Any way I could get calibre usable ?

[janvanmaar]

But a calibre-like application that will index my files, without making a copy of each book would be something I'd love to have...

Interesting idea. What about simply making a symlink instead of copying when importing the book to Calibre? That should be a pretty simple change in Calibre code and I cannot see anything it could break (of course, except of things such as bit more complicated backup or moving to other computer - not everything would be in calibre_lib anymore)

[Tibs]

Please imagine me speaking very gently, because I know it's easy to forget the following (and I've done so myself in the past - indeed, within the last few weeks), but:

* It is not a "bad thing" to realise that a piece of software is close to what you want but not actually the right thing. This happens all the time. One should not get too upset by it.

* Calibre is free software, and I don't believe anyone is being paid anything to develop it, it is being written and maintained for the love of it. If it is useful to those of us who are *not* working on the code, that's a wonderful thing, but it's not our right. (We can donate, but that's a *gift*.)

* Kovid has a very long list of future developments that he wishes to make to Calibre, that fit with what he wants from it. So understandably he is not likely to address something he believes to be a bad idea (even if he were wrong - I don't think he is, personally, but even if he were - he'd still focus on what he believes is worthwhile). He only has so much time available.

* Calibre is also open source. This isn't necessarily much help, if you're not a coder, but if you are, or can find/pay someone else, it is possible to either submit changes to do what you want, or even to fork the project.

In your situation, I'd be tempted to do one of three things:

1. Give up, don't use Calibre, since it's not close enough to what you want. But if you go for this option, I'd keep an eye on the development of Calibre over time, because it's always possible someone else might add in what you want, or fork and provide an alternative.

2. Use Calibre for the "finished" books, assuming those are the ones you actually read, but don't touch any of the original files (this is easy, since Calibre takes its own copies of what it catalogues). I suspect this might be the best-of-both-worlds solution.

3. Work out some naming scheme for the books at different stages, so that the actual *name* of the book in Calibre has a prefix or postfix that indicates its state. Getting books into Calibre in this fashion would then probably be best done with scripts, and the non-GUI Calibre commands. I'm not sure if this would be worth your bother, but only you can judge.

[EowynCarter]

I think I will go for solution #4. Make my own stuff

[Manichean]

To be a little more constructive than my last post in this thread: You can also just add the different versions of the book as different book entries with the same basic metadata and use tags or custom columns(*) or whatever you feel most comfortable with to distinguish between versions. Obviously, you'd need to add the books one at a time or view every single book to initially discern the versions, but one you input everything, you should have a nicely usable system.

(*) Custom columns might be preferrable here for the ease of using them in templates for saving to disk or device.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by Manichean

To be a little more constructive than my last post in this thread: You can also just add the different versions of the book as different book entries with the same basic metadata and use tags or custom columns(*) or whatever you feel most comfortable with to distinguish between versions. Obviously, you'd need to add the books one at a time or view every single book to initially discern the versions, but one you input everything, you should have a nicely usable system.

(*) Custom columns might be preferrable here for the ease of using them in templates for saving to disk or device.

Thought about that, but you have pointed out the problems.
Just a question, can you tell calibre to exclude books from synchronize ?

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Just a question, can you tell calibre to exclude books from synchronize ?

What do you mean by synchronize?

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Thought about that, but you have pointed out the problems.
Just a question, can you tell calibre to exclude books from synchronize ?

Well, Calibre is essentially a database system, and, as such, shares the flaw every such system has: Data entry is a *bleep*ing nuisance if you already have a sizable body of data. That won't change regardless of which system you decide to use.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by Manichean

Well, Calibre is essentially a database system, and, as such, shares the flaw every such system has: Data entry is a *bleep*ing nuisance if you already have a sizable body of data. That won't change regardless of which system you decide to use.

That why i want to do something about it now, while i still have a manageable quantity of e-books
But, as it is, calibre will only add some more mess, rather than help organization.

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

That why i want to do something about it now, while i still have a manageable quantity of e-books
But, as it is, calibre will only add some more mess, rather than help organization.

Depends on your viewpoint and your expectations... I'd suggest giving it a try, maybe test the different systems proposed in this thread with, say, ten books or such, and then reevaluate.

[Sweetpea]

I only started using Calibre after the custom columns were made. Before that, it offered no functionality that I would use (beside the ebook-convert batch process...)

But now, I use Calibre mainly as tool to keep track of reading status and version of my copies (as I generate my own PDFs, I need to reformat every single book and I like to keep track if I've already proof-read a book or not). The reason I couldn't use it before, was the fact that I couldn't save the books where I wanted to. As the BBM doesn't support metadata, I want my books in a fixed folder structure. But, my other two readers don't support folders but do have metadata. But both work differently. So, with plugboards and custom controls, I can add books to all my devices without too much trouble (though, I do have to do the save bit three times for my Mini, as I like the different formats in different folders).

The fact that I still have a folder where I keep my (de-drm'd and drm'd) originals and even a different folder where I keep my sources (which is basically an unpacked epub) makes it a bit more difficult, but the custom controls and plugboards do add a lot of functionality that I'm willing to ignore the fact that it's not the perfect tool for me.

In the end, it's a weighing of the pros and cons. The cons were too heavy for me before, but the custom controls and plugboard tipped the scales towards the pros, especially since I've more than one reader which show their libraries all in a different way...

[Perkin]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

No, it can't do everyting that the original file structure can.
Totally mess up with files that have the same title and author. I can't say which one is the edited one, because calibre have renamed the files...

And I didn't spend time putting my books in some folders to have a software tell me how I should be organizing my books.

If you put all of the versions of your book - original, editing & finished - all in one directory all with the same name, can you still tell which file is which?
Of course not, you must have some way to differentiate between them, filename suffix (_edit / _done ), or different folders, etc.

So what's the difference between that and calibre then using either more than one record to store the different editions, or multiple libraries (orig/edit/done).

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Perkin

If you put all of the versions of your book - original, editing & finished - all in one directory all with the same name, can you still tell which file is which?
Of course not, you must have some way to differentiate between them, filename suffix (_edit / _done ), or different folders, etc.

So what's the difference between that and calibre then using either more than one record to store the different editions, or multiple libraries (orig/edit/done).

If I add a new book, with the same metadata and same extension to Calibre, it will think I want to overwrite an existing book. So, you'd have to make a new book, with different metadata (title + author) while it's actually the same, simply to have more than one copy available.

With folders, you can add as many books to the same folder, simply by making subfolders (those subfolders have a relation with their parent folder). You could do something like that with Calibre by using a custom column of the series type, but it's still less elegant, I think.

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

If I add a new book, with the same metadata and same extension to Calibre, it will think I want to overwrite an existing book. So, you'd have to make a new book, with different metadata (title + author) while it's actually the same, simply to have more than one copy available.

No, it will ask if this is a duplicate and if you want to add it regardless. If you choose to add it, it will, without complaining, create a duplicate entry.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Manichean

No, it will ask if this is a duplicate and if you want to add it regardless. If you choose to add it, it will, without complaining, create a duplicate entry.

Then the tags can be added to deal with versions.

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

Then the tags can be added to deal with versions.

Which is what I proposed a few posts up.