Calibre - An excellent program, but no thanks

[bwaldron]

Originally Posted by hannah

I think I understand. The author names are showed as first name - last name but sorted last name -first name.

Surely there is a valid reason for this but I cannot see which. Isn't it more logical to also show the authors last name first?

For me, no. Sorting on last name but displaying by first+last makes intuitive sense to me. I may of course be odd.

[toomanybooks]

I prefer the sorting by last name, first name, but displaying by first name last name. I intuitively alphabetize by last name, but I prefer to read the authors name in the normal order. When I want a Wodehouse I know that I can go to the W's but I can still read the name as PG Wodehouse. It's one of the perks for me.

[RandallFlagg]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I bet Kovid or someone can give you a SQL update statement to run that will copy your Author Sort field to the Author Name field so you won't have to edit them one at a time.

You should possible start a new thread to ask for help.

BOb

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31770

I asked Kovid this question back in Nov 08. His reply at the time was "No, I'm afraid not " That may have changed since then.

[ldolse]

sorry, posted in wrong thread

[oldcrow74]

Originally Posted by stisev

Hello everyone,
I've been lurking for a long, long time, but finally decided to register and provide my 2 cents regarding calibre.

First of all, I just want to say 'thank you' to the author for all the effort he has put into it, for releasing it to the public for free, and for the frequent updates. Your software will truly become THE benchmark for all eBook management organization (if it's not already).

So, what's with the title? I just downloaded the latest [stable 0.5*] release of calibre and attempted to read some metadata for a bunch of my files. Calibre decided to rearrange ALL of the folders/naming structure of my eBooks, which (dare I say) annoyed me greatly, creating duplicate entries which took a little time to remove. I also noticed, the absolutely horrid directory structure calibre used. Good lord... Name of book/Author/-file.zip-. To make things worse, there is no way to change this behavior. Calibre is configurable in every other fashion I can think of except this:

http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net/user_manual/faq.html#id23




That is why I have decided to "boycott" Calibre until the user the is given the choice. I hope the author considers these pleas.


Also to consider:
-Saving settings in .INI for portable mode. (I know about config dir option command via shortcut)
-Allowing to choose location of database/settings location.

I too have found that I have no use for many of Calibre's configuration options, and that it is not configurable in ways that are truly useful such as sorting by author's name in the way the name is displayed. I appreciate that a lot of work has gone into this app and that it is free. But I think I'm going to wait until a version that is ready for prime time. That way I can save myself some agita.

[rcuadro]

I know I am a little late on this thread but damn... why the big fuss on the directory structure? It works and it is easy to manually search should you feel the need to...

[Kostas]

Originally Posted by rcuadro

why the big fuss on the directory structure?

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".

[RobbieClarken]

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".

I'd like to be able to synchronise my ebook reader's SD card with the calibre folder so I can easily add and remove books in calibre without having to manually copy and delete them from the SD card one by one. However calibre's directory structure would be unusable on the DR1000.

I got around this limitation by writing a program that reads the calibre metadata file and uses this information to copy the files to a suitable folder structure of the SD card. The calibre support for the DR1000 seems to be coming along now so hopefully it wont be long until its possible to conveniently synchronise these devices with calibre.

[markbond1007]

Originally Posted by Sabardeyn

The horrible directory structure is totally correct. Not in the sense that it doesn't work; nor that some kind of standardized structure has to be used. These points I understand and accept. However, when was the last time that you looked for a book in a (real) Library or Bookstore and found anything listed under the author's first name? Most of us try to remember an author's surname so we can find their work. So calibre's usage is counter-intuitive. However it is exactly the same arrangement used by most media players - despite the music industry grouping by genre and then surname. Ultimately the issue here is one of familiarity vs computer processing limitations.

Actually it isnt correct and your analogy is off, this is more in the way of a car park with a parking attendant, you dont care (or are not supposed to) where in the structure you car is parked you just give the attendant your keys and ask him to fetch your car. Calibre is set up to store books and provide an interface for you to read and retrieve them, the directory structure isnt used for searching, its simply a convenient method of storing books that doesnt get too wide and is at least fairly simple to read if you absolutely must, Kovid could just have easily used <root>/<bookid>/<format>.book

The system isnt set up for you to search for books by browsing the storage structure it is set up to find a book for you using either the GUI of the command-line options. Hence people talking about the "black box".

Mark

[papadage]

Although I agree that the file structure under Calibre does not need to be user addressible, the "Send to Disk" and "Send to Device" filename filters really need work. Since filenames are just another attribute of the document records in the internal db, why not have it dynamically renamed according to a user modifiable pattern.

So, if I fix my metadata, adding correct authors, series, book numbers and titles, shouldn't I be able to pick an export filename pattern like:

Author - Series - Number - Title

This way I can share books with people who don't use Calibre.

Even internally, I know I shouldn't be looking at the folder structure that Calibre uses, but when I do peak under the hood, I see alternative languages, naming patterns, grouping, etc. It's a mess. If the ID in the parens is all that really matters, why isn't renaming the file and folder according to the metadata possible?

We did an account management project at work that used a similar idea, except we used a double underscore, followed by a 5 digit hex code to be the ID, and this was used to link a record entry, a file system folder, and an email repository folder in Exchange. We could freely rename all of them as long as we kept the ID section intact. We later wrote a function to do so for us based on criteria in the record.

[texasnightowl]

I'm a brand new Calibre user...never used previous versions except some of the command line utilites, but installed the updated Calibre recently to give it a try. There are definitely some nice things about it. In particular, it did a great job of converting a couple of books that otherwise would have required a lot of html editing on my part. While I don't like the folder structure implemented, I can live with it and understand why. However, the save to disk option is a failing for me. And particularly the lack of options for specifying my own file name structure when wanting to save out just one type of file (ie. my converted files). If I'm wanting to back up all files or essentially export them to another location as backup for example, I'd want to be able to have them named something like " 'author last name' 'author first name' - title " and I can find no way so far for that to happen. Maybe I need to play with the Save to Disk options more ?

I'll continue to play with Calibre, but I think the bulk of my use of it will be the ebook-convert.exe command line tool. This will implement nicely into my batch files so I can automate my conversions a lot while still using my own method of file naming. I don't know if I'll use Calibre and import my files into it after that or not.

[markbond1007]

Originally Posted by papadage

Although I agree that the file structure under Calibre does not need to be user addressible, the "Send to Disk" and "Send to Device" filename filters really need work. Since filenames are just another attribute of the document records in the internal db, why not have it dynamically renamed according to a user modifiable pattern.

So, if I fix my metadata, adding correct authors, series, book numbers and titles, shouldn't I be able to pick an export filename pattern like:

Author - Series - Number - Title

This way I can share books with people who don't use Calibre.

As I understand it, this is on the TODO list (the pattered file name export/save), and yes I completely agree on this bit.

Mark

[papadage]

Also, since the title metadata field is ususally what's used to sort files on a reader, the title may need to be rewritten on export as well to use the new filename. My Kindle will use the Title, even if I rename the file.

[JeffElkins]

https://dev.mobileread.com/trac/sonyfmngr

I prefer my own filing system, but really depend on Calibre's console tools. I use the GPL'd and cross-platform tool above to make collections and copy books to my sony 505.

[dmikov]

Originally Posted by pepak

It doesn't prevent me, because I don't use Calibre as a library application.

Originally Posted by pepak

You missed the point of my posts entirely. Even though I explicitly explained it above. To reiterate, the point is that a file layout that seems optimal to one person could easily be poor to other person.

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.