Author(s) sort - Page 2

Worldwalker · 01-20-2011, 10:17 AM

Read my .sig.

Calibre is not a file manager. It is a book manager. Books are made up of files, yes, just like files are made up of blocks, but calibre manages books, not files, in the way that Windows Explorer manages files, not blocks. The reason calibre makes a poor file manager is that calibre isn't a file manager. It doesn't organize its private files in a way that represents your metadata because those files are not supposed to represent your metadata. That metadata is contained separately, on a per-book basis, and is far more powerful in that form than any file arrangement could possibly be. Books organized by calibre can be sorted and accessed in innumerable ways; going outside calibre to use the computer file structure, however, is not one of those ways.

If, in the future, you want to use some other software instead of calibre, either use your original files, or export the files from calibre in whatever format and structure you like. There's no problem.

Think of calibre's internal files as a database (which, in the early days, they were) that says "no user serviceable parts inside" in big letters. They're in a big black box, one that you access via the calibre GUI. At the moment they do happen to be files, but that's not guaranteed to continue, nor is any given arrangement (of files, database tables, or anything else) guaranteed. It doesn't matter; that's not how you use calibre. You wouldn't try to make your computer's file manager into a hex editor, would you, and insist on arranging the disc blocks that make up your data in a certain pattern, and using that hex editor to read it, right? You use files, which might be scattered all over the place, and never look at their lower-level representation at all. Calibre moves up another level of abstraction. It organizes things as books, rather than files (or blocks), and you work with the books, organize them to your specifications, transfer them to wherever you want them (your device, a portable drive, whatever), and so on. There are no user-serviceable parts inside.

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01-20-2011, 10:17 AM	#16
Worldwalker Curmudgeon Posts: 3,085 Karma: 722357 Join Date: Feb 2010 Device: PRS-505	Read my .sig. Calibre is not a file manager. It is a book manager. Books are made up of files, yes, just like files are made up of blocks, but calibre manages books, not files, in the way that Windows Explorer manages files, not blocks. The reason calibre makes a poor file manager is that calibre isn't a file manager. It doesn't organize its private files in a way that represents your metadata because those files are not supposed to represent your metadata. That metadata is contained separately, on a per-book basis, and is far more powerful in that form than any file arrangement could possibly be. Books organized by calibre can be sorted and accessed in innumerable ways; going outside calibre to use the computer file structure, however, is not one of those ways. If, in the future, you want to use some other software instead of calibre, either use your original files, or export the files from calibre in whatever format and structure you like. There's no problem. Think of calibre's internal files as a database (which, in the early days, they were) that says "no user serviceable parts inside" in big letters. They're in a big black box, one that you access via the calibre GUI. At the moment they do happen to be files, but that's not guaranteed to continue, nor is any given arrangement (of files, database tables, or anything else) guaranteed. It doesn't matter; that's not how you use calibre. You wouldn't try to make your computer's file manager into a hex editor, would you, and insist on arranging the disc blocks that make up your data in a certain pattern, and using that hex editor to read it, right? You use files, which might be scattered all over the place, and never look at their lower-level representation at all. Calibre moves up another level of abstraction. It organizes things as books, rather than files (or blocks), and you work with the books, organize them to your specifications, transfer them to wherever you want them (your device, a portable drive, whatever), and so on. There are no user-serviceable parts inside.