Design concepts for Calibre

[openartist]

Hi, I'm a Calibre user and Graphic/UX designer professionally. I thought I'd try and contribute to the Calibre project if the team was up for some collaboration. I'm posting a proof-of-concept I made over the past few weeks. I tried to simplify the menus in some cases and there is certainly a number of liberties I took. Nothing I've done represents how I think things *should* be, but more demonstrate what it would be like to generally simplify the UI. If folks are interested in collaborating I'd be happy to work with the development team on this. Pardon any of the imperfections of the mockups. I brought them to a "good enough" place but would definitely spend more time if people wanted to move forward with a redesign. Feel free to email me at openartist at gmail

[theducks]

My 2 cents. (and for not starting out saying what is there is terrible )

The wonderful thing about Calibre is it offers different UI's and customizable toolbars. AND IT RUNS ON 3 OS

I run with Multi 1920x1080 monitors. (some folk run on a Tablet)

I rarely use grid view' I hide columns of little immediate interest. Those that are there, are reordered.

I tend to keep the Tag Browser and Book Details Closed (I frequently leave the Info pane on another monitor. It has been customized). I want wide details (my book details pane, when open, is at the bottom).

I use ALL 3 toolbars (Menu: Preference, Help. Main: Standard Calibre + Device related >, Second Toolbar: various tools (mostly 3rd party)

We already have the ability to have Icon Themes (we already had the ability to put any custom replacement Icon into the Preferences folder: Resources from a very early days)

Maybe you can come up with a way for more of the UI to be customized BY THE USER who wants a totally different look and feel from the base Calibre.
Kovid has the final say as to what is BUILT IN, but plugins are open season
Go for it

[Sirtel]

I too use the list view exclusively. More titles on the screen and more info. The tag browser is usually closed. I only use the main toolbar and put the less important icons under the Favorites. I don't use the second toolbar or the menu bar, they take too much vertical screen estate.

[Brett Merkey]

openartist, I totally support any initiative to make the Calibre user interface less "off putting" and more accessible to non-coding users. I also speak as a user experience designer and prototype coder—back when I worked for a living. However easy it is to criticize the Calibre UI, it has to be recognized that it is a successful application. No contradiction there. Photoshop violates just about every UX principle yet no one can deny that it is successful, despite being a real jungle of widgets and secret handshakes.

the ducks put it best:

The wonderful thing about Calibre is it offers different UI's and customizable toolbars. AND IT RUNS ON 3 OS

The key concept here is workflow. Calibre offers flexible means by which one can alter the interface to best reflect what you want to accomplish.

The images you provided may make sense to you but leave me quite perplexed. I'm sure the Calibre I use every day differs as much from your concept as it does from the default Calibre install. This is a good thing.

[BetterRed]

[QUOTE=Brett Merkey;3907164]

Originally Posted by Brett Merkey

openartist, I totally support any initiative to make the Calibre user interface less "off putting" and more accessible to non-coding users.

↑ ↑ ↑ ✔

Here's what I see when I start calibre (but my intake library, which empty right now, this is my Test library, hence it's a mess.)



I drive calibre via keyboard shortcuts and context menus and I avoid the mouse like the plague - if I couldn't use it like that I wouldn't - use it.

I do all my metadata editing in the book list cells - i.e. I never use single book metadata edit. I toggle Search, Tag browser and Book details as and when needed via shortcuts. Never use the Cover Grid or Carousel.

BR

[eschwartz]

My $0.02:

Any attempt to redesign the UI could, with minimal additional effort, be used to create a second UI possibly sharing some base classes, such that both the current UI and the new one are available depending how you start calibre, or alternatively, depending on a configuration setting.

It is a COMMON COMPLAINT (well, relatively common enough to stick in the mind), for people to say "oh, calibre is the worst ever, because its UI sucks". Many of those people complain that it isn't Apple-conformant enough, others crave Windows Metro everything, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Usually such people come in rude, and find a reflection of their own attitude in peoples' responses, at which point they storm off, claim they'll write a competitor program that does ebooks better, and then gosh, wow, amazing how said competitor never materializes.

It's nevertheless true that there is merit to the complaint, inasmuch as there are people who would prefer a different interface. It would be nice if they had that option, which might be billed as a "power users interface" and a "give it to me simply" interface with likely reduced functionality in order to simplify common use cases.

