Why is Calibre so difficult to use?

[Pinecone]

Originally Posted by theducks

One thing I notice:
New people that try and force Calibre into doing things their (old) way seem to have the most problems.

Amazing, isn't it?

[AndrewH]

I don't think Calibre is "difficult to use", but rather it can be overwhelming. Fortunately, most of the basic functions one would use it for (add book, send to device, etc) are included as default buttons on the toolbar.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by larsh

Calibre is not as user-friendly as an Apple product.

Mainly because it is made by nerds, not by software designers with a sense of usability :-)

Thanks for the laugh! <sarcasm>I only wished Calibre was as user-friendly and easy to use as iTunes... </sarcasm>

[jmaejr]

Originally Posted by MacLake

Come on, such Apple bashing is really childish, as well as blaming the Cailbre developers for not implementing every feature one may find useful.

Apple makes great hard- and software, great design and easy to use. Sometimes they omit some features and you can’t configure everything. But Linux is also not everybody’s cup of tea. You can’t blame the users for that.

Calibre is a very useful program, but its user interface could be improved, and we should help the developers in dong that instead of just complaining. Nevertheless also in this case you shouldn’t blame the users for criticizing the usability. I’ve heard such complaints from VLC developers when I told in their forum that their settings GUI was very hard to use.

Hmmm...I didn't realize Calibre was Linux based. Evidently a nice looking interface equates to better usability...in Appleland.

Originally Posted by Webstar

Can anyone throw any light on this? I have an iphone. You'd think getting books on to an iphone might be one of the commonest tasks, and therefore pretty automated. Wrong. First off, Calibre doesn't accept .doc files as a source. But it doesn't say so straight out. It allows .doc files to be imported, but it won't convert them. (Why reject so common a format?). However, I then found out it accepts .rtf, so that problem was solved. But that was the easy part. How to get the resulting epub file onto the iphone? That took me at least an hour. Eventually I found I could drag it (not from within Calibre, but from the Calibre folder) into the Stanza section on the apps page of my iphone in iTunes. And, yes, I did study the 'help' provided in Calibre. And I did struggle with Stanza on my iphone. But when it comes to entering the IP address of my computer (a matter unknown to me), etc., etc. and some stuff about having Calibre as a server, I more or less have to give up. I know it's a free program, but really - putting an epub file on to an iphone...? Shouldn't that be simple?

IF Apple products and software are so great, then why is the OP looking for something other than an Apple product to get books onto his/her Apple product?

This user interface is pretty ugly...

[theducks]

This is the old version

[toddos]

Originally Posted by theducks

This is the old version

This is the new, user-friendly version that's much more prone to breaking.

Also, people often say, "Calibre's UI is ugly and it should be fixed," but they never really provide any examples of how to fix it. At its heart, calibre is a database program. It's data-centric, and needs to display that data in a useful manner. I for one do not want a wood-grained shelf metaphor. I like the detailed list view of books in calibre. It gets the job done quickly and efficiently and looks just fine while doing it.

I'm not a big fan of some of the icons, but it's easy to replace those (I'm a software engineer, not a graphic designer, so I'm not even going to attempt to contribute icons ). Personally, I've been using the metro-look icons for some time now.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by toddos

I for one do not want a wood-grained shelf metaphor.

I do. Not as a replacement to the normal details view (which is much more efficient when managing the library), but as an additional form of browsing books similar to the cover browser.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

I do. Not as a replacement to the normal details view (which is much more efficient when managing the library), but as an additional form of browsing books similar to the cover browser.

But ... why? Your computer isn't a bookshelf. It doesn't have the physical limitations of a bookshelf. Trying to shoehorn a metaphor where it doesn't belong is a hallmark of bad design, not good. Bookshelf metaphors don't even really make sense in software. How many bookshelves do you have where you've shelved the books with the front facing out rather than the spine? But if you only show the spine, especially with a relatively tiny 96x96 pixel thumbnail, you're not going to be able to see any useful information. You're trading information density for an outdated concept of "pretty". For what it's worth, I also dislike the cover browser (and its iFlow inspiration from iTunes, as well) as it's a poor way to view information. Arguably pretty, though.

Calibre could use some minor UI cleanups (the settings dialog could be reorganized, for example), but overall it does what it needs to do quite well, with good default actions for most things while not preventing more complex actions from being taken.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

I do. Not as a replacement to the normal details view (which is much more efficient when managing the library), but as an additional form of browsing books similar to the cover browser.

But my first book shelves were concrete blocks with boards

[BookJunkieLI]

Originally Posted by theducks

But my first book shelves were concrete blocks with boards

Mine were fashionably red milk crates which were great for portability.