Most of the people on MobileRead are nice, friendly people.
I am an exception.
Do not expect this to be a nice, friendly welcome to MobileRead.
I think stargazertony, Tulsa, etc., are right: this sure does sound like a troll. Specifically the dive-bomber type, the kind that drops in, throws its bombs, and disappears. Someone with no guts and no brains. The signs are all there: first and only post, no profile, and the post itself: every word written to insult and anger, ending with the barb about how if we feel insulted and angry, it's our fault. Oh, what a little charmer. DownSouth, if you're
not a troll, now would be a good time to post an abject apology to Kovid and to every member of this forum.
Now, on to the substance of the post, not for the benefit of the troll -- who is busy congratulating himself on how brave and powerful he is for insulting strangers in an online forum, because the only kind of attention he knows how to get is bad -- but for anyone else who happens to read this:
First of all, calibre is currently in version
0.51. ZERO-point-five-one. It is not a release candidate. It is not a beta. It is not an alpha. It is a development build, with a feature request list that will probably keep Kovid from having anything resembling a life for the foreseeable future. And the reason I personally am calling troll is that anybody with two brain cells to rub together realizes that if you download a program that's in
version 0.51 from a website that prominently features the changelog, bug tracker, etc., and a call for code contributions, you're
not getting a finished, slick commercial product.
I can see you posting about a football game: "Such a shame. Johnny could be a great football player, but he can't kick a 30-yard field goal." Of course, it was a Peewee League game, and Johnny is 9 years old, but don't let that stop you.
Second, there's the matter of Kovid. He's
one guy. There are other people working on the development too, but Kovid is the one who does all the heavy lifting. You waltzed in here and started out by insulting a man we all respect very highly, and denigrating his work and the thousands of hours of effort he and the others have put into building something which, I should point out,
you got for
free. Then you somehow expect people to react positively? You blame us (before seeing a single reply) for not accepting your "constructive criticism"?
Now, to rip that screed apart point by point:
"Almost useless"? Thousands of people would beg to differ with you, because there are thousands of people out here using calibre and finding it very, very useful. I use it on a daily basis, and I sure as hell don't find it "almost useless". Just because
you are too clueless to be able to use it does not mean that it is "almost useless" -- it means that you're a clueless wonder who blames the world for his own failings.
Your inability to write a valid regex is not calibre's fault. Your inability to read standard documentation on how to write a valid regex is not calibre's fault. (on this note I should add that O'Reilly sells a fine
ebook on the subject) A poor workman blames his tools. If you
really had a problem like that, you could have posted here with a title like "Help! Book metadata import problem!" and all the people who are currently wishing they were somewhere other than MobileRead so they could flame you to a crisp would be solving your problem for you.
And "the most important aspect"? I've never even used that particular feature, because I get my books as epubs and they come with their metadata ready-built.
You think it's the most important feature. I think there are a lot more features that are more important, like, um, most of them.
You honestly think not being able to
change the colors is a
major problem? It's so far below "trivial" that they'd have to invent a whole new word for that level of unimportance. In a development project where things like file sync are still in the queue, you're whining because you can't change the flippin' colors? Who besides a troll would pick such a trivial reason to insult Kovid, the other devs, and every happy calibre user?
Y'know, I hate the calibre menus with a passion. I wish there was a plain, normal, ordinary menu bar. I really do. But Kovid doesn't work for me. He's written this awesome software that he lets me use for free, and I'm grateful for that. I'm not about to say "hey, thanks for calibre, but rewrite it so it's the way I like it, not the way you like it, because I'm the most important person in the world." No civilized person would do that. If I don't like how calibre does things, I can get a full refund of every penny I paid for it. All zero of them.
I could also write my own ebook management software. Or I could write myself a little hack to change the menu bar, and just patch it into my copy of calibre. I could even submit it and try to convince Kovid that there should be an option for menu style. Any one of those would be a valid response. Coming in here and insulting everyone in sight because the menus are not the way I would like them to be is
not.
Quote:
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OK, blast away. I know many people here will only see the negatives and will ignore the constructive criticism contained herein.
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There is no constructive criticism. There is nothing but negativity, insults, and trolling. There is nothing in that post which was not meant to rile people up and get them to -- as you say -- "blast away". You clearly expected exactly the response you're getting. It's the result you wanted. Because you're a troll.
Somewhere, you're no doubt patting yourself on the back for how successfully you insulted a total stranger who has done more for the ebook community than you ever could, and many people you riled up by doing so. You think you've done a great thing. You've insulted someone a lot of people like and admire, and they told you where to get off. Only
you everyone could have done that. It's just that most people are too civilized to think of doing it, and most people know how to get attention that is not negative. You were probably the kid who acted up in class because you'd rather be punished than ignored.
If by some remote chance you are actually the most clueless user to ever stumble into these forums, here's what to do: Write the most heartfelt, abject, humble apology to Kovid, to the other devs, and to the forum members (and possibly to everyone and everything else that breathes oxygen), that you possibly can. Post it here. Including a photo of yourself chowing down on a big plate of humble pie (yes, there really is such a thing) would help. We're going to take a lot of convincing. Then repost your regex problem as a help request, and the color change issue as a feature request, like you should have in the first place.
The people in this forum will fall over themselves trying to help anyone with a problem. I've seen it happen over and over again. It doesn't matter how big or how small the problem is, or how hard they have to work to solve it (though I think most people would prefer not having to drag the details out of the poster one by one), they'll bust their butts to help other calibre users. People
like to help, because calibre is awesome and we want everyone to be able to enjoy it. People here will do anything for anyone.
Except trolls.