@openartist, I will second what theducks said. Thank you for posting this in a friendly, open manner that doesn't dismiss the hard work that was put into the existing UI.

Moreover, I encourage you to do just what I said above (and which I think I've mentioned a time or two in the past). Teach calibre an alternative user interface that can cater to the needs of people who find calibre's abundance of widgets and options to be too confusing. I think there is a lot of room for healthy growth in calibre along these lines, but the key will be to let people choose.

I think there's a good chance that Kovid would accept such an option.

...

An even more ambitious project, perhaps, would be to design a new plugin subsystem for skinning calibre, allowing users to trivially install plugins (although probably not trivially write them ) that change calibre's appearance, whether that is simply generating the interface with a different layout or redesigning the toolbars, or what have you.

To a limited extent this is already what things like Preferences -> Look & Feel -> User interface layout -> wide/narrow, or the layout toggle for the cover grid, do. Just... bigger.

[kovidgoyal]

There already is a simplified user interface for calibre with limited functionality, the calibre content server. I suggest making improvements to that. Just see the amount of complaints my removing a toolbar from the viewer in 4.2 produced. Any attempts you make to dumb down the existing interface will basically drown in a sea of complaints. You would have to make basically two separate interfaces and then do all the work to implement interfaces for all the rest of calibre's functionality beyond the book list/viewer window.

[kovidgoyal]

Oh and one way as a designer that you could really help calibre would be to adjust the colors in the default icon set so the icons are legible in both dark and light color themes.

[Kaesar]

First of all, let me clarify what I think of caliber: it is fantastic software, superior to many paid programs. So I just have to thank the generosity of Kovid and his hard work. I use caliber for the most different things: not only books but also scientific papers and even to catalog a coin collection. The uses are endless and all this thank Kovid's genius.
Having said that, it seems to me that Calibre is like a car with a wonderful, very powerful engine but with a body that needs some adjustment.
The mockups provided by Openartist are in my opinion really beautiful and I'd like to see them implemented.
I also think some comments were a little ungenerous: I'm sure Openartist has spent much of his time producing these mockups and it seems to me that he was told, albeit kindly, to think of something else.
Finally, I don't think that a refresh of the interface can harm the workflow; if anything it can improve it.
Even the fact that Caliber is mostly used in listview does not seem to me to be a convincing objection: those who use it in that mode can continue to do so, while other users may prefer a different layout.
My 0,000000002 cents :-)

[openartist]

Hi all,
Kaeser seemed to be the only one interested in implementing any sort of redesign. It's often the case that designers can be met with a kind of resistance to something that people have grown attached to. I'm of course open to a discourse about what should or should not be modified or simplified with regards to the UI. It's often the case though that if you don't provide some sort of work or proof of concept people in the opensource world don't take you seriously and write you off. There's a "put up or shut up" attitude in some other projects I've approached. So I've tried to change tack and come with an idea partially realized. Even then when I have shown something it can be sometimes mercilessly ripped to shreds or simply rejected as "unfeasible", "too much time", "I like it the way it is" and I'm sent on my way, no real dialogue. Unfortunately, I'm not interested in merely modifying the current design or working on a theme (not my forte). Maybe my designs will help inspire something in the future? Best of luck with Calibre and thanks for making such a great software.

[un_pogaz]

The "real" problems and the answers given can be summarized as the specificity that is at the heart of Calibre :
The Choice.
The choice of the layout of its interface, the choice of the theme used, the choice of plug-ins installed.

Your idea for a new interface is very interesting (realy, everyone agrees on that), but it should be like everything else: A choice. A very interesting new choice.
I encourage you to find a team that would be motivated enough to start such a project, and once it is mature enough, to propose it to Kovid.

Your main enemy is not the developers, but the users. Just look at the fire caused by the new ereader to see that a complete redesign of the interface (without alternative) will have a very very VERY violent backlash from users.

Good luck and we look forward to hearing news from your projet.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by un_pogaz

Your main enemy is not the developers, but the users. Just look at the fire caused by the new ereader to see that a complete redesign of the interface (without alternative) will have a very very VERY violent backlash from users.

OH! MY! Yes.
I thought Seniors were the ones that were supposed to NOT deal with change . HA!
The regulars (over 55), here, are not the ones putting up the biggest HOWL .

