Quote:
Originally Posted by mbovenka
This isn't aimed at you personally (because there have been others saying much the same), so don't take it the wrong way, but I don't get this. The UI works fine, it's functional, and I fail to see the ugliness. I really do.
Most of the screenshots of 'how Calibre should look like' I have seen to date were in my opinion just different, not prettier (which is in the eye of the beholder anyway), and not better than the current one,
But then, I've been messing with computers since 1980 or so, so '95 is modern to me  |
Compared to many other programs, Calibre is not pretty with it's grey GUI and (default) huge buttons. In some dialogs the buttons are all over the place; sotimes you need to click in the top left for "Apply", sometimes on the bottom right. Sometimes it's "OK", or "Done", or "Apply". Just like many other open source products, Calibre often feels "grown" instead of "designed"; constructed of many different parts, all based on different idea's of how they should work. Calibre can be confusing for people who are not used to computer programs.
Mind you, I'm saying this as a software engineer, and someone who has had some experience in desiging software and user interfaces, not as a critic of Calibre or open source per se. As it's open source, it's the nature of the beast to use different parts written by different people, and therefore it will almost always look and feel a bit "Frankenstein-y".
The only project that seems to be actively trying to do something about that is Gnome 3, but I don't like what they are doing. They are putting "pretty" over "functional", actually removing features if the required GUI does not fit their idea's of "pretty". If they stay on that route juuust a bit longer, they'll have the prettiest desktop ever created, that can't do anything anymore. (They actually removed the minimize button. So how do I get rid of a window, without closing the program?)
If someone wants to, they can harness the power Calibre has to offer. I'm used to Calibre's GUI and idiosyncrasies; I don't even notice it anymore if I need to click "Done" on the lower right or "Apply" on the top left. It's automatic now.
Still, I wouldn't mind if Kovid and the rest of the designers would stop adding features and take... say... half a year to a year to provide Calibre with a more consistent GUI, and only doing bug fixes where necessary.