Any interest in UI refresh?

[dave22153]

As a user of the calibre software and developer of a UI component library for qt, I wanted to propose a UI refresh effort for the calibre software.

The open source design system 'Material' by google has been thoughtfully designed and tested against several key factors such as 'effectively draws attention', 'visually appealing', 'modern' etc. By leveraging this research, the attractiveness of the calibre software could be increased, resulting in more active users.

While this could be a large scale effort, it may be broken down and approached in stages. An initial step could be to prepare mockups in figma. In addition to rigorous testing, progressively implementing changes alongside other development efforts increases the chance that any potential regressions can be caught early. This helps ensure an uninterupted experience for end users.

Overall I'm keen contribute to this project and give it a fresh look.

Interested to hear if there would be any interest.

[pdurrant]

I think that improvements to the calibre UI would be a good thing. But I don't have any specific suggestions.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by dave22153

As a user of the calibre software and developer of a UI component library for qt, I wanted to propose a UI refresh effort for the calibre software.

The open source design system 'Material' by google has been thoughtfully designed and tested against several key factors such as 'effectively draws attention', 'visually appealing', 'modern' etc. By leveraging this research, the attractiveness of the calibre software could be increased, resulting in more active users.

While this could be a large scale effort, it may be broken down and approached in stages. An initial step could be to prepare mockups in figma. In addition to rigorous testing, progressively implementing changes alongside other development efforts increases the chance that any potential regressions can be caught early. This helps ensure an uninterupted experience for end users.

Overall I'm keen contribute to this project and give it a fresh look.

Interested to hear if there would be any interest.

Start off with your mock-ups and see if there's any interest from there. I would be interested in seeing some UI changes for for the better.

[BetterRed]

Can you point us at any data management products which run on desktop systems that incorporate what you have in mind?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by dave22153

The open source design system 'Material' by google has been thoughtfully designed

"Material" is
1) Ghastly
2) For Android really.
3) I'd not use the word thoughtfully. Android breaks or ignores many well established and tested GUI principles.
4) Though Android does work with a keyboard and mouse, and large screens, it's designed for touch and small screens.

And yes I really tried to like ChromeOS. The Chrome Browser on the desktop has a GUI that is terrible.

All the Google Web applications are terrible GUI.

I've seen UI of Android get worse from V3.x to V14.

Also see
https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/...ngs_standards/

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by dave22153

The open source design system 'Material' by google has been thoughtfully designed and tested against several key factors such as *'effectively draws attention', 'visually appealing', 'modern' *etc. By leveraging this research, the attractiveness of the calibre software could be increased, resulting in more active users..

My emphasis. Just NO. So called "Modern" in UI terms is ghastly and harder to use.

'effectively draws attention', 'visually appealing', are both irrelevant to decent UI. Those apply to adverts!


GUI experience
I've used Gem, RiscOS, CAD/CAE/DTP on CP/M & DOS, Windows 2.x, 3.x, NT 3.5, Win9x, QT Phone Edition (2007), QT in Win CE style (2007), Win2K, XP, Vista, 8, 10. Mac OS9., various Mac X, iOS, Android from 3.x to 14, S80 on Symbian as well as S60. Current ChromeOS versions (20025), PalmOS. Linux since 1998 (XFCE, Gnome 3, Mate, KDE, IceWM etc).
Written GUI applications using QT, VB6, C++, C#, Java and Modula-2. Applications included PC controlling scanner/printer to be copier, Animation editor with onion skinning for frames, Document management & archiving system, Lending library for books, Lending library for Videos, Manufacturing & QA workflow. Consumables stock-control with wireless barcode handhelds with screens (MS-SQL backend). Customer Management system integrating SAGE accounts and Sales Dept using another off the shelf package (multi-user client-server MS-SQL), maintenance and extensions to Web accessed database combining ColdFusion, Oracle Database, Java on server and client side Javascript.
Designed GUIs for new products not running any existing OS.
160 x 160 pixel to 4K screens.

I'd not be offering to redo the GUI of Calibre which started managing a Sony ereader and runs on Mac, Linux and Windows, a lot nicer than Chrome Browser does.

What GUI project with data management this size have you managed or implemented or worked on?

[Quoth]

We've been systematically using these questions to evaluate Material 3 as a design system, by asking participants to compare Material 2 designs to their Material 3 counterparts across a range of sample use cases. Trends in the responses help us steer the evolution of the design system.