[dunhill]

Originally Posted by openartist

Hi, I'm a Calibre user and Graphic/UX designer professionally. I thought I'd try and contribute to the Calibre project if the team was up for some collaboration. I'm posting a proof-of-concept I made over the past few weeks. I tried to simplify the menus in some cases and there is certainly a number of liberties I took. Nothing I've done represents how I think things *should* be, but more demonstrate what it would be like to generally simplify the UI. If folks are interested in collaborating I'd be happy to work with the development team on this. Pardon any of the imperfections of the mockups. I brought them to a "good enough" place but would definitely spend more time if people wanted to move forward with a redesign. Feel free to email me at openartist at gmail

Attachment 174471

I applaud your initiative for giving Caliber a hand of makeup. And I agree that it must also be a user option. How to decide the color theme, plugins or Css scenes, which everyone uses in the book viewer. It seems very attractive.

[MarjaE]

I use list view, with additional columns.

I need to keep track of which books cover certain topics, which ones are needed for each project, which ones I've sideloaded or plan to, which ones have been pre-processed for my Kindle since it can't read most newer pdfs, etc.

Your needs may differ.

I do have a couple user interface issues--

If I use Mac system default view, then there's no contrast between the selected cell and others in the same row.

If I use Calibre's own view, then there's no contrast between the light gray scrollers, the light gray lines around them, and the light gray scrollbar.

And either way, certain plugins like fanficfare animate when they complete actions. I have neurological issues and trouble with animation.

--But the ability to create my own columns, my own settings for tools like Kindle Collections, and so on is incredibly useful.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by openartist

Hi all,
Kaeser seemed to be the only one interested in implementing any sort of redesign. It's often the case that designers can be met with a kind of resistance to something that people have grown attached to.

OTOH, flat and monochrome with poor contrast text to grey backgrounds is a productivity fail. Vista was stupid with the eye candy, MS admit it now. Win3.x with the "3D update" is similar to Win9x, NT4.0, Win 2K and in XP the "fisher price" style and even graduated shading could be turned off, also all the animation. Even Vista could relatively easily be made like Win9x / NT4.0/ win2K /XP.
GUI is not an area that benefits from major shifts of appearance and operation. Win10 is almost not configurable. It ignores everything Xerox researchers learnt in the 1970s and everything MS did from 1992 onwards.
GUI element failures in Win10:

• By default scroll bars hide (this at least can be turned off)
• By default windows snap (can be turned off, but hard to find setting)
• About three main places for settings
• App store/tile/We don't call it Metro now programs in a different place to "regular" programs.
• Is the text a link, a checkbox, part of a radio-button set or a label. Does it open a popup window (modal or not) or replace the window.
• Is this window behaving like a browser with Back instead of Close, OK, Cancel?
• Why do no buttons have even a slight highlight / shadow (reversed when pressed) and rarely an indication if locked out or default.
• Overly skeuomorphic elements and buttons are silly eye candy, but totally flat grey and dark icons simplified to the point of being unrecognisable is a failure.

There is much more. But, please no-one copy Win 10. The word "modern" doesn't mean what MS thinks it means. There are ideas from the dawn of time (wheels, fire, beer, bread, wine, cooking), 1st Century (books instead of scroll, central heating), 16th C etc and especially the 1830s to 1930s (Victorian bent wood chairs, Bauhaus chairs) that are timeless. We don't scrap real world ideas because they are more than 20 years old if the design is sound.
Also Google's Android "Material Design" is a failure. In general their GUI is poor.
Mozilla has progressively made Firefox and Thunderbird on the desktop hard to use.
A small screen, desktop and a TV need quite different designs of GUI. MS with Win8 made the same mistake as with Win CE but in the opposite direction. You CAN'T have the same GUI for everything, though check boxes (please no images of slide switches), tabs, radio buttons and actual buttons can be similar.
Just because a UI looks like a corporate B&W laser printout and is regarded as "modern" doesn't make it any good.
The Nielsen Norman Group did good stuff 15 years ago. I've no idea if they have caught the flat and make everything awkward on the altar of excessive "simplicity". W10 is at the opposite extreme to Vista. Both are failures, but W10 is worse as there is almost no user control and the settings that do exist are hard to find.