[Old Thread] Why doesn’t calibre let me store books in my own directory structure?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by wilo108

i just stopped by to add my name to the list of people who don't use Calibre for this this reason. same reason i don't use iTunes and other software that tries to tell me how i may use my files. it's a shame, because there are some bits of Calibre that are hard to replicate or replace, but there are too many use cases where maintaining my entire collection of ebooks in duplicate is absurd and infeasible.

According to this very thread you are on a very short list. Also, nobody has any intention of changing anything in calibre. Also, this thread stands as a testament to the idea that "maintaining my entire collection of ebooks in duplicate" is indeed absurd and unfeasible -- because they should all be in calibre, and "why the hell are you keeping a bunch of duplicate copies elsewhere"? (Unless you are backing up your ebooks as part of a system-wide snapshots procedure similar to OSX's Time Machine -- which isn't considered all that unusual, but then again, you don't have to...)

Point of order -- Zem has pointed out a few good reasons why calibre doesn't work for him, basically boiling down to the inability to keep in sync with other software and the need for, as it turns out, multiple calibre libraries (I have a feeling that was added in since his time as a result of conversations like this). If you have any arrangements like that, feel free to mention them, your opinion will be entirely understandable in that case.

But -- it doesn't sound like that is why you object. It sounds like you want something like iTunes for ebooks which uses an inefficient database to track potentially-moving files all over the filesystem, because you want to keep using an IMO lousy flat directory-based structure with no flexibility whatsoever, but you want to use calibre to view it as a library, and think this free (!!!) software is required to change to suit your needs.

Also adding in frivolous support tickets when people lose their books and Kovid has to explain why. iTunes, which does exactly what you want, with music, has been the bane of several people I know, for example for importing music downloaded from the browser -- since they didn't realize it was stored in the temp folder (because they opened it instead of saving) it disappeared when they rebooted. I am sure Apple gets plenty of complaints about that sort of stuff too -- but they are a giant multibillion-dollar corporation and can afford to field those calls. calibre can't and doesn't care to.

Ironic that you refuse to use iTunes since on the contrary it is exactly what you seem to like...

You are of course more than welcome to use the command-line tools for converting books or whatever else you may wish to do. Or even writing your own GUI that uses the command-line calibre tools to organize your books in some iTunes-like manner, if you wish to contribute something helpful to the discussion.

Finally, why are you registering to this site for the sole purpose of complaining about software that you don't intend to use, for which you didn't have to pay anything, and doing so in an insulting and demanding manner?

Also, necropost.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by wilo108

i just stopped by to add my name to the list of people who don't use Calibre for this this reason. same reason i don't use iTunes and other software that tries to tell me how i may use my files. it's a shame, because there are some bits of Calibre that are hard to replicate or replace, but there are too many use cases where maintaining my entire collection of ebooks in duplicate is absurd and infeasible.

There are no mandatory duplicates.

You CHOOSE to leave the original where it was. ( I loaded many books from the Baen CDs that I do NOT leave in the drive).

Some actions within Calibr can make changes to the COPY in the Library.
It is very nice to have an archive of the original to revert to if things go hard left (or was it Right )

[DoctorOhh]

Welcome to Mobileread.

Originally Posted by wilo108

i just stopped by to add my name to the list of people who don't use Calibre for this this reason.

First person in over 3 years to add themselves to this thread.

Originally Posted by wilo108

same reason i don't use iTunes and other software that tries to tell me how i may use my files.

I don't use iTunes but the last time I checked they had both options. Copy files into their library or index the files where they stand.

Originally Posted by wilo108

it's a shame, because there are some bits of Calibre that are hard to replicate or replace,

There are folks who choose to use calibre via the Command Line Interface because they prefer not using the structure of calibre. There is no need to add books to the library to use calibre's features.

Originally Posted by wilo108

but there are too many use cases where maintaining my entire collection of ebooks in duplicate is absurd and infeasible.

In this day and age maintaining a backup of files is prudent not absurd or infeasible.

Calibre also lets you easily export the books within its library to the folder structure / filename format of your choosing using the templates for the Save to disk feature.

[cybmole]

"Quote:
Originally Posted by wilo108 ...
but there are too many use cases where maintaining my entire collection of ebooks in duplicate is absurd and infeasible..."


can we quote you on that when/if you tell us that you've accidentally deleted your only copy of a book, or what to do because your hard drive died unexpectedly

cost of 1 library worth of backup storage :- peanuts
time , cost & hassle of re-sourcing\ repurchasing replacing a whole library of lost books - priceless

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by wilo108

i just stopped by to add my name to the list of people who don't use Calibre for this this reason. same reason i don't use iTunes and other software that tries to tell me how i may use my files. it's a shame, because there are some bits of Calibre that are hard to replicate or replace, but there are too many use cases where maintaining my entire collection of ebooks in duplicate is absurd and infeasible.

Hmmm... you were the first person to post to this thread in over 4 years since April, 2010 so I'd say Calibre's library structure is not a big deal for all but a vanishingly small number.

And yes, I keep multiple copies of my ebook library. One is in Calibre's library, two more are on a local USB drive (Caliber Save to Disk) and the other is in the cloud again using Save to Disk to the cloud storage. Then there are the data backups and the bare metal disaster recovery backups of the whole setup. I've been using computers too long to believe that you can ever have too many backups (going back to using a Tarbell cassette interface for backups). And yes, I keep backups off site just in case.

Do you object to how Windows, OS X, Linux, whatever force you to store your files as well? Inquiring minds are eager to know.

