Why would anyone dislike Calibre....

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by jrustyw

Yes, thank you for noticing... Goodness, I got more attention that I expected. My thanks to those who were polite. My intent wasn't to be superior - it was to bitch about a specific annoyance about the program that may nail new users of the program who walk in with similar expectations to my own. And, no, I didn't RTM before starting to muck around with the program....

Glad you worked things out, welcome aboard.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by jrustyw

How many folks do you think just might have assumed all was well and dumped the original files somewhere in this process?

If people want to delete their files, there is nothing calibre (or any other program) can do about it.

Also, you did not say "calibre doesn't use the same internal names as the original files have, and people might decide to delete their original files"; you said that calibre destroys data and changes filenames, which is not the same thing. You may not think you look like you're backpedaling, but other people think so.

If you wanted your .mobi files somewhere with names of your choosing, that's what the export files option is for. Saying "I didn't use the feature that calibre provides, instead I did something I wasn't supposed to do, and calibre didn't work like it would have if I'd used the correct feature" is not calibre's fault. Saying that it is (and misrepresenting how you used it, and how others would use it) is disingenuous at best.

[toddos]

You know, it seems like a lot of these types of questions/issues could be easily defused by changing the names that calibre uses in the filesystem. That is, rather than storing folders by author name and books by title name, store them by some internal unique IDs. Thus a folder structure that currently looks like:

• Author 1
  • Book 1
    • Book 1.epub
    • Book 1.pdf
  • Book 2
    • Book 2.epub
• Author 2
  • Book 3
    • Book 3.lit

Could instead look like:

• 123
  • 1a3def
    • 1a3def.epub
    • 1a3def.pdf
  • 4ff983
    • 4ff983.epub
• 456
  • 3381ae
    • 3381ae.lit

If you've ever tried to side-load books into Kindle on iPhone, for example, you'd see that while the app stores books in the filesystem it doesn't store them in any named manner that would make it easy for people to poke around.

There's no way to stop people from looking in places they shouldn't, but you can discourage it by making it difficult to figure out what everything is.

[Worldwalker]

I've suggested that. I think Kovid should do it just to save the time spent on support for people who don't get the bit about leaving calibre's internal files the heck alone.

[Dopedangel]

Originally Posted by toddos

You know, it seems like a lot of these types of questions/issues could be easily defused by changing the names that calibre uses in the filesystem. That is, rather than storing folders by author name and books by title name, store them by some internal unique IDs. Thus a folder structure that currently looks like:

• Author 1
  • Book 1
    • Book 1.epub
    • Book 1.pdf
  • Book 2
    • Book 2.epub
• Author 2
  • Book 3
    • Book 3.lit

Could instead look like:

• 123
  • 1a3def
    • 1a3def.epub
    • 1a3def.pdf
  • 4ff983
    • 4ff983.epub
• 456
  • 3381ae
    • 3381ae.lit

If you've ever tried to side-load books into Kindle on iPhone, for example, you'd see that while the app stores books in the filesystem it doesn't store them in any named manner that would make it easy for people to poke around.

There's no way to stop people from looking in places they shouldn't, but you can discourage it by making it difficult to figure out what everything is.

I like to poke into these folders to change covers or replace or edit the original html file with a cleaner file so that it has fewer error in converting and the TOC is accurate. So having names that make it harder I won't like.
It is what it is calibre has over a million users changing how it works now could annoy thousands of regular users so should not be changed to accommodate new user complaints.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

I like to poke into these folders to change covers or replace or edit the original html file with a cleaner file so that it has fewer error in converting and the TOC is accurate. So having names that make it harder I won't like.
It is what it is calibre has over a million users changing how it works now could annoy thousands of regular users so should not be changed to accommodate new user complaints.

Type O with the book highlighted...
No need to even know the folders path name

[toddos]

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

I like to poke into these folders to change covers or replace or edit the original html file with a cleaner file so that it has fewer error in converting and the TOC is accurate. So having names that make it harder I won't like.
It is what it is calibre has over a million users changing how it works now could annoy thousands of regular users so should not be changed to accommodate new user complaints.

I've been known to poke around as well, for example if I need to cleanup an epub in sigil. I can work around that by exporting/editing/re-importing, or figuring out what file I actually care about (this would still be in a filesystem, so I could figure it out if I had to). But it would stop casual observers from poking around, and it'd be much more obvious that Calibre has staked a claim here. "Mine! Do not touch! If you need these, get them through my UI/command line tools."

