Thread: bug in ebook-viewer: the file is modified
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Old 02-11-2015, 11:53 AM   #7
eschwartz
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tigran View Post
drjenkins,

Thank you! I have unchecked that option and this provided a workaround for this bug. The proper fix for this bug would be to change ebook-viewer to store the position in the proper location in CALIBRE_CONFIG_DIRECTORY or some such like. Certainly NOT in the book file. Imagine that this physical file is under control of some database engine which stores its MD5 checksum and then discovers that the book has changed, thus forcing it to invalidate the entire metadata record and throw it away.

davidfor,

I disagree. It most certainly is a bug and not a feature. A viewer has no right to corrupt my book files with its own private data. This quite clearly constitutes a data corruption and is a very serious bug which should be fixed.

Not a single bit in the book file should be modified by the software called "viewer". If it was called "ebook-editor" or "ebook-writer" then modifying the book file would be a feature and not a bug.

Reading ebook files is orders of magnitude easier than writing them and I cannot imagine that there exists software on this planet capable of correctly rewriting a dozen or so various formats --- this is just too complex of a task. So, I would never trust any software to rewrite my files but I am perfectly happy to trust it to extract metadata and cover image or even attempt to display the content of the first few pages (for the purposes of previewing the book on a computer by a librarian recording its metadata in some database, of course --- not the real reading which should only be done on an eInk device running CoolReader).
A bug is when something isn't working the way it is meant to. Not when a specific user disagrees about whether it should be done.

You don't believe a program exists to correctly write a dozen formats... but it is all right if a dozen programs exist, each capable of one format? But then they can be combined!
Odd objection... anyway, calibre is that program that doesn't exist.

What database are you using that it cannot handle an edited file and automatically trashes it??? Now THAT is a bug.
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