Paid alternatives to Calibre?

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by JTAL604622

I think Calibre is much better..but i do like the thumbnail library view...any chance we will get this in the next version...? Taht would look killer on my 27 monitor

A coverflow thumbnail style view has been available in Calibre for as long as I can remember. Use the 'arrow' Icon at the bottom right to bring it up.

A grid style view (iBook style) is also on the roadmap as something to be developed, but the timescale for that is indeterminate.

One of my office coworkers asked my why I was chuckling while reading this thread so I explained what what I found so funny to him.

He just looked at me and said "Well, that's kind of a jerk reaction. The guy asked a legitimate question and everyone just mocked him. It's not like he asked something silly." This stopped my humor dead as my coworker may not be cutting edge anything but is definitely more competent than most people. I did the only reasonable thing to do and asked for his viewpoint.

"You want to know the best word processor, you ask the people who use them, who would know. The same for spreadsheets, photo editors, audio programs, any programs really. That's really what that guys was asking wasn't it?"

Duh, I understand the problem now. Something that, quite honestly, never occurred to me as a long time user and wouldn't be known to those just starting.

While there are tons of different word processors, spread sheets, mail, audio editors...heck, there's a myriad of almost every type of program. Well, every type except one.

I honestly can't name another collection\conversion program out there. As far as I can tell, most of us just consider Calibre to be "it". It's been around for ages, steadily getting better, adapting to whatever new reader or format that comes out, always seeming to be the program you just go to.

I explained that there really isn't any other program that does what Calibre does and he asked why no one else had made one. I opened up the library, showed and explained what everything did and why. He asked, I answered. Again, he asked why no one else had made something similar.

So he got the most basic answer: Anything new would have to compete against Calibre. That's just not worth it for most people. If you can't make a product that does something better for the money you plan to charge, why waste the time and resources to do so?

So he compromised his opinion. I'm still a jerk for chuckling at someone asking for a better version of Calibre but he understands that I'm a jerk that meant no ill will.

[Worldwalker]

You're not a jerk.

The OP wanted something "paid" because he believed that something done for money is inherently better than something done for love. (his, er, private life has got to be ... interesting)

That's what got so many calibre fans steamed: this guy coming in here and saying, in effect, that calibre must be trash because it's free. That tends to peeve people who have invested something in calibre, whether it's writing code, or suggesting enhancements, or just cheering on the devs and letting them know how much happiness they've brought into the world.

[speakingtohe]

IMO there aren't really any alternatives to calibre and certainly nothing that does as much as easily as calibre does.

Plus you get support from the developer, other programmers and ideas and alternative viewpoints from an entire community of people.

Plus it is a learning experience. When I got my Sony in April I thought that pdf's downloaded from the library were state of the art. Now, thanks to the calibre forum, I can often get rid of those annoying headers and page numbers and generally have my books formatted according to my preference.

First freely distributed program accepting donations I have donated to and the only one I have used past a reasonable trial. I would be lost without it.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by stxopher

"You want to know the best word processor, you ask the people who use them, who would know. The same for spreadsheets, photo editors, audio programs, any programs really. That's really what that guys was asking wasn't it?"
...~~...
So he compromised his opinion. I'm still a jerk for chuckling at someone asking for a better version of Calibre but he understands that I'm a jerk that meant no ill will.

Your not a jerk and your friend is partially right. If you want info on Word Processors you would not go to a dedicated MS Word forum, you would go to a word processor user forum. The original poster's question was fine if it was in a more general forum. But asked in this forum it was simply rude.

[Sridhar]

Question to OP: what do you feel is not slick or does not have a professional feel about Calibre's UI?

The main reasons people (and more typically in these days of free software, firms) go for paid software are
a. stability
b. support

Calibre is stable - it has been around for a while and is used on a regular basis by a very large number of people. In terms of support, nothing can beat the kind of customized support one can get here. The original creator of the software, along with a bunch of other experienced users respond to questions and more promptly than you can imagine. Plus you don't have to be on hold on the tech support line while you wait for the next available agent and don't have to go through a long list of useless questions/suggestions when you do get to an agent.

[Worldwalker]

I wish Microsoft had the kind of support calibre does, instead of $180 an hour to have someone tell you "you're doing it wrong."

[toddos]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

I wish Microsoft had the kind of support calibre does, instead of $180 an hour to have someone tell you "you're doing it wrong."

Stop doing it wrong and you could save $180.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by toddos

Stop doing it wrong and you could save $180.

I'm taking a different approach: I'm stopping using Microsoft products. Aside from Windows XP itself on a couple of my machines (this not being one of them) I'm nearly Microsoft-free. Oddly enough, companies which do not charge $2.95 a minute for support also seem to produce software which requires much less of such support. Weird coincidence, isn't it? (note: I've never actually needed to pay Microsoft, but that's what they charge)

[darknessangel]

Ok, I'm not a fan of Calibre but I don't think it looks "unprofessional" especially with all the updates. So, questions for OP:
-What do you want the program to do? organize books or synch with your ereader or both?

Because I was about to check out this "BookCollection" software for organizing by ebook colection. Looks cluttered but, who knows.

GJMS

[Nathanael]

[BTW, the OP hasn't been around in three weeks; I think he's/she's been pretty much scared away. Perhaps it's also time to bury this thread.]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

The OP wanted something "paid" because he believed that something done for money is inherently better than something done for love. (his, er, private life has got to be ... interesting)

That's what got so many calibre fans steamed:

I'm of two minds on this. I certainly understand, and to some degree sympathize with, those who would find such a question in a Calibre forum inappropriate. But I think there's been a lot of knee jerk overreaction as well. (And, sorry, Worldwalker; I have very much enjoyed our exchanges; but in this case I think dragging the OP's personal life into this is at least as inappropriate as the OP, and not very civil.)

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

this guy coming in here and saying, in effect, that calibre must be trash because it's free

I didn't get that he was trashing Calibre at all. Quite the opposite. My reading was that he was genuinely impressed with Calibre, but just found the interface a bit unsatisfactory.

But then I do tend to be a "benefit of the doubt" kind of guy.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a long-time Calibre user, having just picked it up about a month ago. I did make a small donation a couple of weeks ago, because I'm finding it useful at the moment, but I may or may not continue using it. This is no fault of Calibre's; I just tend to have pretty simple ebook management needs -- I store all my ebooks in folders alphabetically by author, and can drag-n-drop them to my ereader manually as easily as using Calibre. All the metadata and tagging stuff is nice at times, but only mildly interesting to me. Being that my ebook collection is my ebook collection, I'm already pretty familiar with its contents and where things are, and don't need a lot of tags or metadata to help me find what I'm looking for, so I haven't decided whether the (to me, rather minor) advantages metadata and tagging offers is worth giving up control of my folder structure. Especially since it means having to fire up Calibre just to find a book.

The one Calibre feature that I've really come to appreciate is the conversion. It's really nice to be able to convert nearly anything to ePub (a format of which I'm becoming increasingly enamored) almost automatically.

That being said, I'm also a bit sympathic to the OP's feelings viz. the Calibre UI. I'm not overly fond of the UI myself. But then I've never been a fan of the whole iTunes look-and-feel, which Calibre largely takes after. So again, not necessarily Calibre's fault.