Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Citadel – a Calibre-compatible eBook management app

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 163 posts

Re: Show HN: Citadel – a Calibre-compatible eBook management app

#151

Post by yeeeloit »

para_parolu wrote: post #83
asimpletune wrote: post #11

Sometimes I feel that if Calibre just looked better people would realize how amazing it is. It’s honestly not that bad (I actually love it) but I think people can’t get past the aesthetic.

It is incredibly slow and unstable. I spent literally weeks adding large (100gb library) into it. I had to add chunk by chunk. It was crashing constantly and process was so slow that I moved it to a separate machine. Then I tried to use web interface to search and it was super slow. And I’m not even talking about non intuitive UI. For something that has supposed to be a library it’s nowhere near real library (alphabe…

> ... be a library it’s nowhere near real library (alphabetical list of authors).

What do you mean?

I just click the 'Author' column header and it sorts.

100gb is very big though. I guess I'm not surprised you would have problems with a library that size.

This post on reddit is relevant.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Calibre/comments/jl3wd2/how_large_i...

Re: Show HN: Citadel – a Calibre-compatible eBook management app

#152

Post by maratc »

jwells89 wrote: post #62
oakhaven wrote: post #60

Yesterday I realized that I can just copy an epub to a directory on my Kobo reader to the `root/ ` of the mountpoint in /media/oakhaven/koboreader (on Ubunutu 22.04). It will show up in the list of books on the device. For some reason I thought that uploading books to the Kobo reader was somehow complicated, and I only used Caliber to get books from laptop to Kobo. I know Calibre has lots of other functions, but I di…

This is actually one of the reasons why I bought a Kobo instead of a Kindle or whatever else was available a few years ago. When you plug them in they mount like any other USB mass storage and you copy your stuff to them… no need for special formats or anything either, standards like ePub work great. It kinda made me wonder how Kindles remain so popular. First mover’s advantage? I dunno, but an eReader that can’t rea…

I just email my ePub to my Kindle's email. It then appears on the Kindle. I also email stuff that my dad reads - to his Kindle. This is easier than "USB mass storage" and does not require connecting the device.

Re: Show HN: Citadel – a Calibre-compatible eBook management app

#153

Post by m463 »

oakhaven wrote: post #60

Yesterday I realized that I can just copy an epub to a directory on my Kobo reader to the `root/ ` of the mountpoint in /media/oakhaven/koboreader (on Ubunutu 22.04). It will show up in the list of books on the device. For some reason I thought that uploading books to the Kobo reader was somehow complicated, and I only used Caliber to get books from laptop to Kobo. I know Calibre has lots of other functions, but I di…

Does kobo require an account to use? Or can you just buy it, drop epubs into that directory and start reading?

Re: Show HN: Citadel – a Calibre-compatible eBook management app

#154

Post by singhrac »

phildenhoff wrote: post #17
ssivark wrote: post #8

Kudos on shipping your hobby project! Looks slick. And a calibre cli would definitely be appreciated -- I hate having to click five levels deep in a dozen menus :P If the "reader" and "editor" aspects are explicit non-goals (fair enough), then what actually does Citadel do for users? Is it mainly to be a portal to view/sort books and click on them? Is there a roadmap where you envision more features?

Good question! My main use for Calibre has been to collect my epubs (mostly) in one place, and occasionally sync them to my ereader. When I add books, I need to grab metadata for the book like title, ISBN, etc. Citadel will (and does) support editing metadata for books — titles, authors, (in future) tags, custom columns. That’s certain. Syncing to devices will come too, in time, as will downloading metadata from onli…

Do you think you’d make a plugin interface to get books? For example from Standard Ebooks, via some sort of API? My guess is that they’d be ok with that usage if you ask and you can solve some cold start problems that way. And, of course, get some more eyeballs on their fantastic project.

Re: Show HN: Citadel – a Calibre-compatible eBook management app

#156

Post by bentley »

ethanbond wrote: post #110
Uvix wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most readers only buy books from their device’s store, so they don’t need to worry about sideloading. And then once they’ve done so, they are hesitant to switch because it’s hard or impossible to extract yourself from Amazon or B&N or Apple’s ecosystem without losing content. Ideally everybody would only buy DRM-free ePubs and audiobooks but realistically people don’t care. And I don’t see a repeat of Apple forcing D…

FWIW, in case it's useful to other readers: removing the DRM from a Kindle ebook is super easy using Calibre and the DeDRM plugin. You put in your Kindle's serial number into the plugin, download the ebook from Amazon, drag-n-drop into Calibre. From there you can convert it to pdf for specific formats, e.g. I use the Supernote A5X which is a great reading and annotation experience.

I would rather spend my money on books from publishers who provide DRM‐free epubs, like Tor Books or No Starch Press.

Re: Show HN: Citadel – a Calibre-compatible eBook management app

#157

Post by phildenhoff »

singhrac wrote: post #154
phildenhoff wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question! My main use for Calibre has been to collect my epubs (mostly) in one place, and occasionally sync them to my ereader. When I add books, I need to grab metadata for the book like title, ISBN, etc. Citadel will (and does) support editing metadata for books — titles, authors, (in future) tags, custom columns. That’s certain. Syncing to devices will come too, in time, as will downloading metadata from onli…

Do you think you’d make a plugin interface to get books? For example from Standard Ebooks, via some sort of API? My guess is that they’d be ok with that usage if you ask and you can solve some cold start problems that way. And, of course, get some more eyeballs on their fantastic project.

I'm not sure yet. Standard Ebooks does great work, but as far as I know there is no API, so that makes pulling books harder. Once Citadel supports plugins, I'd be happy to see some content sources as plugins!

Re: Show HN: Citadel – a Calibre-compatible eBook management app

#158

Post by oakhaven »

m463 wrote: post #153
oakhaven wrote: post #60

Yesterday I realized that I can just copy an epub to a directory on my Kobo reader to the `root/ ` of the mountpoint in /media/oakhaven/koboreader (on Ubunutu 22.04). It will show up in the list of books on the device. For some reason I thought that uploading books to the Kobo reader was somehow complicated, and I only used Caliber to get books from laptop to Kobo. I know Calibre has lots of other functions, but I di…

Does kobo require an account to use? Or can you just buy it, drop epubs into that directory and start reading?

You can just buy and use.

Re: Show HN: Citadel – a Calibre-compatible eBook management app

#159

Post by zaptheimpaler »

djfdat wrote: post #116
phildenhoff wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be looking at your project for inspo :) Thanks for sharing!

If you guys could become best friends and integrate both projects into one ultimate ebook/audiobook tool, that would be great :)

Seconded.. an ebook tool and an audiobook tool both incidentally made on the exact same stack?! Sounds like a match made in heaven.

Re: Show HN: Citadel – a Calibre-compatible eBook management app

#160

Post by phildenhoff »

yoyopa wrote: post #155

the problems i have with calibre are 1- i can't store my files in my own organizational structure 2- it doesn't tell you if an import for a particular file succeeded or not. sucks when trying to import hundreds of files.

Great insight, thank you! I've never run into issues importing but I don't import in bulk. That's certainly something to keep in mind!
Post reply on HN