[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by honeyrose

I think I must be one of the people being criticised here.

You are not.

All my jokes about being the resident meanie aside, I name names and call out people who are acting like jerks. If I haven't told you off, I don't mean you.

Yet when I come here for advice I am told I do not understand how to use it.

This is your third post. Looking at the other two and their responses, this is not what I'm seeing. Manichean said that you're doing something wrong and should look at the video on how to use calibre, or the manual which is right next to it, Web-page-wise. That would be good advice. GRiker told you what should work for reading the User Guide -- if you do that and it doesn't, you have a different problem from the one it looks like you have. Kovid and dwanthny talked to each other about the video. You posted again, and dwanthny responded to you directly and asked for further information, which you have not yet provided, and suggested some steps for you to try. The thread then went crashing off on a tangent to discuss the QS guide and its presence, absence, and location, but returned with GRiker giving you further information and telling you that if you've tried everything given and it's still not working, your installation is borked.

Come to think of it, maybe you are the kind of person we're talking about. You were given copious advice, which you chose to ignore, and asked several questions that would allow for further troubleshooting, which you chose not to answer. Instead, you apparently want someone to come out to your house and set up calibre the way you like it. It doesn't work that way.

The feeling I am getting is that some of you think its use should be reserved for programming types only and anyone who does not understand how it works/cannot debug it, and is not a long term user, is a nuisance who is clogging up the space in the big boys' playpen.

That is utterly untrue.

Users are expected to be clueful (that is, not butt-stupid and eager to stay that way) and work with the people who are trying to help them, not sit around like inert objects waiting for something to happen without their involvement. But that requires only participation and active involvement, not programming or debugging skills. Hell, there are people here who consider me a power user (which I'm not, by the way) and I know far less about Python the language than I do about pythons the snakes; I've never poked around under calibre's hood (though, as a person who attempts to be clueful, if I found it necessary to do so, I wouldn't whine; I'd go to the O'Reilly website and start shopping for Python books). I've been accepted, even welcomed, here since my first day and my first question.

This is a shame - if it is such a great piece of software and you can't make it a bit simpler to use, can't you at least show some sympathy to those of us struggling with its idiosyncracies.

I've been steeped in what one might call the "hacker culture" for a very long time, so I don't think in terms of petting someone's emotions. Sympathy and fifty cents won't even get you a cup of coffee anymore. Help is useful. This forum provides help by the bucketful. I'm sure there's a support group somewhere that can dole out all the sympathy anyone could want, but I doubt if they can fix calibre problems.

By the way, calibre is simple to use. It appears that you have some sort of problem, but problems exist for only a tiny minority of users. Most people install calibre and set to using it without ever having to visit this forum at all. Something snuck up and bit you, and needs to be dealt with, but it's a bug (or a PEBKAC error), not a problem with calibre being insufficiently easy to use.

I would suggest, by the way, reading the explanations I linked to (Microsoft's and Eric Raymond's) about how to ask a question that will get results. They might provide some additional resources for asking yours. Also ... try the things people in your thread suggested, and tell them what the results were, so they can better understand your problem and offer more effective suggestions.

Edit: Wacom everything are weird. But we can't live without 'em. I've pretty much given up on the mouse that came with my graphics tablet, though, because it gives Windows migraines at random intervals, and my migraines track with Windows'.