Calibre alternative for mac os? - Page 2

Pablo · 09-29-2015, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stanley66

However I never seen people complaining about good GUI, or well planned pedestrian crossing, or about good layout of a book or website. We just experience them instead of stumbling across

Maybe I'm too basic, but I can't understand the complaints about the calibre UI. What would a well-planned, cool, professional UI look like?

Making a different UI for calibre is of course a huge task, but somebody with a different idea could contribute with some pictures, just to see what they are talking about.

I spend very little time in calibre. I just add books, tag them and transfer them to my reader. From time to time I use such features as conversions, the viewer and the editor. Maybe that's why the UI is not that important to me...

Stanley66 · 09-29-2015, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

We should agree to disagree. What's a good GUI? For me, calibre is a very good GUI as I can rearrange it as I need, and it includes which a need? And it offers me TEXT, not some very cute icons.. that I don't understand or catch... so after some time at this business, I still have to find a GUI nobody complains about.

I'm glad it works for you Terisa

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pablo

Maybe I'm too basic, but I can't understand the complaints about the calibre UI. What would a well-planned, cool, professional UI look like?

Making a different UI for calibre is of course a huge task, but somebody with a different idea could contribute with some pictures, just to see what they are talking about.

I spend very little time in calibre. I just add books, tag them and transfer them to my reader. From time to time I use such features as conversions, the viewer and the editor. Maybe that's why the UI is not that important to me...

There is a number of articles on subject of good user interfaces on the internet written by the experts of industry. I'm afraid I'm not competent enough to go that far here

But for me personally, as I've started looking for the alternative right from the beginning, it is a complete lack of clarity and aesthetics (attractiveness) in the way this product is designed in general, not just in GUI.

And yes, it is strange that with a great number of users Calibre doesn't seem to have an active development community with knowledgeable UI contributors.

Pablo · 09-29-2015, 12:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stanley66

There is a number of articles on subject of good user interfaces on the internet written by the experts of industry.

Can you provide a link to those articles? They sound interesting.

Thanks.

Stanley66 · 09-29-2015, 02:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pablo

Can you provide a link to those articles? They sound interesting.

Thanks.

If I'll not be banned for advertisement

Some good reading here or here just to name few...

But we all love books, right? Here are some books and they are for free

Pablo · 09-29-2015, 03:23 PM

Thanks! I will have a look at them.

eschwartz · 09-29-2015, 09:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stanley66

I had a chance to read a bit more about Calibre and I see that help to improve UI was offered already without interest from the developer side and the way the software look now is pretty much how the author wants it to be...
Unfortunately. But good taste is rare thing...

I haven't seen those offers...
AFAIK the only "contributions" have been requests or complaints, with the implication that Kovid must provide a better UI

-- oh, and at least one person provided pictures of what calibre "should" look like.

No one has implemented a better UI and filed a pull request.
Kovid is on record saying, if someone did so and the proposed UI is as featureful as the current one (no half-assed implementations, IOW) it would most likely get accepted.

I think a pluginized, themeable UI would be pretty cool. But as I said earlier in the thread, no on with the skills and experience has stepped forward...

Stanley66 · 09-30-2015, 08:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I haven't seen those offers...
AFAIK the only "contributions" have been requests or complaints, with the implication that Kovid must provide a better UI

-- oh, and at least one person provided pictures of what calibre "should" look like.

No one has implemented a better UI and filed a pull request.
Kovid is on record saying, if someone did so and the proposed UI is as featureful as the current one (no half-assed implementations, IOW) it would most likely get accepted.

I just saw some thread on news.ycombinator.com starting with "I have a love-hate relationship with Calibre."

Haven't seen those offers either.

Actually the "featureful" maybe the core issue. I do not mean to cut on features of the software. But the way Calibre's author wants to have it designed vs. GUI designer from the information architectural point of view and user's experience knowledge will offer.

leitz · 09-30-2015, 11:40 PM

For Mac, apart from Calibre and ADE, there is a Stanza (discontinued?) and a Kitabu

https://www.kitabu.me/

eschwartz · 10-01-2015, 12:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leitz

For Mac, apart from Calibre and ADE, there is a Stanza (discontinued?) and a Kitabu

https://www.kitabu.me/

Those are all reader applications, and the OP wants a library-and-ereader-management application. Only calibre does this.

kacir · 10-01-2015, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stanley66

I see most of you use Calibre, but wanted to ask, are there some other nice alternatives for Mac OS which you use and/or can suggest? Not necessary free ones, but good ones.

I remember seeing a few posts about alternatives, yet I am not aware that any of them are widely used.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stanley66

What I would like to have is just a little sexy app to keep in (or have linked to) all my ebooks and transfer some to my Kobo.

If you want a very simple one, then you can just use a file manager.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stanley66

I do not need tags, ratings, filtering, editing functionality, formats conversion, so Calibre seems a bit overkill. I don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, but Calibre’s GUI is also not something I would enjoy using. And it doesn’t seem to work properly on my system…

I am pretty sure you can make it work on your system. What you describe in later posts looks like configuration error.

Calibre is an overkill for the vast majority of users. Because it has very high number of features, advanced configuration options and different use-cases. This also means that everybody can use his own subset of features.

