Make the UI prettier.

[robojerk]

Is there a way to remove the toolbar, and keep clickable access to the preferences? Is there a plugin to add the preferences to the bottom of the window, where the column buttons are?

I love Calibre, but I ask because the UI is full of redundancies, and a lot of options wouldn't normally use for just ebook reading. Also why have buttons on top and contextual menus for the same things?

If you remove the toolbar, "Tag browser" column, and enable the cover flow, the main window for the program would look a lot prettier. The "Ebook Viewer" window could also benefit from some UI clean up as well.

I think Calibre is great for power users that need to do a lot of tweaks to ebooks, but for those looking for just a ebook reading app it seems overwhelming, and it's interface can make people not want to use it.

[DoctorOhh]

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[Manichean]

It's not about being pretty, it's about being useful That said, you know that you can customize the interface in the preferences? I don't know if you can remove the toolbar completely, but at least you can customize the buttons for the toolbar, create a menu bar and customize the right-click context menu. Everything else probably requires editing the source.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by robojerk

Is there a way to remove the toolbar, and keep clickable access to the preferences?

You can remove the icons under Preferences - Look and Feel. You can choose what is displayed for each toolbar via Preferences -Toolbars.

Originally Posted by robojerk

Is there a plugin to add the preferences to the bottom of the window, where the column buttons are?

No.

Originally Posted by robojerk

I love Calibre, but I ask because the UI is full of redundancies, and a lot of options wouldn't normally use for just ebook reading. Also why have buttons on top and contextual menus for the same things?

Calibre's primary function is ebook management. There is no reason context menus should revolve, as you seem to suggest, around ebook reading. That said, all of the context menus and toolbars are completely customizable under Preferences - Toolbars.

Originally Posted by robojerk

If you remove the toolbar, "Tag browser" column, and enable the cover flow, the main window for the program would look a lot prettier. The "Ebook Viewer" window could also benefit from some UI clean up as well.

You can remove the tag browser, integrated cover browser or book details simply by clicking on the associated icon located at the bottom right of calibre.

Originally Posted by robojerk

I think Calibre is great for power users that need to do a lot of tweaks to ebooks, but for those looking for just a ebook reading app it seems overwhelming, and it's interface can make people not want to use it.

If you are looking for "just a ebook reading app" then you might want to look elswhere, say the ePub extension for Firefox. Calibre is an eBook management suite and as such is much more complicated than a simple reader program.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

If you are looking for "just a ebook reading app" then you might want to look elswhere, say the ePub extension for Firefox. Calibre is an eBook management suite and as such is much more complicated than a simple reader program.

Not to mention that, excellent though Calibre is, it's not actually a terribly good book reader. If you simply want to read books, there are much better readers available.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Not to mention that, excellent though Calibre is, it's not actually a terribly good book reader. If you simply want to read books, there are much better readers available.

Very true. Calibre's reader is essentially a ePub reader, all other formats are converted on the fly to be read in calibre's viewer.

@robojerk - Three commonly used ereader programs.

1. Adobe Digital Editions for ePubs and library loaned epubs.
2. Kindle for PC for Mobi and Amazon downloaded formats.
3. Adobe Reader to view PDF formatted books.

[user_none]

Originally Posted by Manichean

That said, you know that you can customize the interface in the preferences? I don't know if you can remove the toolbar completely

Preferences must always be available. If you add Preferences to the menubar and remove all items from the toolbar the toolbar will not be displayed. This works great on a Mac (I dont' have a toolbar, everything is in the menubar).

[travger]

Not to say that for the beginners it's extremely valuable to have same options in several places, so it's possible to hit one of them while stumbling around. With experience come preferred configurations and then other ones can be made away with. And everyone has different preferations.