[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by wilo108

i just stopped by to add my name to the list of people who don't use Calibre for this this reason. same reason i don't use iTunes and other software that tries to tell me how i may use my files. it's a shame, because there are some bits of Calibre that are hard to replicate or replace, but there are too many use cases where maintaining my entire collection of ebooks in duplicate is absurd and infeasible.

According to this very thread you are on a very short list. Also, nobody has any intention of changing anything in calibre. Also, this thread stands as a testament to the idea that "maintaining my entire collection of ebooks in duplicate" is indeed absurd and unfeasible -- because they should all be in calibre, and "why the hell are you keeping a bunch of duplicate copies elsewhere"? (Unless you are backing up your ebooks as part of a system-wide snapshots procedure similar to OSX's Time Machine -- which isn't considered all that unusual, but then again, you don't have to...)

Point of order -- Zem has pointed out a few good reasons why calibre doesn't work for him, basically boiling down to the inability to keep in sync with other software and the need for, as it turns out, multiple calibre libraries (I have a feeling that was added in since his time as a result of conversations like this). If you have any arrangements like that, feel free to mention them, your opinion will be entirely understandable in that case.

But -- it doesn't sound like that is why you object. It sounds like you want something like iTunes for ebooks which uses an inefficient database to track potentially-moving files all over the filesystem, because you want to keep using an IMO lousy flat directory-based structure with no flexibility whatsoever, but you want to use calibre to view it as a library, and think this free (!!!) software is required to change to suit your needs.

Also adding in frivolous support tickets when people lose their books and Kovid has to explain why. iTunes, which does exactly what you want, with music, has been the bane of several people I know, for example for importing music downloaded from the browser -- since they didn't realize it was stored in the temp folder (because they opened it instead of saving) it disappeared when they rebooted. I am sure Apple gets plenty of complaints about that sort of stuff too -- but they are a giant multibillion-dollar corporation and can afford to field those calls. calibre can't and doesn't care to.

Ironic that you refuse to use iTunes since on the contrary it is exactly what you seem to like...

You are of course more than welcome to use the command-line tools for converting books or whatever else you may wish to do. Or even writing your own GUI that uses the command-line calibre tools to organize your books in some iTunes-like manner, if you wish to contribute something helpful to the discussion.

Finally, why are you registering to this site for the sole purpose of complaining about software that you don't intend to use, for which you didn't have to pay anything, and doing so in an insulting and demanding manner?

Also, necropost.