Regards,
David

[Kirtai]

I have to admit I've the exact opposite feeling. Once I got my head around how calibre maintains the metadata and lets me dig out the raw files if things go pear shaped, I actually started looking for other tools to manage the rest of my media in a similar way. (I find automatic file moving and renaming to be an acceptable alternative)

After all, why should I bother to manually maintain metadata, file locations and other such busywork when the computer can do it faster, more accurately, more efficiently and entirely automatically? That sort of thing is what they're for.

[eschwartz]

In fact, the tagging nature of calibre is so superior to stupid things like hierarchical filesystems that there are workarounds to make the filesystem more like calibre. Take a look at http://tmsu.org/

Now if only there was an easy way to import metadata from the programs that have it...

[arspr]

Another happy user with Calibre directory structure.

In fact I don't remember which one I used before Calibre... (Yes there was a before Calibre era, till one friend told me "don't you know about this GREAT piece of software?") But what the hell!, my books are neatly stored and shorted by author in HDD and if I rename or whatever them in the GUI the files are also neatly updated.

I don't know if I could find a better or cleaner system myself. But if I could, it would be marginally better at most. So I stick to Calibre system and end of the story...

[cybmole]

the" black box" database structure works for me.

and with backup to dropbox & the calibre cloud app, I can view metatdata details, download books as needed to tablet, anywhere, anytime.

[Nova5]

I would much prefer to be able structure the file system to my preference and have calibre adapt to that. I use MediaMonkey for audio and video. I have a scheme I use that woorks well for me with that software. While it would let me have them randomly spread around, I structure it so...

Music = Artist / Album / Artist - Track.mp3
Video = Title first letter / title.m4v
Video Series = Series / Season X / title.m4v


This way if the SQL database goes boom I can still find what I want easily through explorer. I need to look at what Cal does when I put it on my server to try and use the content server I think I read it has.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Nova5

I would much prefer to be able structure the file system to my preference and have calibre adapt to that. I use MediaMonkey for audio and video. I have a scheme I use that woorks well for me with that software. While it would let me have them randomly spread around, I structure it so...

Music = Artist / Album / Artist - Track.mp3
Video = Title first letter / title.m4v
Video Series = Series / Season X / title.m4v


This way if the SQL database goes boom I can still find what I want easily through explorer. I need to look at what Cal does when I put it on my server to try and use the content server I think I read it has.

Then you will be delighted to know that calibre stores all books as

Author/Title (calibre-id)/Title - Author.epub
Author/Title (calibre-id)/Title - Author.mobi
Author/Title (calibre-id)/Title - Author.azw3
Author/Title (calibre-id)/Title - Author.pdf
Author/Title (calibre-id)/Title - Author.whatever
Author/Title (calibre-id)/cover.jpeg
Author/Title (calibre-id)/metadata.opf


Very easy to manage via the file browser, although custom tagging will not be visible in the directory structure. And all the metadata is in the metadata.opf, which can be read as straight XML.

[theducks]

Find a book with ONE of

16 authors,
16 tags,

makes no never-mind if you use the GUI to deliver your book

The file system method is really functional for books with 1

Unlike the PG(index number) method, you do not lose ALL ability to find a title USING the filesystem if the Calibre DB got trashed
With the PG#### you must open the book to find what it is unless you have the Index list handy.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by Nova5

I would much prefer to be able structure the file system to my preference and have calibre adapt to that... I structure it so...

Music = Artist / Album / Artist - Track.mp3
..

This way if the SQL database goes boom I can still find what I want easily through explorer....

Aint gonna happen - but calibre structures as author / books/ specific book formats
which is probably what youd choose anyway, given your other preferences. how else could you want it.

& if SQL fails, the books are all easy to find + there's a rebuild facility

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Nova5

I would much prefer to be able structure the file system to my preference and have calibre adapt to that. I use MediaMonkey for audio and video. I have a scheme I use that woorks well for me with that software. While it would let me have them randomly spread around, I structure it so...

Music = Artist / Album / Artist - Track.mp3
Video = Title first letter / title.m4v
Video Series = Series / Season X / title.m4v


This way if the SQL database goes boom I can still find what I want easily through explorer. I need to look at what Cal does when I put it on my server to try and use the content server I think I read it has.

@Nova5 - just because a column is called Author or Title don't mean it can't be used otherwise. I keep movies and journals in separate physical calibre libraries. For movies I put Director in Author, for journals I put Journal name in Author and Issue #/date in title. I also keep photo-albums in a calibre as CBZ's.

I've thought about using it for music, but for me its not worth the bother.

BR

[cvlowe]

I am reading through this thread and just a little confused-

People seem to think tiny amounts of files (11 or 60 GB) is some kind of problem.. You can buy a flash drive for less than $40 to store that much data. You can get a 2T USB hard drive for under $100 that will store 30X a tiny 60G library. If you're talking about academic reference materials that's the price of a couple books (assuming you buy them legitimately).

If you want to have some that sync via some external method to other computers, it's easy to create separate libraries. Right now, I'm using 3 libraries- one for books, one for computer related reference materials, and one for 'personal' info. I'll probably change things around a bit once I make some more progress in importing all of my stuff, but for now those 3 work for me. I'm still digging through my old "my documents" folder and moving files as I can update the metadata. Having a couple backups makes this process a little less scary- I can go back to the old "folder" system if I want.

I will admit, it's a bit difficult to give up my "folder" handicap/addiction and get used to the "metadata" based system Calibre uses. Even though I see the obvious benefits I'm so used to doing things the old way that it's a bit difficult to give up. Change is never easy....

Edit:
I just noticed this thread was necroed from 4 years ago, oops lol.. I think my points are still valid though- even 4 years ago, 60G wasn't a lot