Newbie help

[Bookathon]

I Have start using calibre yesterday. Much more capable than sony connect . Few questions cropped up

(1) I have changed cover of two .lit books, one transfered ok and shows up in sony 505 but other did not make it, if i check it in edit metadata tab it correctly shows it, but if I view it in view tab its shows old one before I applied new one

(2) Do I need to convert files before transfer it to sony, or it automatically converts it to .lrf before transfer.

(3) I am planning on buy few books of sony connect store and than transfer it to the reader, how can I do that with calibre. It seems from faq that you can use only one of the software.

(4) How do I see cover page in library view, rather than going into edit metadata tab

(5) How do I completely exit from calibre, it still stays in the tray (windows vista) after you click close button and there is no right click menu to exit.

(6) I have several text based pdf, If I convert them into .lrf would they retain table of content.

Any Help is appreciated

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by Bookathon

(1) I have changed cover of two .lit books, one transfered ok and shows up in sony 505 but other did not make it, if i check it in edit metadata tab it correctly shows it, but if I view it in view tab its shows old one before I applied new one

(2) Do I need to convert files before transfer it to sony, or it automatically converts it to .lrf before transfer.

Yes - you have to convert them before trying to transfer them. With the 505 you have a choice of using LRF or EPUB format. It as the convert stage that the cover art gets added to the output file.

(3) I am planning on buy few books of sony connect store and than transfer it to the reader, how can I do that with calibre. It seems from faq that you can use only one of the software.

Calibre cannot handle any DRM protected content. Therefore for such material one would need to copy it using either the Sony software, or Windows Explorer.

(4) How do I see cover page in library view, rather than going into edit metadata tab

It should show the new cover in the bottom left. I have found that if you have just changed the cover via the metadata dialog you often have to click on a different book and then back to the first one before you see the new cover at the bottom left.

(5) How do I completely exit from calibre, it still stays in the tray (windows vista) after you click close button and there is no right click menu to exit.

How are you trying to exit from calibre? If you are trying to use the cross at the top right whether that acts as an exit or minimise to task bar depends on your Calibre configuration settings. You can always exit using CTRL-Q which never minimises to task bar. There is also a tendency for a "ghost" calibre icon to remain for a while in the Task bar until you put the mouse over it.

[Bookathon]

I have'nt looked at configuration settings for exit yet. This control-Q sounds like a mac short cut, is it vaild for windows?

So far I have not witnessed ghosting issue

So this cover view is a bug rather than a feature, I will see if I can reproduce it, It would be nice if we can see it in library view next to book name rather than in the left lower hand corner, off course it depends on the developer to implement it, the other suggestion would be to view your books as icons, like in sony connect.

[itimpi]

Calibre is OS neutral, so CTRL-Q works in calibre regardless of the OS.

If you want to make a suggestion for enhancement then raise a ticket describing it, and why you want it. If you are convincing enough it will probably get implemented.

I personnaly am not sure that having the icon against the name would add much as to avoid consuming extra space the icon would have to be very maall. There is also the performance implications of attempting to draw all the icons.

If you want icons there is already the option to switch into cover-flow mode using the leftmost of the big buttons at the bottom right. I find that too sluggish to be useful.

[Bookathon]

I would agree as to performance implication regarding drawing all icons if you have large library. but calibre is not resource hungry to begin with.

Coverflow mode is mac os x feature and I am on windows vista. I converted from mac to windows few months ago.

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by Bookathon

I would agree as to performance implication regarding drawing all icons if you have large library. but calibre is not resource hungry to begin with.

When I run Calibre on Windows it starts by using about 70Mb on initial load, and regularily runs up to around 200Mb. The calibre-parallel job can use a similar amount of RAM when converting books. I would not call that resource-light, but it is acceptable on most modern systems which measure their RAM in gigabytes. Start some conversion jobs and performance really starts to suffer if you do not have a multi-core system as all the CPU power gets swallowed up!

Coverflow mode is mac os x feature and I am on windows vista. I converted from mac to windows few months ago.

In calibre it works regardless of OS.

[Bookathon]

You are right about resources, I just checked task manager and it is most consumung process around 9257K without coverflow and with coverflow it is around 10054K, I have 4 gig memory and 2.4 core 2 duo processor so i don't feel the effect, but by all means it is resource hungry, my photshop running around 3256K, internet explorer 7 is around 3245K.

Yes coveflow is feature independent of OS.

I think developer should look into use of resources. We are in computing era when all the companies are trying to cut down on resources hogs such as windows 7 and mac os x snow leopard, But on the other hand calibre is not the software you use everyday unless rss feed is your thng.

[itimpi]

The fact that Calibre is developed in python means it is going to be significantly more resource hungry (particularily for RAM) than applications developed in older languages like C++.

The plus side is that Python will lend itself to a very fast and flexible development cycle which is why calibre is improving so fast.

On that basis although resources are always worth looking at, I am much more interested in features. Any PC that is capable of handling Vista is defintely capable of handling Calibre, and the vast majority of XP based machines will also have more than enough RAM. What is worth checking out, though, is anything that can be used to improve performance, particularily at the GUI level as that is the users interface to the system.

[kovidgoyal]

One of the reasons memory consumption is so high on windows and os x is that calibre has to load its private copies of various toolkits (since they're open source toolkits, they're not readily available on non-linux platforms).