I suppose I'm not the only one wondering whether this could replace Calibre for me. Most features seem to be there, but will it allow me to sync ebooks to my Kobo device?
I was intrigued by the clean interface enough to download it. Then I was asked to create an online account...
Anyway, I think it replacing calibre depends on how much advanced features one uses. Calibre in more than 15 years old and has a lot of "speciality" plugins.
Unless you have a seriously good reason for not supporting one of the other alternatives to Calibre (such as this project), please just support that project with your efforts?
If you do have a good reason, then please prioritize unit testing, proper release engineering, requiring documentation be included with patches, and proper UX (including, but not limited to, respecting the conventions of the host OS) that is usable by real-world users who don't obsess over managing their library.
Not having to spend an hour configuring stuff so I can sync my reading position and shelves from my e-reader...and then another hour configuring sync to a service like goodreads - would be just swell.
Not the person you're replying to but I am a user of Calibre --
1. Automatic ingesting and conversion of book files (download a pdf, epub, mobi, even something with DRM to a specific folder and it's available for reading/transfer automatically)
2. One (or more if being selective) click loading onto an e-reader (with auto format conversion)
3. Plugins or native feature DRM removal for purchased ebooks. Also plugin support for reading different file types, tying it all in to the main app seems clunky, better to have auto-installed file-type plugins and the abstraction/freedom plugins bring
4. Automatic/semi-manual/full-manual metadata control. Being able to scan the internet for new covers, isbns, category tags, blurbs, etc and selectively choose what to add is perfect while still retaining the options for grab everything or enter everything by hand too
5. Full text search of all file formats, as well as field-specific metadata search
6. Semi-manual curation with tag filtering and virtual libraries (saved searches basically, very powerful in combination with tags and ratings)
7. Highlight/quote saving. This is something which I do a lot on the e-reader and have been meaning to find a plugin to load them back into Calibre. Native support (in your app) would be fantastic
8. Keyboard shortcuts, theming, all those other nice little features that are less calibre-specific
edit - adding more as I thought on this longer:
* Cover and table views - it's nice to see the book covers yet also the compact editing and selection of a text-only table is essential. Sorting by title, author, publish, upload/ingest date, rating, etc is also quite important
* Folder/file based data storage. Having database files for extra metadata or internally needed stuff is a-ok yet it's so nice to be able to go into a folder named after the author and copy out a file in any of the converted formats. Automatically updating the metadata in the file itself (title, author, publish date, etc) and standardizing the file names is also key
* Book editing. This is less important early on since it's a big feature yet it's nice to be able to go in and fix typos from OCR or take out extra whitespace (or copyright warnings). A global reformatter or format aware find/replace is also quite handy for standardizing across multiple download sources (h2 vs h1 for chapter titles, weird indenting at the start of sections, dividers done with ---, <hr>, or custom images, etc). Style editors are nice yet less important since reader apps/devices generally handle most of this
* Image background removal. If you have a dark mode or sepia or even better custom theming in the book reader view, there will be images and custom dividers with white backgrounds that would look better inverted or with transparent backgrounds. This is a tricky one, since some images don't make sense to invert or tweak to the theme, yet done well it's a really nice feature
CrypticShift|2 years ago
Anyway, I think it replacing calibre depends on how much advanced features one uses. Calibre in more than 15 years old and has a lot of "speciality" plugins.
phildenhoff|2 years ago
I’m working on building a replacement for Calibre that is backwards compatible. I’d love to hear what you expect in that kind of tool.
KennyBlanken|2 years ago
If you do have a good reason, then please prioritize unit testing, proper release engineering, requiring documentation be included with patches, and proper UX (including, but not limited to, respecting the conventions of the host OS) that is usable by real-world users who don't obsess over managing their library.
Not having to spend an hour configuring stuff so I can sync my reading position and shelves from my e-reader...and then another hour configuring sync to a service like goodreads - would be just swell.
matthberg|2 years ago
1. Automatic ingesting and conversion of book files (download a pdf, epub, mobi, even something with DRM to a specific folder and it's available for reading/transfer automatically)
2. One (or more if being selective) click loading onto an e-reader (with auto format conversion)
3. Plugins or native feature DRM removal for purchased ebooks. Also plugin support for reading different file types, tying it all in to the main app seems clunky, better to have auto-installed file-type plugins and the abstraction/freedom plugins bring
4. Automatic/semi-manual/full-manual metadata control. Being able to scan the internet for new covers, isbns, category tags, blurbs, etc and selectively choose what to add is perfect while still retaining the options for grab everything or enter everything by hand too
5. Full text search of all file formats, as well as field-specific metadata search
6. Semi-manual curation with tag filtering and virtual libraries (saved searches basically, very powerful in combination with tags and ratings)
7. Highlight/quote saving. This is something which I do a lot on the e-reader and have been meaning to find a plugin to load them back into Calibre. Native support (in your app) would be fantastic
8. Keyboard shortcuts, theming, all those other nice little features that are less calibre-specific
edit - adding more as I thought on this longer:
* Cover and table views - it's nice to see the book covers yet also the compact editing and selection of a text-only table is essential. Sorting by title, author, publish, upload/ingest date, rating, etc is also quite important
* Folder/file based data storage. Having database files for extra metadata or internally needed stuff is a-ok yet it's so nice to be able to go into a folder named after the author and copy out a file in any of the converted formats. Automatically updating the metadata in the file itself (title, author, publish date, etc) and standardizing the file names is also key
* Book editing. This is less important early on since it's a big feature yet it's nice to be able to go in and fix typos from OCR or take out extra whitespace (or copyright warnings). A global reformatter or format aware find/replace is also quite handy for standardizing across multiple download sources (h2 vs h1 for chapter titles, weird indenting at the start of sections, dividers done with ---, <hr>, or custom images, etc). Style editors are nice yet less important since reader apps/devices generally handle most of this
* Image background removal. If you have a dark mode or sepia or even better custom theming in the book reader view, there will be images and custom dividers with white backgrounds that would look better inverted or with transparent backgrounds. This is a tricky one, since some images don't make sense to invert or tweak to the theme, yet done well it's a really nice feature
rout39574|2 years ago
rout39574|2 years ago