pleasing everyone. If Calibre deleted to the recycle bin, it would, as Kovid pointed out, a) take forever and b) possibly fill up someone's recycle bin. This would "displease" a great number of people. Instead, they rightfully make the choices that will "please" the greatest number of people, including, as in this case, doing exactly what is promised--deleting the files permanently. And should a bug or other legitimate problem be posted, they do their best to resolve the problem, usually by the next weekly release. And all of this is for free. Even programs that are paid for don't often provide that level of service.

@kovid--I think the only way to make the confirmation dialog clearer would be to use bold and all caps on the "permanently deleted." But no matter what you do, the user has to actually READ the message, not just auto-click on it.And there's no way to ensure that.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Any suggestions on how to make it even clearer are most welcome.

Might some kind of audible alarm reinforce the warning? Although I wouldn't want that to happen for every single file delete.