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Calibre – E-Book Management

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Re: Calibre – E-Book Management

#151

Post by cassianoleal »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #100
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #24

Calibre is one of those rare examples of software where the kitchen-sink approach is absolutely warranted. It's a one-stop shop for pretty much everything related to e-book management, conversion, or creation. I spend most of my time in Calibre just managing my library or converting ebooks between formats (particularly if I'm pulling ebooks off my Kindle or Kobo to strip their DRM). When I want to test whether the co…

> Calibre is one of those rare examples of software where the kitchen-sink approach is absolutely warranted. I disagree, and that's why I generally do not use Calibre, despite being an ebook aficionado. ...I already have my own ebook organization management. I'd like a good ebook reader, and I'd appreciate some of the surrounding tools, but Calibre's monolithic design isn't useful in my case. It seems like even runni…

This is an odd take. You don't use Calibre because it doesn't fit your use-case, not because it's not good for what it's meant.

> I already have my own ebook organization management.

Calibre is an e-book management software with a reader for convenience, it's not geared towards reading.

Re: Calibre – E-Book Management

#152

Post by timwaagh »

badsectoracula wrote: post #35
timwaagh wrote: post #30

Nice if you're into downloading ebooks illegally or from the few sites that don't do ERP. I used to use it too. However since graduating college and starting to make money I didn't download anything anymore due to lack of time more than lack of funds so I don't use it anymore.

This implies that the only use for Calibre has to do with illegally downloaded ebooks... and i'm not sure how that has anything to do with it though. Personally the only times i have used Calibre is the opposite of that: i used it with books i bought on Amazon to remove the DRM and convert them to epub so that i can read them on my mobile phone using my favorite ebook reader app (and also keep my own offline copies o…

I literally stated 'or the few sites that don't do ERP'. Of course calibre does have legal use cases. Playing with (I think) O'Reilly ebooks and project Gutenberg being some of them.

I did not mean to imply it has no legal use. However stripping DRM and converting is not one of them. It's a form of copyright infringement as well, depending on where you are. I'm not sure how 'calibre has nothing to do with illegal copying' is very credible at this point.

Re: Calibre – E-Book Management

#153

Post by timwaagh »

paxys wrote: post #69
timwaagh wrote: post #30

Nice if you're into downloading ebooks illegally or from the few sites that don't do ERP. I used to use it too. However since graduating college and starting to make money I didn't download anything anymore due to lack of time more than lack of funds so I don't use it anymore.

Unlike other kinds of content most books ever written are out of copyright and completely free today. Publishers and distributors, however, have every incentive in the world to keep charging you for them. Efforts like Project Gutenberg and Calibre are going a long way towards taking back control from Amazon & co. for things that shouldn't be owned and controlled by them in the first place.

Of course calibre has legal uses too. Certainly books like War and Peace and other classics are still relevant today, however they are the exception, rather than the rule.

Re: Calibre – E-Book Management

#154

Post by throwanem »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #146
throwanem wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly; the structural information is in a mix of XHTML and various XML schemas. Conceptually it's more like that weird "HTML archive" format that IE used to do back when, but considerably more complex, and much less terrible thanks to being a W3C standard and not MIME-encoded. The .epub file itself is just a zip archive. You can open it that way and pull the HTML content out, if you want, although it may be a pain t…

That's among the reasons why I actually dislike ePub and prefer to convert (which involves pandoc/calibre + some hand-written scripting and hand-editing) epub to FB2 (which I love, it only has some minor imperfections). FB2 is a well-structured straightforward single-file XML designed with data-presentation separation in mind.

I can see the appeal, but that's not an option for me right now, since EPUB is on the input side of the project that's had me studying the relevant standards in the last few days.

That said, it's not the worst standard, if a little bit overcomplicated by trying to be all things to all people with a bunch of features I suspect are almost never actually used in the wild. Having the content already formatted as XHTML is really convenient for what I'm doing with it, too.

Re: Calibre – E-Book Management

#155

Post by pmlnr »

zapzupnz wrote: post #65
pmlnr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the user interface needs some work to modernize No, it doesn't. Eventually people learn to use it, and everyone is happy that way.

