Alternatives to Calibre?

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

The biggest obstacle is the "No way" attitude everytime someone dare mention this... There is a topic that actually say "don't speak about it".
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=119175

It's a shame to bury the problem, go for the "deal with it" attitude, instead of trying to fix things.

The problem has not been 'buried'. There has been extensive review of it, and the conclusion is that the existing developers are not prepared to put the time and effort in to change this assumption even though it would be a 'nice-to-have' feature. None of those who have complained have suggested that they might want to put the effort in (estimates are that it could be man-years of effort) to fix this themselves.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by itimpi

The problem has not been 'buried'. There has been extensive review of it, and the conclusion is that the existing developers are not prepared to put the time and effort in to change this assumption even though it would be a 'nice-to-have' feature. None of those who have complained have suggested that they might want to put the effort in (estimates are that it could be man-years of effort) to fix this themselves.

Well, as dev maybe I could have. but the reactions I got here... What calibre is just perfect ???

And where is the extensive review ? Maybe that what should be pointed to. Instead of "shut up". We though about it, possible solution are this and that and this, but time estimates are xxx months.

[drjenkins]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

It's a shame to bury the problem, go for the "deal with it" attitude, instead of trying to fix things.

Only a small minority seems to think this is broken. Most of us see nothing to "fix".

If you feel that "they" owe you the time and resources to customize this free program to your personal liking, I too say "deal with it".

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

And where is the extensive review ? Maybe that what should be pointed to. Instead of "shut up". We though about it, possible solution are this and that and this, but time estimates are xxx months.

The problem is that the discussion is split over hundreds of threads over the last few years. Therefore one tends to now only get the final conclusions when you ask the question.

I would also say that the answer is not "shut up", but instead "we do not intend to do it" and that often goes down badly. The problem is that many people think that merely by asking for it the developers will change their plans and do it for them. They also often accuse the current developers of being "idiots" for not already haven done it - not the way to incentivize people who basically do things on their own time and make the results available for free.

[theducks]

Sometimes a design decision is made, lots (1000's of hours) of code written the tested before a 'I coulda' had a V8' situation arises and change of direction become next to impossible. The Library structure assumption is threaded through out the code.

Personally, I don't think Kovid made an error making the Library into a Single structure. Managing and recovery for a library spread over multi-Tera Bytes would not be fast nor trivial.
(IIRC Calibre started out using a BLOB and abandoned that for DB performance reasons.)

And I believe the standard line still applies. 'New (working) code submissions accepted'

[dickloraine]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

It's a shame to bury the problem, go for the "deal with it" attitude, instead of trying to fix things.

Except that it isn't a "problem". There is nothing "to fix". Calibre works as intended. It would be a feature.

[twowheels]

I suspect that many of those complaining have never written software. Treat the internal representation of the files as a black box and you're fine... the layout on disk is an implementation detail, likely to change at any moment.

As others have said, you're free to write your own library management user interface on top of the existing ebook-convert tool and have it put the files wherever you want.

I personally use Calibre only from the command line. I find that Calibre doesn't work for me, only because I don't need its vast feature set, I merely want to convert books from various formats to read on my Kindle, the management of them I do manually. The fact that the developers split out the backend functionality from the GUI means that I have the flexibility to do this, and you do too...

Learn some Python, learn some Qt, download PyQt4, and write your own interface that does whatever you want it to do using the calibre backend to the do the actual work, and be happy that somebody already did the heavy lifting for you.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by dickloraine

Except that it isn't a "problem". There is nothing "to fix". Calibre works as intended. It would be a feature.

More like a lack of feature as far as i'm concerned. And as it happen, lack of this feature is a show stopper for me.
Having the possibility to set the folder structure would make calibre usable for quite a few people.

And unlike what some seams to think, it wouldn't break anything for them.

Only a small minority seems to think this is broken. Most of us see nothing to "fix".

If you feel that "they" owe you the time and resources to customize this free program to your personal liking, I too say "deal with it".

Not customize to my liking, making it able to match everyone's needs. The reward is worth the effort, not only for me, but for everyone using calibre.

[dickloraine]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

More like a lack of feature as far as i'm concerned. And as it happen, lack of this feature is a show stopper for me.
Having the possibility to set the folder structure would make calibre usable for quite a few people.

