Catalog Software

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

As with you, I've looked and looked and looked again for a tool that will help me organize my books. But I still haven't found it. I don't like Calibre, because it doesn't do the most important function (or rather, what I find the most important function): some sort of folder-like structure.

I do have an application, BookLibrary from WenSoftware. It's not free. I've been using it for a long time, for my paper books. With some tweaking, I managed to make it so that it'll work on my ebooks as well. It's not perfect, but it does the job better for me than Calibre does.

Why do you think you need a folder-like structure? Calibre eliminates the need for one by taking over that function and enhancing it. As I tried top point out, not using a folder/filename tree is one of the hardest things new users of calibre have accepting. I'm a 61 year old curmudgeon who is well set in her ways and even I managed to see the advantages and adapted.

[Graham]

I for one am extremely pleased that Calibre takes and uses its own copy for its library.

I save the ebooks I obtain in a folder structure based on the source of the book. This makes a lot of sense to me when downloading - note it has no relevance to the file type, author, title or genre - as if I ever have an issue I may need to go back to the original source and either raise a query or download the book again (or an update).

I then add the books into Calibre from those folders, converting to ePub if necessary. This means that I have one folder structure containing the pristine original downloads and the Calibre library containing just ePub, with whatever changes to the metadata I choose to make. If I make an error using Calibre I can easily go back to the original and add it again.

And the key benefit - Calibre sorts out ordering my library by author, title, genre, rating, etc., for me. All I have to think about when downloading my book is "which site am I getting this from?"

Graham

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

Why do you think you need a folder-like structure? Calibre eliminates the need for one by taking over that function and enhancing it. As I tried top point out, not using a folder/filename tree is one of the hardest things new users of calibre have accepting. I'm a 61 year old curmudgeon who is well set in her ways and even I managed to see the advantages and adapted.

Because, I find in Calibre (yes, I have tried it), that I miss my overlook. I don't want to have my entire screen filled by books from one author, but I want to see all my authors. Or, how about i want to order in two ways? Author first, then series? That is very hard to do if you only have a flat list. (see attachment).



(besides those points, I don't like the fact that Calibre can't live with my way of filling the author meta tag: "Lastname, Firstname")

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Because, I find in Calibre (yes, I have tried it), that I miss my overlook. I don't want to have my entire screen filled by books from one author, but I want to see all my authors. Or, how about i want to order in two ways? Author first, then series? That is very hard to do if you only have a flat list. (see attachment).



(besides those points, I don't like the fact that Calibre can't live with my way of filling the author meta tag: "Lastname, Firstname")

You can view your authors only by using the tag browser. While in the tag browser, you can click once to view books only by the author, twice to eliminate books by the author.

To order author first, then series, just click on the column title for series, then on author. Easy peasy.

I believe there is a way to to get calibre to live with lastname, firstname but you would have to go the the calibre forum to find out how. Personally, I don't feel it's that big a deal and I just live with it. It still sorts by last name.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

You can view your authors only by using the tag browser. While in the tag browser, you can click once to view books only by the author, twice to eliminate books by the author.

To order author first, then series, just click on the column title for series, then on author. Easy peasy.

It has been improved, I agree, but it still has the same problem I have with the categories in mobipocket (and Kindle). Only one level. I want multiple levels... And I don't want to need to disable other authors...

(oh and found my answer to my author problem, there's some tweak setting...)

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

It has been improved, I agree, but it still has the same problem I have with the categories in mobipocket (and Kindle). Only one level. I want multiple levels... And I don't want to need to disable other authors...

(oh and found my answer to my author problem, there's some tweak setting...)

What are the levels you are wanting?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Gremlin

Calibre – Very nice piece of software as far as converting is concerned. But I'm struggling to understand why "Calibre" copies each book I add to its library folder? Isn't that obvious that each book I add is already on my hard-drive? Isn't that wasting the HD space making it double (in terms of MBs)? I sure I don’t understand something.

You ave choices here. You can either leave the original eBooks where they were when you added then to Calibre or you can delete them after adding them to Calibre. Deleting removes the now duplicates. But, one thing that is good, if something gets messed up with Calibre you still have the originals to go back to.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

What are the levels you are wanting?

