Calibre viewing behaviour

[Watertiger]

I am new to Calibre (3.2.1) and MobileReads and am wondering:
when opening books in Calibre, the viewer is set to scroll vertically - how can I make it scroll horizontally? Also, scrolling content in Calibre's viewer with Apple's Magic Mouse lacks is unresponsive and choppy - does this has to do with the mouse's scrolling settings (though it works fine anywhere else)?
Thanks for reading - feedback to resolve these issues is greatly appreciated!

[kovidgoyal]

Click the yellow scroll icon in the top right corner.

[Watertiger]

Thanks a bunch for your swift reply, Kovid!
Unfortunately, changing the viewer's display mode does not change its choppy response to Apple's Magic Mouse. Do you have another idea for resolving this? And what about the horizontal scrolling issue? Does the Calibre viewer allow only for vertical scrolling (which, in terms of reading, I find rather counterintuitive)?
Please, let me know and thank you for your great work, Kovid - keep it up, for what would we do without you and the team behind Calibre?!

[kovidgoyal]

Not sure what you mean by horizontal scrolling? In paged mode, pages scroll page at a time, with a horizontal scroll animation (press the page down key to see it), in flow mode, text scrolls vertically, by a small amount (approx a line) at a time. I assume you mean something else?

And as for choppy scrolling, not sure what you mean, since in paged mode it scrolls a page at a time. What does choppy mean in that context?

[Watertiger]

By horizontal scrolling (in page mode) I mean flipping pages like in a book, i.e., from right to left or vice versa or (in flow mode) have the flow go sideways and not down and up as the Calibre viewer presently does - e.g., the iBooks viewer operates by default only sideways, be that in page or in flow mode.
As for the mouse behaviour, by "choppy" I mean that the Calibre viewer appears to be at times unresponsive, i.e., when attempting to move through pages with page mode or within the flow with flow mode, I can move a little (either back or forth in the document) and then get stuck for a moment before I can continue. Maybe I have to tweak the mouse's behaviour, I don't know, I'll have to look into it, but I doubt that the mouse causes the problem. As I said, all my other applications and viewers work smoothly with the current mouse settings.
By the way, here is the operating system I am using with Calibre:
macOS Sierra 10.12.5
Thanks, Kovid!

[BetterRed]

@Watertiger - in Viewer preferences (gears icon) there's a setting for number of pages, I think its in the Page Layout section

Re the mouse scroll jerkiness - wouldn't have thought it would be the Magic Mouse. What happens if you hold the down the ↓ arrow key in Flow Mode?

IIRC the viewer reads an unpacked instance of the book from the temporary storage - what sort of device is being using for temporary storage.

If your books are ePubs: an ePub often consists of more than one file of text - typically one file per chapter, where a slight delay is hardly noticeable. Maybe your books consist of a large number of xhtml slices. Simplest way to check is to open the ePub in the editor.

If your books are not ePub, e.g. they're MOBI: then the viewer does a background conversion to ePUB when it opens the book. Try doing a regular conversion to ePub using the default settings and viewing the resultant ePUB. If that's jerky have a look at it the editor, if its not jerky then...

BR

[kovidgoyal]

I dont see how it is possible to scroll sideways in flow mode. And as far as I know iBooks does not have a flow mode at all. As I said, in apged mode, the scrolling is already sideways.

[Watertiger]

Hi BetterRed,
I cannot find the Page Layout section - and what would editing it change? Scrolling is better with the keyboard's arrow key, using the mouse (set to fast tracking speed) continues to render the viewer experience jerky, regardless of the viewer's display mode. The jerkiness is the same with the native Quick Start Guide or an imported ePub book. Editor showed html files for chapters.

[Watertiger]

Hi Kovid,
sorry, I got mixed up - you're right, iBooks has no flow mode. Anyway, is it possible to tweak Calibre so scrolling sideways in page mode is an option? I must contradict you regarding you saying that the paged mode is always sideways (I suppose you meant in the Calibre viewer): in the version of Calibre I downloaded (3.2.1) the viewer's scroll bar remains on the right and allows only for up and down movement, no matter whether I engage page or flow mode. Is this a bug? Should I re-download Calibre and try again?

[Watertiger]

BetterRed - I guess I found "page layout" by going: Preferences - Common Options - Look & Feel - Layout. But "Layout" has always been on default. Is this what you meant?

[kovidgoyal]

The scrollbar is vertical, the scrolling is horizontal. Press the Page Down key on your keyboard and see what happens

[Watertiger]

I see what you mean, Kovid. Using the page key makes the pages smoothly flip sideways. So, using the page key is a compromise as doing the same with the mouse remains jerky. And I must say, I prefer a scroll bar that operates sideways for page as well as for flow mode, but I guess that's just me.
Now, I still have to check out how everything works in conjunction with the Kindle Paperwhite, but I get the device only on Wednesday. I think that's it for now, Kovid, thank you for your patient and kind support!
By the way, I - a German from Berlin - met my wife - a French-Canadian from Montreal - in Chapora Fort in Goa in 1989 and we're together ever since I decided to join her in Canada in 1992. Life works in mysterious ways. I figure India has changed drastically since our time there...

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Watertiger

BetterRed - I guess I found "page layout" by going: Preferences - Common Options - Look & Feel - Layout. But "Layout" has always been on default. Is this what you meant?

You didn't find the section BetterRed referred you to. You were in calibre's preferences area not calibre's viewer preferences section. When you have a book open in calibre's viewer click on the preferences icon.

Originally Posted by Watertiger

I see what you mean, Kovid. Using the page key makes the pages smoothly flip sideways. So, using the page key is a compromise as doing the same with the mouse remains jerky.

While you have the viewer preferences open go to Page flip/scrolling options and check the Mouse wheel flips pages option.

[Watertiger]

Thank you for the tip, DrOhh, I found it...