Calibre always starts in full screen

[Laurentiu]

Hello,

I am running Calibre 2.16 under Mac OS X Yosemite and, when I launch it, it always starts in full screen and showing the tag browser on the right side.

Can I change this behaviour? I search everywhere in setting but could not find anything.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Laurentiu

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Laurentiu

Hello,

I am running Calibre 2.16 under Mac OS X Yosemite and, when I launch it, it always starts in full screen and showing the tag browser on the right side.

Can I change this behaviour? I search everywhere in setting but could not find anything.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Laurentiu

@Laurentiu - Calibre starts in the state it was in when it was last terminated.

If you want to hide the tag browser, click the luggage tag at the right hand end of the status line.

If you want to change the size of the window you should be able to do that in the 'normal' MAC way.

BR

[Laurentiu]

I tried it, set the window size as I want, hide the tag browser, quit the app, yet, when I launch it again it goes full screen and shows the tag browser.

[theducks]

The sizes/sidebar states are stored in the preferences folder

I believe the file is GUI.PY

This file/folder needs full rights (you should also see a current timestamp in the file list)

[BetterRed]

@Laurentiu - my guess is that data in the configuration directory has become corrupted, you could try this:

• backup your library and configuration data, see ==>> How do I backup calibre
• run the Welcome Wizard (Preferences bottom right corner).
  
• on Windows that will reset the configuration data back to the defaults (you'll lose your preferences changes, optional plugins etc) but it will leave the current library untouched.
  
• I'd be surprised if it was different on OS/X - in part that's why I suggest a full backup first - abundant caution

Added: following on from theducks post - if there is a gui.py in the configuration directory (not having a Mac I don't know that there is), then when calibre is NOT running, rename it something like gui.py.save and start calibre - that will create a fresh gui.py, you may lose a few preferences. That would work on Windows, but lots of things work on Windows but not on OS/X and vice versa of course.

BR

[Laurentiu]

Trying to find a solution, I clicked the red button on top left corner while keeping Shift down. This closed Calibre, bt now it takes roughly 20 secs to launch. It's true, it does not start in full screen anymore, but it takes too long.

I tried to backup the library, ran the Welcome Wizard, no change!

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Laurentiu

Trying to find a solution, I clicked the red button on top left corner while keeping Shift down. This closed Calibre, bt now it takes roughly 20 secs to launch. It's true, it does not start in full screen anymore, but it takes too long.

I tried to backup the library, ran the Welcome Wizard, no change!

@Laurentiu - then I think it must be OS/X related, hopefully someone with OS/X expertise will respond soon.

BR

[WJCronon]

I am having this same problem for the last few updates and would love to have a solution. I do NOT want to run calibre full screen, but for at least the last few versions it now insists on opening full screen no matter how often (every time!) I resize it. If anyone has a solution--or an explanation of why calibre's behavior would suddenly change in this way--I'd love to have suggestions.

[eschwartz]

I get the opposite problem -- when I restart calibre with a clean config directory, I automatically get a non-full-screen calibre -- and it persists across restarts, naturally.

Windows 7 Pro.

[BetterRed]

@WJCronon - try this - stop calibre, in config folder rename gui.json to gui.json.bak, start calibre and test.

If that fixes it you may lose a few UI settings, that you'll need to re-enter. If it doesn't fix it, stop calibre, delete gui.json and rename gui.json.bak to gui.json.

JSON files can be viewed with just about any text editor except Notepad - so if the above works you can look at the gui.json.bak to see what the settings were. I would advise against cut and paste, use the relevant Preferences dialogues to reestablish lost settings.

BR

[eschwartz]

what about my opposite problem? That is what confused me -- restarting with CALIBRE_CONFIG_DIRECTORY set in TEMP\calibre-config\ to test a blank configuration, still didn't work.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

what about my opposite problem? That is what confused me -- restarting with CALIBRE_CONFIG_DIRECTORY set in TEMP\calibre-config\ to test a blank configuration, still didn't work.

Is that "TEMP" an official one such as %appdata%\Local\Temp or %windir%\Temp or one you made up?

On the odd occasion I've wanted a fresh config in its entirety I've copied what's in the latest portable install

BR

[eschwartz]

%TEMP% evaluates to %APPDATA%\Local\Temp\ and fills a config folder there as expected.

non-portable installs can just generate configs from calibre itself.

That is my handy way of making it act like a new install and apparently a new install on that machine with that user account will persist in using a half-sized window that sits in the center of the screen.

A conundrum!

[BetterRed]

1. you typed TEMP not %TEMP% - hence my question
   
2. someone recently posted on how one shouldn't rely on the content of 'temporary folders'.
   
   If that was thee then you should heed thine own words lest thee get hoisted on thine own petard - or to put it another way ‘Physician, heal yourself’ Luke 4:23

I give calibre a Temp known only to itself.

BR

[eschwartz]

I did indeed warn against assuming autogenerated tempfiles will continue to be there when you need them. That is different from relocating standard data (the program isn't going to autoclean that) to the tempfolder, a common ploy for data that can be safely cleaned up whenever Windows need more hard drive space, or unix gets rebooted.

(Also the permissions are fine. )