People shouldn't have to learn how to use its complicated interface. The killer feature is managing eBooks, not rocket science. There is nothing at all about the Calibre interface that needs to be the way it is. What's so interesting is the way it apes an old version of iTunes, one which nobody would've considered the pinnacle of UX, and still manages to complicate and bury things in unexpected places.

EVERY user interface needs to be learnt. Ask anyone: they hate it when it changes.

Re: Calibre – E-Book Management

#156

Post by tym0 »

secstate wrote: post #83
qwerty456127 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UI is not the only weird part of it, probably the least weird one. What I miss are first-class attachments (i.e. code archives and CD/floppy images) support, raw file naming (without automatic romanization of non-ASCII alphabets), flat storage (without creating a separate folder for every book). Using a Calibre-managed library from outside of Calibre (i.e. on a PocketBook reader) feels quite unnatural. Another th…

If you're on linux, check out Foliate. It's everything you're asking for :D

Any recommendation for a similar tool for Windows? The integrated Calibre reader is... Special...

Re: Calibre – E-Book Management

#157

Post by badsectoracula »

timwaagh wrote: post #152
badsectoracula wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This implies that the only use for Calibre has to do with illegally downloaded ebooks... and i'm not sure how that has anything to do with it though. Personally the only times i have used Calibre is the opposite of that: i used it with books i bought on Amazon to remove the DRM and convert them to epub so that i can read them on my mobile phone using my favorite ebook reader app (and also keep my own offline copies o…

I literally stated 'or the few sites that don't do ERP'. Of course calibre does have legal use cases. Playing with (I think) O'Reilly ebooks and project Gutenberg being some of them. I did not mean to imply it has no legal use. However stripping DRM and converting is not one of them. It's a form of copyright infringement as well, depending on where you are. I'm not sure how 'calibre has nothing to do with illegal cop…

> I literally stated 'or the few sites that don't do ERP'. Of course calibre does have legal use cases. Playing with (I think) O'Reilly ebooks and project Gutenberg being some of them.

The only acronym i've heard for ERP is "Enterprise resource planning" so i'm not sure how that was relevant... and still am not because even searching in Google about what the acronym means all i get is definitions and explanations for "Enterprise resource planning".

> However stripping DRM and converting is not one of them. It's a form of copyright infringement as well, depending on where you are.

It isn't illegal where i am (and FWIW i do not even see it as unethical at all, if anything i consider DRM more unethical) but that is moot since what you originally wrote was "downloading ebooks illegally" which is what i responded about.

Re: Calibre – E-Book Management

#158

Post by badsectoracula »

barbazoo wrote: post #101
badsectoracula wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This implies that the only use for Calibre has to do with illegally downloaded ebooks... and i'm not sure how that has anything to do with it though. Personally the only times i have used Calibre is the opposite of that: i used it with books i bought on Amazon to remove the DRM and convert them to epub so that i can read them on my mobile phone using my favorite ebook reader app (and also keep my own offline copies o…

If you wanted to remove Amazon from the equation, I recommend Kobo. Prices are similar and you can remove the DRM quite easily.

Thanks, i'll keep it in mind in the future.

Re: Calibre – E-Book Management

#159

Post by Pasorrijer »

mcrittenden wrote: post #89
Pasorrijer wrote: post #77

My favourite eReader for android is and always will be AlReader. Some dudes pet project but it is glorious and wonderful.

Just curious, what do you like about it over other ebook readers? I've been using Moon+ heavily for years and it's fine but I'm interested in trying some others out.

Simplicity. It just works. It's just an eReader. No fancy app, no ads, just an eReader. That's why I like it.

Re: Calibre – E-Book Management

#160

Post by passwert »

billyjobob wrote: post #141
david_allison wrote: post #23

Kovid only makes $1,800/m from/for development.[0] More people should support him; Calibre has been extremely high quality for years. https://www.patreon.com/kovidgoyal

I don't want to dig up old grievances but I think most people who have had the misfortune to interact with Kovid on a personal level would agree he is not the sort of person who deserves a penny of your money.

Care to explain?
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