Beta testers for calibre 9 needed

[un_pogaz]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, I do have an option for the bookself view I'd like to have. I'd like an option to be able to make the books all the same width or not and if we do want the same width, an option to change that width.

Put a decimal value between 0.0 to 1.0.
Adding spin box to control it (like the cover opacity on the spine) will be a overinginered solution for not that much. I agree that on the paper, it sound good, but behind their are thing that make it quite irrelevant and complicated.
Sure, you don't control the width pixel perfect, but with a little experimentation, a litéral value in the spine template is way enough.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by un_pogaz

Put a decimal value between 0.0 to 1.0.
Adding spin box to control it (like the cover opacity on the spine) will be a overinginered solution for not that much. I agree that on the paper, it sound good, but behind their are thing that make it quite irrelevant and complicated.
Sure, you don't control the width pixel perfect, but with a little experimentation, a litéral value in the spine template is way enough.

Would you mind sharing the template code needed to do this please? Thanks.

[JSWolf]

And one more thing I think we really need. We need to be able to change the color of the text. The problem is that there are a lot of cases where the text does not show up clearly enough. Also, we need an option to bold the text or not. That would make it so we can sort out the text so it's more readable.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Also, we need an option to bold the text or not. That would make it so we can sort out the text so it's more readable.

Bold text would be appreciated much!

Another thing I'd like is to be able to change the background colour, or even apply a texture image. (I have a folder with several seamless wood textures for some reason.)

[un_pogaz]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Another thing I'd like is to be able to change the background colour, or even apply a texture image. (I have a folder with several seamless wood textures for some reason.)

In master, allow custom background like grid view
https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...3cf996f4ee3ce8

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Would you mind sharing the template code needed to do this please? Thanks.

0.3

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And one more thing I think we really need. We need to be able to change the color of the text. The problem is that there are a lot of cases where the text does not show up clearly enough. Also, we need an option to bold the text or not. That would make it so we can sort out the text so it's more readable.

The text colors are choose based to one with better contrast with the dominant colors, and on all my librarys that contain a great variety of books and covers, color are good.
It's going to take more than that.

Else, I agree that the minimal text size is quite small, but there are still readable.
I could add a tweak to edit the min/max sizes of font in the bookshelf view to give this last control to the user, but it will be a tweak, not a option.

Bold don't seem to be a wise idea to me. It could be help for sure, but it will also increase the risk to product elided text and will probably have quite side effect that I don't want take the risk to experiment.

[kovidgoyal]

Released version 8.99.8 with the changes:

* Bookshelf: Allow changing the background color/texture
* Various minor bug fixes

I am hoping this will be the last beta. Things seem to be pretty solid now. Thanks to everyone for your valuable testing and feedback, the bookshelf would not have been half as good as it is, without it.

[un_pogaz]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

I am hoping this will be the last beta. Things seem to be pretty solid now. Thanks to everyone for your valuable testing and feedback, the bookshelf would not have been half as good as it is, without it.

Yeah, me too.
Just PR a tweak to control font size in bookshelf, but such detail can largely go straight forward in the full release (no value change).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by un_pogaz

In master, allow custom background like grid view
https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...3cf996f4ee3ce8

0.3

The text colors are choose based to one with better contrast with the dominant colors, and on all my librarys that contain a great variety of books and covers, color are good.
It's going to take more than that.

Else, I agree that the minimal text size is quite small, but there are still readable.
I could add a tweak to edit the min/max sizes of font in the bookshelf view to give this last control to the user, but it will be a tweak, not a option.

Bold don't seem to be a wise idea to me. It could be help for sure, but it will also increase the risk to product elided text and will probably have quite side effect that I don't want take the risk to experiment.

Thank you very much for the template.

What you may find is a good color others may not. I don't find the text as readable as it should be because the color and background mesh too much. I'd like to be able to change the white and the black color separately. That means I can choose what color that work for me. Same with others.

Bold is going to help. The problem is that the text is too thin and can be rather hard to read.

I've set the covers to be 50%. and for the full covers. Some of the text is very much unreadable. So we need to be able to bold and change the text colors.

And oen other thing, we should be able to change the font for the text on the spines.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Released version 8.99.8 with the changes:

* Bookshelf: Allow changing the background color/texture
* Various minor bug fixes

I am hoping this will be the last beta. Things seem to be pretty solid now. Thanks to everyone for your valuable testing and feedback, the bookshelf would not have been half as good as it is, without it.

I hope not (last beta) as there should be options to change the text color and to bold the text as well as to choose which font we want to use for the spines.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by un_pogaz

Yeah, me too.
Just PR a tweak to control font size in bookshelf, but such detail can largely go straight forward in the full release (no value change).

Please do not leave out text colors, changing the font, and using the bold font.

[JSWolf]

@un_pogaz can you read all of the spines in the screen grab? This is why we need to be able to change the text colors, the font, and bold.

[un_pogaz]

@JSWolf Yes, readable enough.
But rethinking about it, it could be bossible to give a this option to the user, but you are really lucky that we have a deep control on the bookshelf for that

Else, @Kovid, since you decide to make the font size a option rather than a tweaks, what do you think to also a checkbox fo bold text on spines?

Else, in any case, I draw a hard line for feature to now.
No new features, or it will request a very clear and strong support.

