BookONO wants to be a Calibre alternative

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by poglad

Calibre's front-end is gross (IMO) and something less 1995-looking would be a pleasure to use.

This isn't aimed at you personally (because there have been others saying much the same), so don't take it the wrong way, but I don't get this. The UI works fine, it's functional, and I fail to see the ugliness. I really do.

Most of the screenshots of 'how Calibre should look like' I have seen to date were in my opinion just different, not prettier (which is in the eye of the beholder anyway), and not better than the current one,

But then, I've been messing with computers since 1980 or so, so '95 is modern to me

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by poglad

So you're saying that making an alternative front-end to Calibre's GUI should be dismissed as a valid project? He should either rewrite the back-end too, or give up?

No, writing a new front-end for Calibre would be fine, is the developer said that he was going to do exactly that. "I don't like the GUI of this program. I'm going to write a new GUI." That's how open source works.

Instead, he said he didn't like Calibre because it didn't work like he wanted it to work, and that it didn't do what he wanted it to do. He aspires to replace Calibre with his own product.

That is fine too, but if you say that, but then you should actually write your own product; not a closed source program that basically runs on top of the core logic of the product you don't like. That's lame.

Personally I think the back-end is where the real power lies, and when it comes to designing new approaches that get that power into the hands of more users, I'm all for it. Calibre's front-end is gross (IMO) and something less 1995-looking would be a pleasure to use.

I agree, but then you're improving Calibre's looks, user experience, speed, or whatever, and not aspiring to replace it.

[usuallee]

Originally Posted by Istvan diVega

Exactly why I only use my own tags. Quite frankly I think published ebooks are fairly often very strangely tagged too.

Me too. I try to keep it to a few dozen of my own tags, total. Each book gets a tag of fiction or nonfiction, and then a tag with the genre, "history", "mystery" etc, and then if the author is not from an english speaking country, I'll put "scandinavia" on all my northern european thrillers, "Japan" on Murakami books, etc. That's as far as I prefer to go with tags.

One particular pet peeve of mine is when I download metadata and get the tag "general". Really? General what? If a tag is all-inclusive, why even bother?

A few brief thoughts on Calibre: I would be completely lost without it. I discovered it when I was thinking about buying a kindle in 2010. It was a revelation. It does what I need it to do: organize by books, convert when necessary, work as a conduit for Alf's tools, send books to devices, and that's about all I need. It does that beautifully. I prefer the low maintenance approach so I can spend my limited free time reading (or, you know, subjecting you all to useless rambling posts on this forum ).

I have no problems with the GUI, I had no idea people thought it so ugly and 90's looking. I don't think it's bad at all.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

This isn't aimed at you personally (because there have been others saying much the same), so don't take it the wrong way, but I don't get this. The UI works fine, it's functional, and I fail to see the ugliness. I really do.

Most of the screenshots of 'how Calibre should look like' I have seen to date were in my opinion just different, not prettier (which is in the eye of the beholder anyway), and not better than the current one,

But then, I've been messing with computers since 1980 or so, so '95 is modern to me

Compared to many other programs, Calibre is not pretty with it's grey GUI and (default) huge buttons. In some dialogs the buttons are all over the place; sotimes you need to click in the top left for "Apply", sometimes on the bottom right. Sometimes it's "OK", or "Done", or "Apply". Just like many other open source products, Calibre often feels "grown" instead of "designed"; constructed of many different parts, all based on different idea's of how they should work. Calibre can be confusing for people who are not used to computer programs.

Mind you, I'm saying this as a software engineer, and someone who has had some experience in desiging software and user interfaces, not as a critic of Calibre or open source per se. As it's open source, it's the nature of the beast to use different parts written by different people, and therefore it will almost always look and feel a bit "Frankenstein-y".

The only project that seems to be actively trying to do something about that is Gnome 3, but I don't like what they are doing. They are putting "pretty" over "functional", actually removing features if the required GUI does not fit their idea's of "pretty". If they stay on that route juuust a bit longer, they'll have the prettiest desktop ever created, that can't do anything anymore. (They actually removed the minimize button. So how do I get rid of a window, without closing the program?)

If someone wants to, they can harness the power Calibre has to offer. I'm used to Calibre's GUI and idiosyncrasies; I don't even notice it anymore if I need to click "Done" on the lower right or "Apply" on the top left. It's automatic now.

