Quote:
Originally Posted by kovidgoyal
It's been a while since my last release of calibre, and there've been a lot of
changes to its plumbing, so I need testers. Only volunteer if you are willing
to have things break. Some of the changes:
- The ebook files are now stored in the filesystem rather than in the database (this was done to facilitate using the calibre GUI over a network)
- The config system has been overhauled in preparation for html2epub
- Adding a HTML file to the GUI now automatically creates an OEB zipfile with all the links and images in the HTML file. This functionality can also be accessed from the commandline via the command html2oeb
- A couple of new recipes for news sources
- Over 30 bugs closed
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Wow, and just when I was about to start writing my own tool for handling my books, because I can't abide by an app that doesn't let me manage my files the way I want to.
I might still have to write my app though, since it seems Calibre is still just too inflexible for me. (I even refuse to give iTunes write access to my music library, because it too thinks it knows best)
For instance, I like to get new books in multiple places, I use Foldershare to keep my books updated on all my PCs. If I dragged a new book into the Calibre folder, would it automatically add it?
If not, is there a way for Calibre to monitor a set of folders, and automatically detect when books are added to these folders? Currently, if I tell it to scan a directory again, it pops up a useless dialog, since I can't see the bottom of it (We're talking hundreds of books here), and I have to guess which button I'm on. Guess wrong, and I suddenly have two of everything.
And finally, I would love to see a more streamlined way of doing series tagging. in the Sony software, I can order the books in a series simply by dragging them around in the Collection view. In Calibre, I have to edit each book's metadata individually, which can be a pain when you're talking series like Honor Harrington, the Dresden Files, and the Liaden books with 11 or more books each.
The idea I had for my app was that it would not assume things are static. It uses your directory structure, and sets up a _metadata.txt which it reads in at startup that contains all the metadata that can't be stored inside the LRF. (.txt because I want to be able to edit it outside of the app) The app can scan the directory at each startup and detect if files have been modified or added, and update it's metadata accordingly. In other words, an app that allows me to store metadata and creates the collections on the ebook, but otherwise stays out of my way. Preferably something that doesn't take 3 minutes to start up.
Calibre is so close to my perfect app, and yet just too far away. And just a trifle sluggish.