A biased survey comparing one sad GUI concept with a similar existing one that's frankly rubbish. So a worthless survey.

[Sirtel]

You are like the 100th person who has suggested a UI refresh over the years. The problem with all the previous ones was that they were designers, not coders - someone else would have had to write the code and implement their ideas, and as there was no one with necessary skills and enough free time available or willing, their ideas remained only ideas.

In short, would you be able to implement your changes yourself? If not, there's probably no point in developing the idea any further.

[BetterRed]

Just remembered:

BeckyEbook gave me the material-grey.rcc file to 'tame' an intrusive, non removable button bar in Sigil, and an .ini file patch that provides an extra docking location. Sigil and calibre use the Qt development tools and they run on the same platforms - Windows, MacOS and Linux.

BR

[BeckyEbook]

My minor patches are replacing a single brick in a building (Sigil).

Calibre is like an entire city with hundred of buildings.
Asking only to change the appearance by switching from Qt to something like Material 3 (via that Qt‑Material UI library) is a truly herculean undertaking.

Not only would you have to maintain the existing stable version in parallel, but it would effectively mean replacing every "brick" with a larger one. Calibre's UI under Kovid is monolithic – every single dialog, preferences pane, metadata editor, or conversion window would require painstaking refactoring and retesting across multiple platforms. And we're not even talking about the Editor or Viewer.

Calibre's UI is exceptionally dense and tightly integrated – it exposes an overwhelming number of options, dialogs, and controls in compact windows. Material*3, by contrast, requires expanded layouts, generous spacing, and entirely different widget sets. Adapting Calibre to this design isn't just a theme swap; it would be a massive porting effort – effectively beyond the scope of a simple style change.

I suggest downloading the Calibre source and attempting to reimplement at least the main window, the Preferences dialog, or the metadata edit or conversion panels using that Qt‑Material library. If you manage to get it working, you'll quickly understand why this isn't a trivial task.

Maybe I'm weird, but the current Calibre interface suits me.

[theducks]

There is a whole lot to say about the stable GUI in Calibre.

'Right click the Globe Icon to start/shutdown the Content server'
How many versions, does that still hold true?

That makes support easy-peasy, as we have users on versions from 3-8 due to OS and HW limitations. Some icons have style changes but the main element of it is still the same.

Folk that are comfortable with Calibre, also know how to apply a 'skin' (and what their versions icons mean.

[Sirtel]

Another thing that's been suggested over the years is a simplified calibre version, as the overwhelming number of various options turns off or discourages many potential users. Maybe instead of tackling the whole interface it would be easier to create a simpler version of the UI with fewer options and see how folks like that? If they do, some changes could then be gradually integrated to the main version.

Personally, calibre as it is suits me perfectly, but I've read many complaints about its complexity and UI, so I think there would be potential for "calibre-lite".

[Quoth]

The sheer number of features of calibre makes it seem complex.

Not even comprehensive

• A Library / Database to manage your ebooks
• An advanced full text content search system for research
• An ebook viewer
• An ebook editor, inc ToC creation/editing and more.
• Manage devices and transfer to or from them, inc user templates.
• Edit Metadata.
• Create or add covers
• Search Internet for covers or metadata.
• Convert between many ebook formats.
• Manage annotations from devices (Kobo Utilities or Annotations)
• Well supported 3rd party plugins for many features*.
• Supports all three main OS for desktops/laptops
• A server that provides a web interface and OPDS.
• Can create catalogues as ebooks
• Better docx to epub than expensive "rent only" Adobe InDesign

It's beyond a Swiss Army knife or tool box but a virtual digital version of the library in a mansion (not a lending library) with a workshop and expert bookbinders, librarians, researchers, secretaries and butler. However it doesn't actually serve drinks.

A multi-tool where each blade or part can be a multi-tool!


Thanks Kovid. It's up there with web Browser, spreadsheet, wordprocessor, email and image editor for anyone that writes, reads or publishes as a "must have" application.

[* What's in this cupboard? Oh, fantastic!]

Compare with MS Project, or ALL of the MS Office programs, not just Word, Excel & Powerpoint, but also MS Maps, Access and Visio.

Even MS word is now a mess.

[Quoth]

Also Material 3 is really an OS theme as well as widgets. Decent desktop programs can have whatever menus, toolbars, context popups etc, but need to follow the theme chosen by user/OS. In this respect recent desktop versions of Firefox and Thunderbird have lost the plot by following Google's Chrome and Mobile / Tablet-centric design.