Still, I wouldn't mind if Kovid and the rest of the designers would stop adding features and take... say... half a year to a year to provide Calibre with a more consistent GUI, and only doing bug fixes where necessary.

[Mivo]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

But then, I've been messing with computers since 1980 or so, so '95 is modern to me

I was actually thinking exactly the same! 1995 doesn't really seem that far away to me, if I don't think too much about it.

Also, Calibre doesn't look or feel dated to me. Would it look more modern if 90% of the information and buttons were hidden and half the interface was covered in uplifting shades of dark gray?

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Mivo

Also, Calibre doesn't look or feel dated to me. Would it look more modern if 90% of the information and buttons were hidden

I hope they don't ever do that. Apart from it's conversion capabilities, displaying this information is the entire fracking point of the program.

and half the interface was covered in uplifting shades of dark gray?

It is, already

What Calibre would really need is not a completely new GUI, but one that is less chunky and more consistent.

[Istvan diVega]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

This isn't aimed at you personally (because there have been others saying much the same), so don't take it the wrong way, but I don't get this. The UI works fine, it's functional, and I fail to see the ugliness. I really do.

Most of the screenshots of 'how Calibre should look like' I have seen to date were in my opinion just different, not prettier (which is in the eye of the beholder anyway), and not better than the current one,

But then, I've been messing with computers since 1980 or so, so '95 is modern to me

I agree. While Calibre's front end isn't cutting edge in terms of GUI design, it's tweakable and does what I need it to do and more. Just calling it "gross" is purely subjective and hence of no value to anyone.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Instead, he said he didn't like Calibre because it didn't work like he wanted it to work, and that it didn't do what he wanted it to do. He aspires to replace Calibre with his own product.

It doesn't work how he wants it to and it doesn't do what he wants it to do. That doesn't mean everything calibre does is not suitable. For example, the conversion routines work well enough for what he wants to do at the moment that he can reuse it. Whilst the rest of the backend such as the DB side and taking control of your folder structure is something that doesn't work how he'd like.

That doesn't mean calibre is bad, wrong or anything else, just that it's not quite how this person wants it to work. Instead of whining about it though, he's doing something about it which imo makes a change.

Reusing calibre to do conversion seems like a sane decision too. Why replace everything when some parts do work in a way that fits in with your new project and work well enough not to need replacing immediatly? I'm sure if other parts could have been easily reused, worked in a way he wanted and license terms were suitable, he'd have reused those too.

Nothing imo wrong with that at all.

Regarding how calibre looks, it's not the best, but then again I spend so little time within it that as long as it's functional, usable and stable, looks really aren't high on the priority list.

[Istvan diVega]

Originally Posted by usuallee

Me too. I try to keep it to a few dozen of my own tags, total. Each book gets a tag of fiction or nonfiction, and then a tag with the genre, "history", "mystery" etc, and then if the author is not from an english speaking country, I'll put "scandinavia" on all my northern european thrillers, "Japan" on Murakami books, etc. That's as far as I prefer to go with tags.

Great minds think alike. I don't bother tagging books as fiction though, only non-fiction. After all, if they're not one, then they have to be the other. One less tag to bother with.

[KyBunnies]

Okay I am sure there is some tech person in here to explain or someone with more knowledge than me on this. So please explain the difference in Python and C++. Exactly what is Python?

When I see/read python I honestly think of a snake. I guess that shows how countrified and computer illiterate I am.

[Sefiriot]

Originally Posted by KyBunnies

Okay I am sure there is some tech person in here to explain or someone with more knowledge than me on this. So please explain the difference in Python and C++. Exactly what is Python?

When I see/read python I honestly think of a snake. I guess that shows how countrified and computer illiterate I am.

Short version: Python and C++ are examples of programming languages. Think of a computer program as an instruction manual to the bits in your computer, that tells them what to do. Just as a book may be written in English or in French, so a program can be written in any programming language. If he'd wanted to, Kovid could've written Calibre in Java, or Perl, or something else like maybe C, and still have it all work (probably). However you'll find that the way each programming language works and handles things is different, which makes certain languages better for certain types of applications. Some languages can't do certain things at all that some other language can, and that's just fine too.

