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Originally Posted by kacir
- drop link / symlink / an alias / NTFS symmbolic link to the Calibre and create a book record.
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And
on Windows it will copy the content of the symlink (folder or file), so you end up in the same situation
btw I think an OS/X Alias is more akin to a Windows Shortut than to an NTFS or EXT4 symbolic link, however HFS+ supports symbolic links - so in that respect they're much of a muchness.
One drawback with symlinks is - if the target path changes then the link is broken - I don't know of anything that will jump in and repair the link for you. There are utilities that will find and report broken links and others that will allow you to define a new target to effect a repair.
Another challenge with symlinks is how to handle Inner and Outer Links...
If your Calibre library book folders are stable once you've sorted out the author and title and put the book into your 'Main' library, then you could create a symlink of the calibre book folder in an alternative directory hierarchy.
You would have full control over the naming and structure of that folder hierarchy, but the contents of the folder symlink would carry the same caveats as the calibre folders - don't change any file names or delete any files.
And if you wanted multiple folder hierarchies you could have multiple folder symlinks targeting the same Calibre folders.
If you're using Windows and you want to explore this 'stuff' then the best place to start (and end) is with Link Shell Extension (LSE) like Calibre it has a GUI (shell extension) and a command line implementation. Its not open source but it is free. The author of LSE wrote the following on the Total Commander forum last year in respect of incorporating the features of LSE into TC.
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Originally Posted by Herman Shinagl @ TC forum
The only thing I can tell from the experience I gained during the last few years, is that if I knew all the pitfalls in advance I would not have developed it  |
LSE is my second favourite item of software - Herman is one of the few people I know of in the 'file management space' (outside of MS) working with the new Windows Server ReFS file system. I have an interest in LSE - I gave Herman some assist during its early development.
BR
ps : If you decide to 'play' with LSE you'll probably find it easier with a two pane file manager - xplorer2 Lite is pretty good and gets along well with LSE.