Calibre - An excellent program, but no thanks

[pshrynk]

Let's try to keep this a discussion of the merits and shortfalls of Calibre and not divert ourselves into personality attacks. Thank you!

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Kostas

I second that.
The purpose of a library management tool is by definition to replace other means to access files and act as a black box. Why should one bother where and how files are stored?
When I need to have direct access to a file (for example to copy elsewhere a converted file) I just right click "open containing folder".

You care if what you want is a book file handling tool. Good design is to allow the data to be handled efficiently using different tools. I feel very uncomfortable when using a program that has its own strange internal data format that is hard to handle using other programs.

[Dopedangel]

Originally Posted by dmikov

Just priceless, love when people get in the discussion with no clue.

In case you missed all the posts, files are not to be accessed directly it's a storage/database.

What really amazes me that people that give a lot of shit to
drm the same people don't seem to realize that calibre directory structure is doing something similar by limiting people's ability to access it with other software and that is what the problem is.

[acidzebra]

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

What really amazes me that people that give a lot of shit to drm the same people don't seem to realize that calibre directory structure is doing something similar by limiting people's ability to access it with other software and that is what the problem is.

Okay, now we have gone through the looking glass and broke it. Are you serious?

[PieOPah]

When I first started to use Calibre, I must admit that my biggest grip was the folder structure. Even now, I am not entirely keen on it.

Personally I would like to have all of the books for a specific Author in a single folder rather than each book having a folder unto itself.

I can however understand why the structure is the way it is - this way it allows for duplicates (different versions of the same book for example) in a much more controlled way (using the numbering system to uniquely name a folder). Also so that each book can have a cover.jpg (although naming the cover file the same as the book file would also work in a single folder structure).

While I have my personal preference, the current structure isn't so bad as for me to care too much about it! I love what the application can do along with the development and support too much to let a tiny detail get in the way. I can live with it. My backup program (a very simple batch file) can live with it.

If something as trivial as the folder structure can stop somebody using Calibre, then IMHO they are sorely missing out!

Kovid, thank you for all of your hard work - it is appreciated more than you could possibly ever know!

[Dopedangel]

Originally Posted by acidzebra

Okay, now we have gone through the looking glass and broke it. Are you serious?

Just thought the thread lost the passion that it had at the start was trying to re ignite it.

Although I do stand by my statement that Calibre limits my ability to access my library with some other software so I feel it is restrictive same as drm but I love its ability to make epubs so am willing to live with it
I just hope someone will come up with a better directory and file structure in the send to option at least so it is lot easier to browse my library in my v3 Hanlin

[jimbob101]

I've been browsing this thread for a while and would like to comment.

I think the issue here is how do you use calibre rather than a problem with the program itself.

I keep all my books organised by folder sorted by author on a portable harddrive for novels and by topic for reference books. I use calibre for converting and creating collections for both my wife's and my 505. When calibre is being used like this it is perfect.

In fact i have been looking for a program that will scan and reference my library folders rather than using calibre because of the limitations of calibre for organising books the way i want. In the mean time i'm using windows search and have the folders indexed which makes finding files very quick.

This I think is the salient point in my post.

Use calibre for managing libraries within the limitation of the reading device you are using but don't rely on it to be a complete library management application for a large library. Kovid has outlined on many occasions what he is willing to do with calibre and i for one am extremely grateful for the application which is miles better than the sony software and have donated as a result.

[kovidgoyal]

I just quickly browsed this thread, and apart from various philosophical complaints, I have yet to see one concrete use case that the calibre folder structure hampers. I may have missed it in my quick perusal, if so, please repost.

Speaking as a software developer philosophical complaints are not very motivating, use cases are.

So far the only concrete limitation of the calibre folder structure I know of is that it can get slow on windows because windows does not like large numbers of nodes in a single directory.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

I just quickly browsed this thread, and apart from various philosophical complaints, I have yet to see one concrete use case that the calibre folder structure hampers. I may have missed it in my quick perusal, if so, please repost.