[kovidgoyal]

bold text at small sizes is not more readable than non-bold text. Indeed at least to me, it looks less readable for most common fonts. Not ot mention that bold text is already used for group dividers.

EDIT: That said, it doesnt really cost anything: https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...2d4b9ccb0d66f7

[DNSB]

It's me again, Margaret.

I updated to the beta 8.99.8 release and the latest source download. calibre does not start with an error about not being able to import UTF-16 slice. Running the beta only does work.

Spoiler:

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.26200.7623]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\dbowe>calibre-debug -g
calibre 8.99.8*  embedded-python: True
Windows-11-10.0.26200-SP0 Windows ('64bit', 'WindowsPE')
('Windows', '11', '10.0.26200')
Python 3.14.2
Windows: ('11', '10.0.26200', 'SP0', 'Multiprocessor Free')
Interface language: None
EXE path: C:\Program Files\Calibre2\calibre-debug.exe
calibre_plugins.baen.__init__:47: SyntaxWarning: "\d" is an invalid escape sequence. Such sequences will not work in the future. Did you mean "\\d"? A raw string is also an option.
calibre_plugins.baen.__init__:59: SyntaxWarning: "\." is an invalid escape sequence. Such sequences will not work in the future. Did you mean "\\."? A raw string is also an option.
calibre_plugins.baen.__init__:198: SyntaxWarning: "\s" is an invalid escape sequence. Such sequences will not work in the future. Did you mean "\\s"? A raw string is also an option.
calibre_plugins.baen.__init__:199: SyntaxWarning: "\s" is an invalid escape sequence. Such sequences will not work in the future. Did you mean "\\s"? A raw string is also an option.
Successfully initialized third party plugins: ACSM Input (0, 1, 0) && LCPL Input (0, 0, 5) && Gather KFX-ZIP (from KFX Input) (2, 28, 0) && DeDRM (10, 0, 15) && AZW6 Image Merge (1, 1, 1) && Package KFX (from KFX Input) (2, 28, 0) && ACSM Input Plugin GUI Extension (0, 1, 0) && Apple Books covers (1, 1, 0) && Backup Configuration Folder (1, 1, 2) && Baen (1, 1, 0) && Barnes & Noble (1, 5, 7) && Count Pages (1, 14, 4) && Diaps Editing Toolbag (0, 5, 0) && EpubCheck (0, 2, 6) && EpubMerge (3, 2, 0) && EpubSplit (3, 12, 0) && FanFicFare (4, 53, 0) && Find Duplicates (1, 10, 9) && Generate Cover (2, 3, 6) && Goodreads (1, 8, 3) && Job Spy (1, 0, 239) && KFX metadata reader (from KFX Input) (2, 28, 0) && From KFX (2, 28, 0) && KFX Input (2, 28, 0) && Set KFX metadata (from KFX Output) (2, 18, 0) && KFX Output (2, 18, 0) && Kindle hi-res covers (0, 5, 1) && KindleUnpack - The Plugin (0, 83, 8) && Kobo Metadata (1, 12, 0) && Kobo Utilities (2, 25, 0) && Modify ePub (1, 8, 8) && Obok DeDRM (10, 0, 9) && Open With (1, 8, 4) && OverDrive Libby (0, 2, 101) && Quality Check (1, 14, 6) && Resize Cover (1, 2, 1) && ScrambleEbook (0, 6, 0) && SmartEject (2, 6, 0) && Smashwords Metadata (1, 0, 2)
QPA platform: windows
devicePixelRatio: 1.0
logicalDpi: 96.0 x 96.0
physicalDpi: 81.55183946488295 x 81.64285714285714
ApplicationPaletteChange event ignored
Using calibre Qt style: True
ApplicationPaletteChange event received
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "runpy.py", line 198, in _run_module_as_main
  File "runpy.py", line 88, in _run_code
  File "site.py", line 83, in <module>
  File "site.py", line 78, in main
  File "site.py", line 50, in run_entry_point
  File "d:\calibre\calibre-master\src\calibre\debug.py", line 236, in main
  File "d:\calibre\calibre-master\src\calibre\gui_launch.py", line 74, in calibre
  File "d:\calibre\calibre-master\src\calibre\gui2\main.py", line 550, in main
  File "d:\calibre\calibre-master\src\calibre\gui2\main.py", line 566, in run_main
  File "d:\calibre\calibre-master\src\calibre\gui2\main.py", line 397, in run_gui
  File "d:\calibre\calibre-master\src\calibre\gui2\main.py", line 407, in run_gui_
  File "d:\calibre\calibre-master\src\calibre\gui2\ui.py", line 39, in <module>
  File "d:\calibre\calibre-master\src\calibre\gui2\init.py", line 38, in <module>
  File "d:\calibre\calibre-master\src\calibre\gui2\library\bookshelf_view.py", line 92, in <module>
ImportError: cannot import name 'utf16_slice' from 'calibre_extensions.progress_indicator' (C:\Program Files\Calibre2\app\bin\progress_indicator.pyd)

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

@un_pogaz can you read all of the spines in the screen grab? This is why we need to be able to change the text colors, the font, and bold.
Attachment 220407

Oof, that gives me a headache. I adjust the opacity of my book covers which helps a bit.