Calibre – E-Book Management

Post by dav » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 11:48 PM UTC

mattkevan wrote: post #19

Calibre is great. There’s a real lack of good quality ebook software and Calibre is an essential do-everything toolkit. The interface, however, is like some incredible piece of outsider art, gloriously free of best practice, convention or accepted wisdom. As a UX designer it gave me some trouble at first, but now I’ve genuinely come to appreciate it. There’s no way the interface could be ‘improved’ by conventional st…

Post by steelframe » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 11:53 PM UTC

Cyberdog wrote: post #105

steelframe wrote: post #93

I've used Calibre extensively for stripping DRM and converting formats for my various e-readers. Note that it does glitch sometimes in strange and assorted ways. For example, when it converted the book Futu.re, it replaced all instances of "ft" with a blank space. While reading the book my brain has been interpolating over words to "fill in" the "ft" -- for example, when I read "a er" I know the word really is "after…

"ft" is a common ligature. When characters are often used together, fonts are often designed with those characters grouped together as their own character so they can be given certain design flair such as having the "branches" of the "f" and "t" as one continuous horizontal line. Aside from "ft," "ll" (ell ell) also often gets this treatment and others I can't recall off the top of my head. Text rendering engines wil…

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 11:58 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #80

tomc1985 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calibre's UI is an artifact from a superior and more civilized time, IMHO Extremely functional and just a little bit incomprehensible. Compared to modern UI/UX which just slaps me with how stupid it thinks I am

> Compared to modern UI/UX which just slaps me with how stupid it thinks I am Because most average users of any software absolutely fall in that bucket. My mom can use the Facebook app on her phone just fine, but I wouldn't even dare to suggest that she try to convert an eBook on Calibre and transfer it to her Kindle.

Post by tomc1985 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 12:00 AM UTC

zapzupnz wrote: post #62

tomc1985 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because it doesn't fit into the modern zeitgeist of extreme testability and pandering to computer illiterates Every time this kind of UI comes up in discussion, I feel like there is always someone groaning about how much extra effort and cost is involved with giving the user too many options. In fact, you could say that modern software seeks to eliminate all noncritical optionality. Combine this with gobs of poi…

That chip on your shoulder against everything post-2007-ish must be pretty heavy. Modern apps don't suck. Specific design patterns suck. Not all things modern adhere to those design patterns. Not all the patterns you mention suck. If I were hiring you to design an interface, your aversion to "humanize pretty much everything" would kick me right off the list. It reeks of tech-saavy elitism.

Post by mitchdoogle » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 12:01 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #80

tomc1985 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calibre's UI is an artifact from a superior and more civilized time, IMHO Extremely functional and just a little bit incomprehensible. Compared to modern UI/UX which just slaps me with how stupid it thinks I am

> Compared to modern UI/UX which just slaps me with how stupid it thinks I am Because most average users of any software absolutely fall in that bucket. My mom can use the Facebook app on her phone just fine, but I wouldn't even dare to suggest that she try to convert an eBook on Calibre and transfer it to her Kindle.