@chaley: thanks for the link, it does look interesting! And I am an Evernote user, so that's definitely something to explore.
@fidvo: thanks a lot for your informative and inspiring post!
Movies
I find the idea of a movies library quite appealing; it's good to know it works well.
In my case, TV shows are less of a problem, as I can manage them quite well on my hard drive, using just normal folder structure (folders for shows, subfolders for seasons). I usually remember the shows quite well, so the benefits from short descriptions available in Calibre would not be that huge. But my movie folders are a huge mess. They cry for some meaningful structure, genre tags etc., and movie descriptions would come in handy, too.
One problem I would have (I've just realized
) is subtitles. I use separate subtitles quite frequently (for ripped DVDs etc.), and not rarely do I have more than one subtitle file per movie (as I may have different language versions for watching movies with different people). Those files have frequently the same format. This would be problematic as the movie players I use won't show subtitles from inside of a zipped file. Gotta think about it.
Music
Yeah, the difficulty of transferring the files to the mp3 player is the biggest problem I've identified. Could be nice for listening to the music on my computer but the truth is I listen to the music on my phone most of the times, so it seems that using Calibre for that would indeed be counterproductive.
Any ideas for good music management software? I've experimented with a couple of applications several years ago but haven't stuck with any. At the moment, I just have one music folder with separate subfolders for albums. As I don't have a lot of music, it's not that terribly chaotic as it sounds
. Plus, I use Mp3Tag for the right tags and generating file names. Still, it doesn't seem to be optimal.
Audio lectures
It sounds like a really nice idea. If I had this kind of data, I would definitely give it a try. I'm thinking about an audiobook Calibre library (and I'm far from being the only one, considering there is even a plugin for that
) but it doesn't seem as intuitive as in the case of lectures, which usually are not split into multiple files.
On the other hand, this would work great for podcasts (one file = one complete 'book' in a series). It's a pity I don't store podcasts on my computer (with few exceptions), just download them directly to my phone. (By the way, if anyone is looking for a good Android app for podcasts, I can very much recommend Podcast Addict).
Notes
Wow, that's a truly creative way of using Calibre! It would not work for me (although I also take notes in plain text files mostly) but definitely interesting.
Same goes for Image Catalog.
Recipes
Interesting, I wouldn't never have thought about it, and as I still don't have a good recipe managament system I might give it a try.
I like the idea of merging the files and converting. For me, it would be even more useful if the resulting file could be epub or mobi - this would be a way to create a custom-made cook(e-)book and quickly send it to the e-book reader (and take it to the kitchen
). If you ever manage to make a plugin and generalize it, I'd be happy to try it.
Software
I don't have that many programs to run, and using Calibre as a program launcher would probably be more than crazy
. For storing software, I was thinking more in line of installation files, and this should be doable. But I'm not sure whether it makes any sense (gotta figure it out). Maybe more for the Android app files (which I have plenty of - I usually save apks of interesting apps I've tried, as you never know whether they're gonna be available to download from Google Play when you're gonna need them).
Language learning materials
That's what gives me a serious headache. I'm dreaming about my Calibre language library (just realized it today
) but I'm not sure how to organize it.
The thing is: what I consider one item might be very diverse. Sometimes it's just a pdf with a book, sometimes it's a pdf and audio files. Or just audiofiles - because it's an audio-only course, or because I have a physical book (which I would like to note in Calibre). Sometimes I have multiple pdfs, or a pdf + audio + CD-ROM (as a CD image). I may also have just a CD image... or, in the worst-case scenario
, I have a portable application, which would be dangerous for Calibre to handle, or a downloaded website.
All in all, a great chaos and a huge challenge...
By the way, I love the idea of a 'Util' folder in the Calibre Portable folder. I also use Calibre Portable and keep everything on my external hard drive