Suggestions for Calibre development

[scottklarr]

I hope this doesn't fall on deaf ears. Here are a few improvements that I think would really add to Calibre's usefulness.

1. Latest import view. List of books imported in this session. A nice addition feature would be to have items removed from view if they get edited.

2. Highlight & note manager. First off, the calibre viewer needs to have the ability of saving notes and highlights (if it already does, how?). These notes should be manageable & exportable, and you should be able to import from kindle mbp files (the current 'get annotations' feature is pretty much useless for anybody who makes more than just one or two highlights)

3. Function to search within ebook to auto-discover ISBN.

4. More user friendly cover image scraper? Perhaps give the user a list of multiple cover versions found online and allow them to select the best/right one.

5. A book cover browser that is more functional and less flashy than the current 3d flipbook cover browser. A simulated bookshelf would be 92133735463 times better.

6. Global search with paragraph context results. It would be amazing if Calibre could index all the ebooks so that you could quickly search your entire library and get search-engine styled results with the text surrounding found keywords.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by scottklarr

1. Latest import view. List of books imported in this session. A nice addition feature would be to have items removed from view if they get edited.

I'm not against this idea but this workflow is easily accomplished via use of the tags and custom columns. I'll let others fill in the process details.

Originally Posted by scottklarr

2. Highlight & note manager. First off, the calibre viewer needs to have the ability of saving notes and highlights (if it already does, how?).

This might be a nice feature, you can put in an enhancement request. Personally I think given limited time of the developer and the fact that calibre is mainly a book management program that efforts toward this feature would be way down the priority list. Of course if you develop the code it could go way up on the list.

Originally Posted by scottklarr

These notes should be manageable & exportable, and you should be able to import from kindle mbp files (the current 'get annotations' feature is pretty much useless for anybody who makes more than just one or two highlights)

Since there is no standard for notes between devices it is amazing that there is any ability to get the annotations. If I recall correctly one of the users submitted code for it.

Originally Posted by scottklarr

3. Function to search within ebook to auto-discover ISBN.

There has been an enhancement request for this listed in the tracker for almost a year. You can weigh in on the discussion here. Someone actually has scripts to have calibre do this auto-discovery.

Originally Posted by scottklarr

5. A book cover browser that is more functional and less flashy than the current 3d flipbook cover browser. A simulated bookshelf would be 92133735463 times better.

Kovid has said that a grid of book covers is on his todo list.

Originally Posted by scottklarr

6. Global search with paragraph context results. It would be amazing if Calibre could index all the ebooks so that you could quickly search your entire library and get search-engine styled results with the text surrounding found keywords.

Interesting ideas. The first step toward any of the ideas is to open an enhancement ticket. The worst that can happen is it doesn't get worked on.

[Worldwalker]

Here's how I handle the importing you're referring to in 1:

All of my ebooks have a tag of "processed" -- it used to be just a regular tag, but since 0.7.x, I've added a "workflow" column and put it and other non-content-related tags in there. I also have a saved search for books that do not have a "processed" tag. So, when I add new books to my calibre library, I click on that saved search and a list of all the books I just added comes up. I can then fix up their metadata the way I like it, finishing off with giving them a "processed" tag ... at which point, of course, they vanish from the not-processed view.

It sounds more complicated than it is. It's a really straightforward way to keep track of which books I've massaged and which I haven't. Now that calibre can compare the list of books on my 505 and mark the ones that need to be loaded, it's even easier than ever. I also have a "DNU" (for "do not upload") tag, so I also have a saved search for books that are not on the reader and aren't tagged "DNU", for easy updating.

[tonyx3]

Originally Posted by scottklarr

4. More user friendly cover image scraper? Perhaps give the user a list of multiple cover versions found online and allow them to select the best/right one.

I agree with pretty much all of dwanthny's comments above, but this one feature would be very welcome.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by tonyx3

I agree with pretty much all of dwanthny's comments above, but this one feature would be very welcome.

What he said, ++

Xenophon