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New in Calibre 6.0

calibre-ebook.com

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Re: New in Calibre 6.0

#21
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use dropbox for syncing. I point my calibre library to the dropbox folder, and in my ipad I open the dropbox app and "share" the book I want to read to the Books app.

The calibre manual warns against using dropbox on the main library folder, users have lost their complete libraray doing that. Might want to at least pause dropbox while running calibre.

I have using calibre with dropbox for 10+ years now. The warning was given out mostly for the internet speeds of the time where the time for your edits to be synced took very long. I had a problem only once in 10 years even then because of dropbox revert file ability was easily able to revert. The only caveat is I do not use calibre server so I usually start calibre do what I want and exit. If you use the server and keep calibre on all the time then Dropbox might not work as well for you though just restarting calibre after any library edits should be enough.

Re: New in Calibre 6.0

#23

Calibre is awesome to use on desktop. But as someone who wants to sync his Calibre library with other devices (iphone + ipad), it gets really frustrating.

"Awesome" is a serious stretch.

It's incredibly cumbersome to set up for even the most basic, common tasks that everyone wants to do. He's forced to release constant updates because he refuses to separate the news processing code from the main application code (the processing "recipes" should be separately distributed) and worse, there's no auto-updater, so keeping the application up to date is a pain in the ass. The UI is outdated, hostile to users in general, and not low/impaired-vision friendly (six icons in the standard main toolbar all look virtually identical save for very minor differences, and Goval loves different shades of grey, reducing contrast.)

Last but not least: it's almost exclusively developed by one person (a problem by itself for such a large and widely used project) who is infamous for being at best abrasive and at worst an asshole - and not a particularly good programmer. The commit history is an absolute mess to try and navigate because he seems to have "save" and "commit" confused.

Edit: the very link itself is a perfect example of how Goyal seems to have zero awareness or care for others. Why do I have to click to expand text items in release notes? And he says that some plugins are no longer compatible because of the switch to Qt6. Which ones?

Re: New in Calibre 6.0

#24

Calibre does its job so well it's downright essential for anyone thinking about dealing with ebooks. Glad to hear that full text search is added in this version, using it with a bunch of reference books saved will be so useful. It might be worth splitting out the fiction books I have to clean up the results. Maybe it works with tag filtering, I'll have to check.

> Calibre does its job so well it's downright essential for anyone thinking about dealing with ebooks.

Its “job” is not well-defined. I read electronic books almost exclusively (for prose fiction; art and equations are a different bag) since 2008 or so, and never saw any point in it beyond format conversion.

It does format conversion very well. The command-line converter requires a running graphical session for some reason, though.

Re: New in Calibre 6.0

#27
Kovid Goyal, the developer of Calibre, is a very responsive, very gentle person. Whenever I needed help, I have gotten help from him. [1] - Calibre is an indispensable tool for me to manage my digital library with close to 800 books.

I support him regularly. Consinder doing it as well if you appreciate the app. Go to https://calibre-ebook.com/ , there’s a support link on the top right.

[1] This is the forum dedicated to Calibre https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=166

Re: New in Calibre 6.0

#28
post #24

Calibre does its job so well it's downright essential for anyone thinking about dealing with ebooks. Glad to hear that full text search is added in this version, using it with a bunch of reference books saved will be so useful. It might be worth splitting out the fiction books I have to clean up the results. Maybe it works with tag filtering, I'll have to check.

> Calibre does its job so well it's downright essential for anyone thinking about dealing with ebooks. Its “job” is not well-defined. I read electronic books almost exclusively (for prose fiction; art and equations are a different bag) since 2008 or so, and never saw any point in it beyond format conversion. It does format conversion very well. The command-line converter requires a running graphical session for some…

I use it extensively for managing the books on my devices (Kobo Libre, and my wife has an old Kindle).

Re: New in Calibre 6.0

#30
post #12

Calibre is awesome to use on desktop. But as someone who wants to sync his Calibre library with other devices (iphone + ipad), it gets really frustrating.

Do you want to sync the whole library with the iphone or just search and download from the iphone? Calibre can be used to just transfer a few books by installing the calibre app on the phone and select books on the computer to transfer. There are also solutions for searching and downloading books from the phone but I haven't tried them much, found it much easier to use the computer to do that. I can't fit my library…

I want to sync the whole thing. Apple Books ineptly forces you to manually copy all of the books themselves to each device, but then syncs collections that you've set up to organize them.
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