I was using Calibre only for some conversions and to copy books to my Sony PRS-500 for quite a few years, because the UI rubbed me wrong way. Fortunately many features of the user interface have became configurable so you can reconfigure the icon toolbar at the top and use menu instead, you can open/close various sub-windows displaying tags and other metadata filters at the left, cover carousel at the top, details at the right ...
You can also switch between list and thumbnail view, ...
It will grow on you. You will be discovering new and cool features for a long time.

leitz · 10-06-2015, 04:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Those are all reader applications, and the OP wants a library-and-ereader-management application. Only calibre does this.

I see, I didn't realize that.

leitz · 10-06-2015, 04:02 PM

It will be nice if Moon reader would put out a desktop version (at least for those who have purchased the ad-free version)

MGlitch · 10-31-2015, 01:42 AM

Calibre is a bit overwhelming at first, I recall when I tried to use it when I started reading ebooks a few years back. It was more than I needed at the time, largely because the Nook didn't and still doesn't let outside applications do much with it. I also wasn't using Goodreads. So here was an application with tons of features, but none that I'd use.

Flashforward to when I switched from Nook to a Kobo H2O. My ebook library had grown, I had some desire to actually use Goodreads, and Kobo allows for Calibre to interact with the device more than BN allowed Calibre to interact with their Nook.

I think it would have been better for me if I had started using Calibre years back, I'd probably be more comfortable with it now, and wouldn't have had to sit down and tweak a rather large collection to my liking over the course of a weekend.

It may feel like shooting flies with an elephant gun now, but really it's not like you're doing any harm by using an over powered app for a simple task.

SGans · 02-10-2016, 05:56 PM

Just to add to this. I'd hoped to find some good alternative as well. I do like the suggestions of Kitabu and BookONO and the quicklook options, but my reason is different. I LOVE the Calibre interface - if only it would START on my computer. I posted a ton on the thread about the app stalling at "Initializing the Interface" on my computer. Nobody could help me at all - so I can't USE the newer version. I'd hoped here to find a real alternative, even if I had to pay for it.

I do still have 1.48 installed (thank goodness) and it works at what it did, but I miss out on all new developments.

Anybody got any ideas since this last post?

MarjaE · 05-08-2016, 12:41 PM

I'm also looking for an alternative to Calibre, but one would *would* allow me to convert books and correct bad metadata. Without dealing with the library and the crashes. I've just installed Clearview; I knew it wouldn't convert books and now I've found that it doesn't actually allow me to correct bad metadata.

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09-29-2015, 03:23 PM	#20
Pablo Guru Posts: 970 Karma: 4999999 Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Rosario, Argentina Device: SONY PRS-505, PRS-T2	Thanks! I will have a look at them.

09-30-2015, 11:40 PM	#23
leitz Connoisseur Posts: 68 Karma: 1740970 Join Date: Nov 2014 Device: Kobo	For Mac, apart from Calibre and ADE, there is a Stanza (discontinued?) and a Kitabu https://www.kitabu.me/

10-06-2015, 04:02 PM	#27
leitz Connoisseur Posts: 68 Karma: 1740970 Join Date: Nov 2014 Device: Kobo	It will be nice if Moon reader would put out a desktop version (at least for those who have purchased the ad-free version)

10-31-2015, 01:42 AM	#28
MGlitch Wizard Posts: 2,841 Karma: 22003124 Join Date: Aug 2014 Device: Kobo Forma, Kobo Sage, Kobo Libra 2	Calibre is a bit overwhelming at first, I recall when I tried to use it when I started reading ebooks a few years back. It was more than I needed at the time, largely because the Nook didn't and still doesn't let outside applications do much with it. I also wasn't using Goodreads. So here was an application with tons of features, but none that I'd use. Flashforward to when I switched from Nook to a Kobo H2O. My ebook library had grown, I had some desire to actually use Goodreads, and Kobo allows for Calibre to interact with the device more than BN allowed Calibre to interact with their Nook. I think it would have been better for me if I had started using Calibre years back, I'd probably be more comfortable with it now, and wouldn't have had to sit down and tweak a rather large collection to my liking over the course of a weekend. It may feel like shooting flies with an elephant gun now, but really it's not like you're doing any harm by using an over powered app for a simple task.

02-10-2016, 05:56 PM	#29
SGans Member Posts: 23 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2016 Device: Nook, iPad	Just to add to this. I'd hoped to find some good alternative as well. I do like the suggestions of Kitabu and BookONO and the quicklook options, but my reason is different. I LOVE the Calibre interface - if only it would START on my computer. I posted a ton on the thread about the app stalling at "Initializing the Interface" on my computer. Nobody could help me at all - so I can't USE the newer version. I'd hoped here to find a real alternative, even if I had to pay for it. I do still have 1.48 installed (thank goodness) and it works at what it did, but I miss out on all new developments. Anybody got any ideas since this last post?

05-08-2016, 12:41 PM	#30
MarjaE Guru Posts: 924 Karma: 53902736 Join Date: Jun 2015 Device: multiple	I'm also looking for an alternative to Calibre, but one would would allow me to convert books and correct bad metadata. Without dealing with the library and the crashes. I've just installed Clearview; I knew it wouldn't convert books and now I've found that it doesn't actually allow me to correct bad metadata.