Time for a next level UI ?

[Sabardeyn]

Originally Posted by saoir

Why not ? A lot [...] of people are highly visually driven. [...]

Agreed. I'm one of them. As I understand things from comments made in another thread (but do not recall ATM), the multiple thumbnail cover view has been tentatively approved for inclusion - provided someone else writes the code and it is otherwise up to standard. The calibre programmers have their hands full with existing projects.

[Ravensknight]

Originally Posted by saoir

With respect - 'dumbing down' is a patronising term used by techs and engineers who don't get that the vast majority of people are not like them.
This is not dumbing down. It is about simplifying and making it more effective and streamlined for the actual people who will be needing this kind of app..

No, it is not a patronizing term. It is an accurate term. I am not a tech nor an engineer. But you know what? I spent weeks reading online, searching online, playing around, until step by step, I made calibre and its tools do what I wanted them too.

No one ever said it would be easy. The reason Calibre can be complicated is because the whole ebook scene is complicated. But it is NOT Kovid & Co.'s responsibility to "uncomplicate" the situation for people.

Let them swim or sink. I help my family with questions, but I also expect them to have at least tried to solve the problem or learn about the problem before I hand them a regurgitated answer.

[PO40600]

Originally Posted by saoir

Why not ? A lot ... and I mean a LOT of people are highly visually driven. They simply do not relate to lists as much as visual clues. I mean the info is there in Calibre ! what is so uncool about allowing people to look at a cover thumbnail layout with names below them ? It doesn't mean they wont to manage everything in this mode .... but as an option.
Personally I can manage both list and visual. But I agree that looking for a title .. sometimes the very title I am reading now .. can be much easier visually.

And I would add one thing about this particular subject of showing a grid of cover. In at at least one case, it would be particularly usefull : When searching books with no cover !

I greatly appreciate the "cover flow"-like display, but in this particular case, it's nothing but painfull to search which books had no cover. Especially for user having thousands of eBooks.

Just two days ago, I did a huge browse of my books, in order to find the missing covers. It takes me 90 min, to explore half of my 12 000 eBooks.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by PO40600

Just two days ago, I did a huge browse of my books, in order to find the missing covers. It takes me 90 min, to explore half of my 12 000 eBooks.

You could always enter cover:false into the search bar to see all books without a cover.

[BeccaPrice]

I'd like to point out that there is a good web-based help file that explains in simple, basic terms how to do some of the nifty stuff Calibre is capable of.

http://stu.wccnet.edu/~rprice/Eng218...Help/index.htm

It also explains concepts like metadata (which I don't think is really all that difficult a concept to grasp).

If it would make things easier, I'd be happy to share the actual files with anybody who could make the help file easier to find. I'll also take any suggestions on how to improve it.