This may be rather academic, as I may have missed something obvious with regard to Calibre’s present functions, but if not I have a suggestion for a fundamental improvement to Calibre, which I’m sure many of its users would appreciate.
Okay, well in a nutshell, it would be great if there was a simple way to have various “locked drawers” where sensitive material could be hidden away from other users, unless they too had a “key”.
We have guests stay with us, family and friends, some who have children etc. Now, as well as having a small actual library, I have been taking much pleasure in setting up a “digital” library, all thanks to Calibre (Kovid, and all those other clever people who are able to contribute with their knowledge on such things). Now, my wife has just recently got the “Kindle” bug, and I am so pleased for her. She has taken to reading fiction, some of which is a little “racy” when it comes to expletives and graphic encounters, which actually shocked me, as the series she is currently reading is your typical “Vampire” genre (think True Blood and more!). Anyway, I too like reading the occasional hard core horror book, which most certainly wouldn’t be suitable for children or even In-laws. That said, some of our weekend guests, and friends, would certainly enjoy flicking through our full library I’m sure, thus we have a bit of a problem.
I have an older Kindle that I want to leave on a bookshelf when we have anyone staying, that is unless they bring their own “reader” (gosh we must be boring), and thus they can connect with my
Calibre content server and take a book of their choosing. Now, the ideal scenario would be if we could give our guests a “key”, ie a password, which would let them view books which we think wouldn’t cause embarrassment or upset. This is especially important given the fact that sometimes they might have children with them, and if they too wanted access to the library, I would hate to have them downloading something inappropriate when looking for Harry Potter…!
Now I have looked at the “create a library” function, but I don’t think this will do what I would hope for, in as much as allowing me to “lock away” the sex blood and gore…
So, it may be a big ask, but not being a computer tech, I don’t know how much it would take to incorporate such a system of “locked draw/s and pass-key/s” into Calibre. I do feel however, that many Calibre users would really appreciate something like this, especially when (as most of us do I'm sure) have material unsuitable for children or easily shock-able house guests.
I have the feeling that so many Calibre users set up their libraries for their own personal pleasure, which is absolutely fine, as did I at first; however, the thought of having a library open to a family, and to friends, guests etc, well it just seems such a wonderful thing to have.
The one thing holding me back is not having the facility to restrict the contents according to our guests sensitivity, and with ease of setup and use.
Thank you.