As for the longer version: You might want to go look into a beginner's programming book.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by KyBunnies

Okay I am sure there is some tech person in here to explain or someone with more knowledge than me on this. So please explain the difference in Python and C++. Exactly what is Python?

They are both programming languages. To explain the differences would take about a whole book. Just say that they are very, very different, and they both have advantages and disadvantages.

The most notable is that C++ requires you to handle a lot of stuff yourself, which Python handles "on the fly" while executing the program. This makes C++ much harder to write a program in because you need to do (almost) everything, down to the smallest detail, but if you get it done right, it will be much faster than the Python equivalent.

Therefore, if you need the absolutely fastest program you can get (think about a chess engine, for example, calculating thousands of moves per second), you choose C++. If you need to be able to write a program without bothering with the nitty-gritty tiny details, and speed is not of paramount importance, you go for something such as Python.

If Calibre was written in C++, it would have been faster. Also, you would probably see an update once every month instead of once every week, and there would probably be MUCH less plugins available.

When I see/read python I honestly think of a snake. I guess that shows how countrified and computer illiterate I am.

Programming language names are not tied to any convention. For example...

There once was a language called BCPL.
In the 60's, Ken Thompson thought it was too verbose, and was too big. So, he took from it what he wanted, made the syntax shorter and more concise, and because the language was much smaller than BCPL it was called B.
Later, this language proved to be very useful, but it did need some additional stuff to make it more powerful. The result was called C, a language that is still in use today.
Even later, when object-oriented programming came along as a new paradigm, this was added to C. The new language would contain the whole C language in it, and add extensions for object-oriented programming. Because the new language is basically a superset of C, it was called C++.

edit: if you are now thinking: "Is there are language that descends from both C and C++ and is called... uh... D?" Yes, there is. (Allthough C and C++ are not the only influences for this language.) This language actually tries to combine the advantages of languages such as C/C++ (execution speed) and languages such Python (development speed) into one language.

Python was named after "Monty Python", because the designers thought this language would make programming more fun. (They assume that Monty Python is fun; which it can be, at times.)

[Billi]

it is also a programming language, like C++. The biggest difference is that Python is an interpreted language whereas C++ is a compiled one. The translation to machine code (= compiling, linking) happens during runtime. This means that the program runs a little bit slower but with nowadays computers you won't notice too much of a difference. You will find that wikipedia is a very good source to answer these kind of questions in detail.

edit: buh, much too slow.

[KyBunnies]

Thanks everyone. I now understand the difference. However, I think I will stick with growing my garden (or row crops) instead of learning programing. It may be easy but it seems very complex.

[dalai]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

The most notable is that C++ requires you to handle a lot of stuff yourself, which Python handles "on the fly" while executing the program. This makes C++ much harder to write a program in because you need to do (almost) everything, down to the smallest detail, but if you get it done right, it will be much faster than the Python equivalent.

Therefore, if you need the absolutely fastest program you can get (think about a chess engine, for example, calculating thousands of moves per second), you choose C++. If you need to be able to write a program without bothering with the nitty-gritty tiny details, and speed is not of paramount importance, you go for something such as Python.

If Calibre was written in C++, it would have been faster. Also, you would probably see an update once every month instead of once every week, and there would probably be MUCH less plugins available.

They are both using Qt though and in my experience there is no significant overhead using C++/Qt over PyQt. It depends on what you are more familiar with. Btw, having the main application in C++ does not mean that plugins have to be also in C++, although I don't know if it will be possible to maintain compatibility with Calibre plugins.

Originally Posted by Katsunami

He aspires to replace Calibre with his own product.

They do mention on their website that they are using calibre for some tasks and give kudos to Kovid for it. They don't even describe it as an alternative to Calibre but as a compliment[sic] to it. Even if they aspire to replace Calibre at some point, what is the problem with that? It might work better for some people and it makes sense to slowly replace parts instead of rewriting everything in one go.

Anyway I don't understand all the negativity. BookONO is in early alpha and people are already dooming it to failure instead of encouraging the developers. Calibre is great and all but it is not beyond improvement - otherwise you wouldn't be upgrading it every so often. Not to mention that it is virtually impossible to satisfy every user 100%. Any alternative that comes out is a net positive in my view.