Author - Series

Yes, you have series, but not underneath the author. It's its own level. I'm not saying it's badly done, it is well done, actually. But just not enough for me.


Oh, for me, the perfect software would be a mix between Calibre and BookLibrary:

reading of meta data, but not file management (so, no extra copies of a book), showing a file-like structure.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Author - Series

Yes, you have series, but not underneath the author. It's its own level. I'm not saying it's badly done, it is well done, actually. But just not enough for me.

Do you mean you need the series to be indented under the author, Sweetpea?

As a normal list, Calibre can certainly sort by author and series at the same time, showing each author alphabetically, for example, with that authors' books also sorted by series.

(You click on the series column, then on the author column.)

Graham

[Hired Goon]

I'm with Gremlin. I like folders - my brain is used to it and it works for me. I don't need improved cataloging, and I also don't like extra copies of files no matter how small they may be on my drive. For now it's used for conversion, and to put books on my Sony, but I don't let it touch my full collection, which remains in folders. My other problem with it is super long install times and load up times.

Eventually something will come out to satisfy users like us, and I certainly don't mind paying for it.

The fact that this type of post comes up so often has to mean something. There will be a lot of sighing yet to be seen.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Yes, you have series, but not underneath the author. It's its own level. I'm not saying it's badly done, it is well done, actually. But just not enough for me.

Ah, I think I understand now. Are you saying your ideal interface would be an author list like Calibre's author tag list, but when you clicked on an author the list would open up to show the series under that author, and then when you clicked on a particular series you would see the books?

Given that if you click on an author in Calibre's tag list the main panel immediately fills with that author's books (sorted by series in my case), isn't that acceptable? You'd rarely have so many books from an author that you'd need to scroll far to get to the book you want, if indeed you need to scroll at all.

And if you do want to narrow that list down to a single series, just right click on one of the books in that series and choose Similar > Books in this series (or just use Alt-Shift-S).

Graham

[Sweetpea]

I know I can get the information I need, but I miss the overview. The fact that you can now tell it that a comma is not an author divider does help a lot in my case. I might give it another chance...

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Hired Goon

I'm with Gremlin. I like folders - my brain is used to it and it works for me. I don't need improved cataloging, and I also don't like extra copies of files no matter how small they may be on my drive.

For me, it isn't just the dry cataloguing that I appreciate, but the way Calibre makes my interactions with my eBook collection much more tangible.

With just two clicks I can go from the opening screen of Calibre to my list of unread novels (or any other saved search) sorted by Author and Series. I can then flick through the covers, as though I was leafing through a bookshelf, and see the jacket blurb on each book as I go.

This gives the collection an almost physical presence which I didn't used to get when I managed my files in a fixed folder structure. It puts back a pleasurable element of browsing through books to decide what to read next, or to get a nostalgic glow, which I'd lost when switching to simple lists of filenames.

I can imagine that it would be possible for someone to write a book library program that operated on a user-defined folder structure, and to provide the same tangible feel to the collection as Calibre, but if this doesn't yet exist I think there's more lost by not using Calibre than just basic cataloguing.

Graham

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Hired Goon

I'm with Gremlin. I like folders - my brain is used to it and it works for me. I don't need improved cataloging, and I also don't like extra copies of files no matter how small they may be on my drive. For now it's used for conversion, and to put books on my Sony, but I don't let it touch my full collection, which remains in folders. My other problem with it is super long install times and load up times.

Eventually something will come out to satisfy users like us, and I certainly don't mind paying for it.

The fact that this type of post comes up so often has to mean something. There will be a lot of sighing yet to be seen.

It's called Luddism.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

It's called Luddism.

Nothing to do with that. Just because I don't have room to spare I am against improvements? Just because i happen to like a folder-like structure I'm backwards?

I'd love for an application that, like Calibre, reads the meta tags, but has a folder-like structure (maybe next to the collection-like structure that is now in Calibre), and that allows me to enter books without copying them to its own location. I know you can add empty books, but I'd have to enter all meta data myself then. For paper books, I wouldn't mind, but Calibre does have the meta data reading.