Quote:
Originally Posted by bkilian
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.
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If you're that particular about how you want to work, I suggest you either write your own app or contribute patches to calibre. Otherwise, you'll never find an app that does everything exactly the way you want.
Supporting an auto-add folder is easy enough, and I can make the series field editable in the main GUI, not quite as easy as drag and drop, but almost as good.