Expected cover dimension for browser?

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by Sigwolf

Nice job pulling out only negative words

If there weren't so many negative words in it, I wouldn't have commented. How about one like this:

I'm seeing most of my books in the cover browser being cut off near the bottom. The generic book cover is being cut off at the right side.

Possibly it relates to the different aspect ratio between hardback and paperback covers. Is anyone else seeing this?

Now try to quote the negative words from the revised post above and you'll see the difference. I put a lot of development and support time into Calibre, and I wouldn't want to fix your problem for you. I'd do it, but your post would make me grumble.

[jackie_w]

I have no wish to be part of any slanging match but I have a similar issue.

The majority of my collection (mainly fiction) has been adversely affected, i.e. either the Title or the Author has been chopped off partially or completely. I can only assume that the source of the majority of my covers (the FantasticFiction website) posts covers which are not the desired 3:4 ratio.

Is this a final design decision now? I will raise a ticket if there is any chance that a change/further enhancement would be considered.

[Sigwolf]

Originally Posted by Starson17

If there weren't so many negative words in it, I wouldn't have commented. How about one like this:



Now try to quote the negative words from the revised post above and you'll see the difference. I put a lot of development and support time into Calibre, and I wouldn't want to fix your problem for you. I'd do it, but your post would make me grumble.

... and if your posts were not to condescending and pretentious, I might be inclined to listen to your input.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I have no wish to be part of any slanging match but I have a similar issue.

It's not a slanging match. I'm sure Kovid wants to know about these issues.

[capidamonte]

On the internet, nobody knows you're a mensch.

Well, it sounds like maybe the images aren't being scaled down to proper width before they're being cropped.

Given that the generic icon is being cut off on the right, perhaps the code is grabbing the upper-left 600x800, instead of calculating the 3:4 ratio from the actual width.

Maybe it could be an either/or choice: resize to width, or to height. That's what I do manually when I make covers: get something clean at width, resize to 600 pixels wide, then crop to 800 high. But I can see the argument the other way: clean up the height, too, then resize to 800 pixels high, and if necessary fill in the width borders with transparency.

cap

[kovidgoyal]

The default cover is > 3:4 which is why its right side is truncated. That has already been fixed in trunk.

@the people with a problem: Can you tell me what the size of some of your covers is, I haven't come across any book covers that are wildly different from 3:4 myself, which is why I made this decision. I can easily check the aspect ratio and if it is wildly different, distort instead of cropping.

[jackie_w]

@Kovid

I've just taken a random author in my library. Quite a few of the covers are 297x475 or 316x479 but they do vary a lot.

The covers will have come from several sources. With old books sometimes you have to take what you can find.

Out of 18 books ratio of short-side to long-side is:-
0.62-0.66 for 17 of them and
0.75 (i.e.desirable ratio) for only 1.

[kovidgoyal]

After thinking about it a bit, I figured that simply distorting all files is the most efficient solution. If your covers are close to 3:4 there wont be any difference, if not, you'll see a distorted version of the cover, as before.

And this way I don;t have to try to figure out cap's reflection issue

[jackie_w]

Suits me. I'd rather have distorted than cropped

[capidamonte]

Does this mean that 3:4 covers will be distorted, or that all covers will be distorted to 3:4?

Thanks!

cap

ps: have you considered letting people pick from several ratio options? 2:3, 3:4, 9:16, etc...

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

After thinking about it a bit, I figured that simply distorting all files is the most efficient solution. If your covers are close to 3:4 there wont be any difference, if not, you'll see a distorted version of the cover, as before.

Seems like a good solution. I too had 90+% covers cut off. I still plan on adjusting all my covers to 600x800 but now I'll have time.

[Sigwolf]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

After thinking about it a bit, I figured that simply distorting all files is the most efficient solution. If your covers are close to 3:4 there wont be any difference, if not, you'll see a distorted version of the cover, as before.

And this way I don;t have to try to figure out cap's reflection issue

Thanks, Kovid. A lot of my covers are similar to Jackie's with a ratio in the .6 range. I never minded the distortion in the cover browser because it kept things uniform in that view, and we still have access to the undistorted true cover image in other parts of the program.

[capidamonte]

My covers look awesome in the 0.7.6 cover browser! I hope all yours do too.

[jackie_w]

Yes. Covers look good again in v7.6. Thank you.