Reading books with a custom viewer

[tn4w]

Hello,

I'm on Windows and use Honeyview, a fast lightweight picture viewer that supports the double spread view, to view zipped image files converted with Calibre. On my PC, the Calibre E-book viewer is unbelievably slow. It takes about 30 seconds to start and several seconds to open next pages plus often images are too small like thumbnails so I have to use external programs.

As I get more books, I've started thinking whether there is a way to call Honeyview from Calibre after selecting a book consisting of only images.

Is there such an option (context menu) like "Open with..."?

Thanks.

[Sirtel]

You could associate such a file with Honeyview using Windows file associations (Always open with...) and then disable the Calibre viewer for this format in Calibre (Preferences -> Behavior -> Use internal viewer for...). The result will be that whenever you click on this format in Calibre, it opens in Honeyview.

[BetterRed]

↑ ↑ ↑ ✔ - Honeyview is my default comic viewer.

If a format is not checked in the default Use internal viewer for: settings it is a hint that the calibre viewer is not well suited for that format. The default settings are attached:

Any formats that are not in that list will always use the OS default viewer for that format - e.g VLC Media Player for MP4 files.

BR

[Comfy.n]

For a long time, I used kiwidude's Open With plugin (here and here).

Recently, I started using a combination of Action Chains and the Calibre built-in Open With action, which is quite sufficient for my use cases.

However, I miss the Calibre built-in Open With in the context menu for the books in the library

[Comfy.n]

Also, I keep procrastinating to ask capink in the Action Chains thread for a quick way to toggle the Use internal viewer formats. I need to figure out a way to explain why it would be useful and make sure it isn't workaroundable with the current actions. For instance: when doing FTS searches, my preferred viewer is not the system default (Sumatra). So I wanted to have Calibre default to open with internal viewer before doing FTS.

Additionally, when opening books with epub AND pdf formats, I have Calibre open the PDF as my prioritized preference (edit: actually that's in preferred output format). That makes PDF the default format for generating the News I download, although I would prefer the news in epub format.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Comfy.n

For a long time, I used kiwidude's Open With plugin (here and here).

I still use Kiwidude's plugin, but more for "utility" programs like epubcheck or ComicTagger that I don't want clogging up Calibre's OW menu. That said, adding Calibre's 'open with' to the context menus would be nice.

Would also be nice to be able to set a 'default' for specific books - I have a few fixed-layout epub3's that Calibre's reader can't really work with.

[BetterRed]

I stopped using the OW plugin when calibre's native OW came along.

I have kb shorts for my frequently used options, Shift+S for open EPUB in Sigil, Shift+W for Open DOCX in Word, etc.

I also have 'V' set to View specific format, so when needed I can get at the OW list for different formats from there.



BR

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Would also be nice to be able to set a 'default' for specific books - I have a few fixed-layout epub3's that Calibre's reader can't really work with.

I tag those with "Use Azardi". That triggers a Column Colour rule: make book line Orange if "Use Azardi" is in tags.

BR

erratum: Actually I put "Use Azardi" in #admin_tags, the built-in tags is reserved for content tagging.

[Comfy.n]

Perhaps we should remind the OP that there is a context menu for the native Open With in book details -> right-click 'Formats':

[Comfy.n]

BTW I regret that only recently I found this software, suggested by Raymond. It opens up a plethora of possibilities through mouse gestures.

For example, now when I double-click a book in Calibre it will open instantly with Sumatra or Xchange Editor - my system default viewers for the main formats. And if I want to read, highlight etc., I do an 'up' mouse gesture over the book in cover grid, which will open the internal ebook viewer. For metadata download, I have a 'down' gesture, and so on. Edit Metadata is 'up to the left', as shown below:

[tn4w]

Originally Posted by Comfy.n

Perhaps we should remind the OP that there is a context menu for the native Open With in book details -> right-click 'Formats':

Attachment 197758

This is what I've been looking for. Thank you!

[BetterRed]

FWIW - Configuring and using Calibre's built in Open With

BR