And unlike what some seams to think, it wouldn't break anything for them.

My comment was about semantics. This new statement is better
The second point is a little bit strange, because as far as I can see nobody has stated, that the possibility of choosing a different folder structure would break anything. Could you point me to that statement?

Personaly I do not understand the "problem" or why you want a different structure. And even if you need a different structure, there are ways around it (like many people here have said). Of course it costs you some extra clicks and additional storage, but it is not impossible and it is not difficult.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by dickloraine

My comment was about semantics. This new statement is better
The second point is a little bit strange, because as far as I can see nobody has stated, that the possibility of choosing a different folder structure would break anything. Could you point me to that statement?

Personaly I do not understand the "problem" or why you want a different structure. And even if you need a different structure, there are ways around it (like many people here have said). Of course it costs you some extra clicks and additional storage, but it is not impossible and it is not difficult.

I just want to be able to do a simple copy / past from my PC to my cybook. Without having to start any software. I want my file accessible outside the software, for tons of reasons.
Yes, there are ways around, but I would spend more time fighting with calibre than doing things manually.

[dickloraine]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

I just want to be able to do a simple copy / past from my PC to my cybook. Without having to start any software. I want my file accessible outside the software, for tons of reasons.
Yes, there are ways around, but I would spend more time fighting with calibre than doing things manually.

You at least have to start something like the explorer or shell. And then finding the books is not as easy as in calibre. You could transfer the files directly with calibre. And if you do not have storage problems, you just have to set up a template and push one button to save a new book to your folder system, so I do not see, why you would have to fight with calibre.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by dickloraine

You at least have to start something like the explorer or shell. And then finding the books is not as easy as in calibre. You could transfer the files directly with calibre. And if you do not have storage problems, you just have to set up a template and push one button to save a new book to your folder system, so I do not see, why you would have to fight with calibre.

i know where my books are in my folders. They are easy to find that way, that's the point and the reason I want to keep these.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by Mex5150

Flexible? so why can't it do what I want? It's only flexible if you want to do things EXACTLY the way the author dictates and NEVER deviate from that LOL

Yes flexible. Extremely flexible. You can do unbelievable things with it. Your complaint shows that you do not understand how to use it and what are its features.

Originally Posted by Mex5150

That's EXACTLY my problem, calibre FORCES a badly thought out rigid file structure!

The file structure is extremely well thought out. The file structure isn't there for you to mess with manually. This is as if you wanted to edit the contents of Oracle database in binary editor, changing hexadecimal values by hand and then complained that Oracle database structure is extremely rigid.

Originally Posted by Mex5150

But I ask again what other options are there out there?

- Doing it all manually. You can use conversion utilities from a command line.
- You can also write your own version of Calibre. The source code is out there, complete with a detailed description of how to start development.
- You can also ask for help and describe politely what exactly you want to achieve and you will get great support here. Please avoid all caps shouting in bold in your plea for help, unless absolutely necessary.

Please note that nobody forces you to use Calibre. Calibre has no monopoly. It is not a commercial program. Calibre has been very generously provided to us by Kovid Goyal and many other developers, translators, betatesters, community members, enthusiasts. The software is so flexible and so well made that millions of people choose to use it.

If you have a problem and can't understand how to use Calibre in a very specific use-case scenario, just ask. I have seen people ask politely for a feature and next Friday, the feature was on the long list of improvements already implemented. I have never ever seen this level of support for any other piece of software - from free software through freeware, shareware up to bloody expensive tailor-made systems (those are usually the worst). Gvim text editor comes close, but Calibre takes the cake.

Please note that in the most of other communities such posts as the one I am trying to answer very politely would be flamed to oblivion.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by kacir

Please note that in the most of other communities such posts as the one I am trying to answer very politely would be flamed to oblivion.

Yes but not everyone acts like you did. That's the problem, some people here getting tiered of people complaining about that, sometimes in a rude / aggressive way, and respond alike.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by kacir

If you have a problem and can't understand how to use Calibre in a very specific use-case scenario, just ask. I have seen people ask politely for a feature and next Friday, the feature was on the long list of improvements already implemented. I have never ever seen this level of support for any other piece of software - from free software through freeware, shareware up to bloody expensive tailor-made systems (those are usually the worst). Gvim text editor comes close, but Calibre takes the cake.

This.