Why would anyone dislike Calibre....

[chaley]

Originally Posted by oldbwl

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

The database can easily hold anything we want. The code that handles all path renaming, movement, and consistency management, while guaranteeing transaction semantics (try *very hard* to not lose data) is not at all easy.

The bottom line is that those of us who know how to make such a change don't care. If you care, then make the change and submit it. There is a good chance it would in incorporated if you can demonstrate that it works in all the corner cases.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by oldbwl

I wish I was offered the choice in the preferences a setup where there was a build your own structure with tags....

There is. It's called "Save file as...."

[JSWolf]

If you edit the metadata in Calibre, will it rename the file to reflect the edited medtadata? I've not really used the GUI. So I'm not up on all the latest and greatest features of the GUI.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If you edit the metadata in Calibre, will it rename the file to reflect the edited medtadata? I've not really used the GUI. So I'm not up on all the latest and greatest features of the GUI.

Yes, assuming you change the title or the authors.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by oldbwl

My structure of choice would then be would be

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

Wouldn't that limit you to tagging books with only one genre?

Graham

[Worldwalker]

One would think so, which would really leave him stuck if he were tagging an anthology of short stories by one author which covered, say, fantasy, SF, and historical fiction, or one that had both fiction and non-fiction. And, of course, there's the question of where you file something with two or more authors. Ah, how I love calibre.

[N13L5]

Originally Posted by Graham

Wouldn't that limit you to tagging books with only one genre?

Graham

true, though you could still tag it with other genres in the keywords... not quite the same, of course.

Somehow, for me, it would be no loss, I don't actually tag books with more than one genre, though I understand it maybe useful for some purposes.


My main problem is that having books sorted by author doesn't really work:

I wouldn't want to have to remember the names of 50 authors of various programming books, in order to find the one book dealing with XML in Python...

Bookstores certainly sort their shelves by genre first, subject second, and author third. The Barns&Nobles in Santa Monica sections their floors by genre, then shelves are by subject, and in a given subject, you get an alphabetic setup by author.

Accessing books in Calibre's directory from windows explorer is an absolutely useless excercise, cause there's just loads of folders with author names that mean nothing to me.

Currently, I'm misusing the series field to sort books into directories that work for finding related books: one series is called Python, another is called Database, another Java, another Jack Vance, another H.P.Lovecraft, (those writers made their own genre anyway) etc.

Its not optimal use of Calibre's facilities, but at least I can sort the books into folders that allow me to quickly find what I'm looking for.

my save template looks like this:

{series}/{title} ({pubdate}) - {isbn} {publisher}

You can see, I don't even bother with the author in the filename, I could care less who wrote it, really...




If you have mostly fiction books instead of technical books, authors matter more, since most people will never forget who wrote your favorite stories

[Graham]

Originally Posted by N13L5

Accessing books in Calibre's directory from windows explorer is an absolutely useless excercise, cause there's just loads of folders with author names that mean nothing to me.

Well, we've been round that loop. It's a useless exercise that you don't need to engage in - unless you want to conserve disk space and don't want to rely on Calibre's metadata handling.

Graham

[theducks]

Are you doing this because of a Reading Device limitation?

You can use the Tag to select just the files with the tag you want and then "Save to disk" into a chosen sub folder on your device.

[Cheeseandpickles]

I have one complaint with calibre. It totally borks my whole computer anytime it's doing something.

I can render HD video with less slowdown in premeire pro. I just don't understand why this little program, with relatively small files, uses my system resources in such a way that even surfing the web is near impossible while it's converting/importing/downloading metadata for files.


That said it has improved a lot since I last used it over a year ago. Now I can manage a quite large library and export to my new reader with little problem. I just think the program still needs a little optimisation work. Maybe the people who sing calibres praises the loudest are the ones who don't the gui. But for the simpletons like me, it's all we have got.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Cheeseandpickles

I can render HD video with less slowdown in premeire pro. I just don't understand why this little program, with relatively small files, uses my system resources in such a way that even surfing the web is near impossible while it's converting/importing/downloading metadata for files.

Calibre give you complete control over the resources you give its worker processes. Go to Preferences - Interface - Behavior and change Job Priority from Normal to Low.

Originally Posted by Cheeseandpickles

Maybe the people who sing calibres praises the loudest are the ones who don't the gui. But for the simpletons like me, it's all we have got.

I would guess that 99.99% of the folks primarily use the GUI.

If the above isn't enough then go to Preferences - Advanced - Miscellaneous and check the box Limit the max. simultaneous jobs to the available cpu cores.

Doing the top item I suggested allows me to do whatever I want while calibre handles bulk updates for me.

[Cheeseandpickles]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

Calibre give you complete control over the resources you give its worker processes. Go to Preferences - Interface - Behavior and change Job Priority from Normal to Low.



I would guess that 99.99% of the folks primarily use the GUI.

If the above isn't enough then go to Preferences - Advanced - Miscellaneous and check the box Limit the max. simultaneous jobs to the available cpu cores.

Doing the top item I suggested allows me to do whatever I want while calibre handles bulk updates for me.

Thanks. The CPU lockup was driving me mad.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by N13L5

Accessing books in Calibre's directory from windows explorer is an absolutely useless excercise, cause there's just loads of folders with author names that mean nothing to me.

There's your problem. Access them from calibre instead, and the problem is solved.

Want your Python book? Type "pyt" into the search field and it'll be right in front of you. Want all your XP books? Pick "xp" in the tag browser to the left. No matter how complicated your specs for a book, calibre can find it. And if you tag properly, the search is nothing more than a couple of tag browser clicks.

Please ... please ... read my .sig.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

There's your problem. Access them from calibre instead, and the problem is solved.

He already explained how he uses the save template, that is accessing them from calibre.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Please ... please ... read my .sig.

Your Sig, while well expressed, isn't the answer to everything.

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by Cheeseandpickles;

Thanks. The CPU lockup was driving me mad.

What OS are you running?

I found that if you are running Windows on a single processor/core machine performance of the whole machine is much smoother if you start Calibre via batch file with the /belownormal priority option, and also set the background calibre jobs via the Calibre preferences to run at low priority. As long as you have no heavy foreground tasks Calibre seems as responsive as normal but the machine as a whole is much more responsive when you switch away from Calibre.

Whether you would get a similar benefit on multi processor/core machines I do not know.