You do bring up a good point that conversion of existing libraries would have to be taken into account, and that's almost certainly the main reason why this will never happen (or it'll be a long time coming).

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

I've suggested that. I think Kovid should do it just to save the time spent on support for people who don't get the bit about leaving calibre's internal files the heck alone.

There are two sides to every coin. You don't actually think obscuring the names of the files in the database would actually reduce complaints or "time spent on support", do you?

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

I like to poke into these folders to change covers or replace or edit the original html file with a cleaner file so that it has fewer error in converting and the TOC is accurate. So having names that make it harder I won't like.

No matter what the names in the database, You can change the individual files for any book in the GUI via the edit metadata window. Just drag the file to the Available Formats window or new cover to the Book Cover area.

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

It is what it is calibre has over a million users changing how it works now could annoy thousands of regular users

Changing the names in the database would not effectively be "changing how it works" since we have all agreed a long time ago to keep our fingers out of the database.

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

should not be changed to accommodate new user complaints.

In case you haven't noticed calibre is changed all the time based on new user complaints input.

Personally whatever works for Kovid is fine by me.

[Dopedangel]

Originally Posted by theducks

Type O with the book highlighted...
No need to even know the folders path name

that for one book usually I edit one series at a time so don't want to go to calibre and open the correct folder for each book etc

[kovidgoyal]

I'm not going to obfuscate the file/folder names. That reduces the functionality of calibre. I can think of plenty of legitimate reasons to poke around in the library, provided you stick to file replacement and/or readonly file operations. I don't want to lose that functionality for the sake of newbies. By that logic I would have to take out all the advanced functionality from calibre on the grounds that it could be used by a newbie to shoot himself in the foot.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

I'm not going to obfuscate the file/folder names. That reduces the functionality of calibre. I can think of plenty of legitimate reasons to poke around in the library, provided you stick to file replacement and/or readonly file operations. I don't want to lose that functionality for the sake of newbies. By that logic I would have to take out all the advanced functionality from calibre on the grounds that it could be used by a newbie to shoot himself in the foot.

Thank you.
If you started to obfuscate filenames I would have to stick with the last version that doesn't. And that would be a real shame, especially when I look at the functionality you keep adding to Calibre.

[Agama]

Originally Posted by Starson17

The problem is that very few new users are sophisticated enough to hunt up an obscure feature like that before adding all their books.

You're right. I didn't think about the original filenames until I had a small library and then I simply added a custom column and typed them in. Now I just enter filenames for new books as I add them. There are times when I want to refer back to the original source so it can be a useful column.

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

I'm not going to obfuscate the file/folder names. That reduces the functionality of calibre. I can think of plenty of legitimate reasons to poke around in the library, provided you stick to file replacement and/or readonly file operations. I don't want to lose that functionality for the sake of newbies. By that logic I would have to take out all the advanced functionality from calibre on the grounds that it could be used by a newbie to shoot himself in the foot.

Agreed.

I was just poking around in the folders the other day trying to figure out which copy of an ebook in my Calibre library I had was the correctly formatted version, and which was the mucky version - I couldn't figure out which I had sourced the good file from. Since I couldn't find my file on my PC I needed to inspect the file in the Calibre folders to help me figure it out.

You always have a copy of your original files (Calibre doesn't mess with them). I love this. I had a ton of mp3 tags mucked up by a program when I failed to keep backups and had to manually edit them all.

Calibre has an export function. Seems like that, plus having the original files, covers it to me.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Personally, I don't give the north end of a southbound furry rodent what calibre names the files in its folders since I don't go there (heck, I have them hidden; the only reason I even open the folder I parked my original files in is to drag more original files into after I've added them to calibre). However, I would be more than annoyed if I had to manually re-add my books because calibre went to an obfuscated filename system.

Now, if calibre were to go to an obfuscated filename system and had easy to use (as in automatic?) code to rename filenames one already had, I would have no problem with that. The ability to choose where to put calibre's libraries should remain, however. I prefer mine in My Documents for back up reasons. People who put their OS and programs in a separate partition, HDD or SDD would not appreciate having their books stored in calibre's program folder.

[oldbwl]

I wish I was offered the choice in the preferences a setup where there was a build your own structure with tags, in the same way as Monkeymedia allows me to organise my music e.g.

<location>\<genre>\<author>\<title>\<filename> - there would be only a small number of tags suitable.

I presume the database could easily hold the string for each file designating its place on the disk. My structure of choice would then be would be

......<genre>\<author>\<filename>
etc