Speaking as a software developer philosophical complaints are not very motivating, use cases are.

So far the only concrete limitation of the calibre folder structure I know of is that it can get slow on windows because windows does not like large numbers of nodes in a single directory.

Didn't somebody describe that they wanted to have their own directory structure and being able to edit books using other tools than Calibre? As I understand this is problematic since Calibre creates cop of the books. But maybe I have misunderstood something?

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by tompe

Didn't somebody describe that they wanted to have their own directory structure and being able to edit books using other tools than Calibre? As I understand this is problematic since Calibre creates cop of the books. But maybe I have misunderstood something?

Why? The reason that calibre creates copies is to give users the choice of exclusively using calibre or not. If you want to exclusively use calibre, simply delete the originals, then there is no problem with editing files from the calibre directory structure.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Why? The reason that calibre creates copies is to give users the choice of exclusively using calibre or not. If you want to exclusively use calibre, simply delete the originals, then there is no problem with editing files from the calibre directory structure.

Yes, there is. You might want to have another structure. And you might want to be able to just copy the structure directly to a reader. And for me a directory structure must be suitable for navigating using dired in Emacs. And so on.

I mostly use command line programs. Sometimes I use a GUI program. It seems to me that Calibre is not designed for mixed use of command line programs and a GUI. From my point of view the data representation should be optimized for command line use. And than the GUI has to use this structure.

[ritibelle]

Sorry for butting in but I really don't see what all the fuss is about?!?!?
If you don't like to use calibre's structure don't use it! That's why it copies the files you add to its own structure.
I prefer to use my own structure so that's what I use, but I still find calibre very usefull because now I don't have to use a multitude of diferent programs to convert from one format to another.
I would love to have calibre use my prefered structure but as I don't code to save my life I'm just happy to have a problem which solves part of the hassle.

[kovidgoyal]

Umm, you can copy the structure directly to the reader. And as of 0.6.8 the save to disk function is fully customizable so you can use it to export whatever directory structure you like to devices.

And while I don't use emacs, I use calibre from the command line all the time. Why is the structure not suitable for use from the command line? I find it a breeze to navigate in both vim and bash.

And calibre is actually easier to use and more powerful from the command line, if you take the trouble to familiarize yourself with its commandline tools. And if you can doa little scripting, if you cant do that, why on earth would you be using the command line for anything?

Originally Posted by tompe

Yes, there is. You might want to have another structure. And you might want to be able to just copy the structure directly to a reader. And for me a directory structure must be suitable for navigating using dired in Emacs. And so on.

I mostly use command line programs. Sometimes I use a GUI program. It seems to me that Calibre is not designed for mixed use of command line programs and a GUI. From my point of view the data representation should be optimized for command line use. And than the GUI has to use this structure.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Umm, you can copy the structure directly to the reader. And as of 0.6.8 the save to disk function is fully customizable so you can use it to export whatever directory structure you like to devices.

Which probably solves all the problems...

And while I don't use emacs, I use calibre from the command line all the time. Why is the structure not suitable for use from the command line? I find it a breeze to navigate in both vim and bash.

I got the impression that the current structure was a flat structure and it was sorted on first name of an author.

To optimize for command line use you have to think about things like navigating in shells and file name expansion. For example a director or file name starting wit a capital letter is very inconvenient (which is why I hate Java's convention with file name the same as class name).

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by tompe

Which probably solves all the problems...



I got the impression that the current structure was a flat structure and it was sorted on first name of an author.

To optimize for command line use you have to think about things like navigating in shells and file name expansion. For example a director or file name starting wit a capital letter is very inconvenient (which is why I hate Java's convention with file name the same as class name).

No, it's not flat its Author/Title/files. And while I agree that capital letters are a bit of drag, that was a necessary compromise as most calibre users don't use the command line and would complain loudly if I lower cased everything