
Calibre 4.0 - sprague
https://calibre-ebook.com/new-in/thirteen
======
filmgirlcw
As others have said, this is an app I have an absolute love/hate relationship
with.

I really appreciate all the work the dev puts into it, but it’s a slow app
that just isn’t very usable. It’s not just that it’s ugly, it’s that it’s
poorly designed. And yet, nothing else even comes close to doing what it does.

I even wrote out a spec for a similar app that was built using a more modern
framework/usable interface, that some friends and I could potentially build,
but the task was so monumental and the return on investment (and I’m not even
talking about money) seemed so small, we shelved it.

That said, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that DeDRM is the reason a
lot of us use the app — I know it’s a key for me — and that does have an
excellent CLI tool.

There are also some good iOS apps that work with the book server, for
accessing lots of ebooks. Even then tho, those apps are labors of love where
the core audience is both critical and shockingly cheap (I say shockingly b/c
many pay thousands on ebooks and ereaders a year — it’s an enthusiast market).
One look at the MobileReads forums (a fantastic resource) for any specific
app, and I kind of understand why we don’t have a “good” Calibre that is OSS
for paid for that matter.

~~~
ehvatum
>it’s a slow app >it’s ugly >it’s poorly designed >nothing else even comes
>the task was so monumental

I think what's going on here is that Calibre is implemented for free in spare
time in Python with an eye toward being accessible to all audiences and
feature complete. So, it's neither super fast, nor super pretty, nor super
elegant. But everyone can build up a library of ebooks without much effort and
then browse around and read them, highlight them, and sort them in various
ways.

You're welcome to submit patches that hide everything behind a hamburger menu
and make the scrollbars vanish and crap like that.

~~~
mmsimanga
Over the last few years reading HN comments a part of me can't help but think
that the more criticism leveled at an application or technology the more
useful it is for end users. This is probably true for Node, PHP, MySQL and
Wordpress to name a few. Kovid Goyal should take the criticisms a sign Calibre
is very useful to end users.

~~~
filmgirlcw
I totally agree. In my case, it’s definitely a case of “I bitch because I
care” — and I am very appreciative of the app and the hard work that has gone
into it. I cannot imagine doing all of that myself and making the app free at
that.

I do think it’s a shame the codebase is such that seems to prevent meaningful
contributions/collaboration that might improve things — but Kovid has done
something amazing, make no mistake.

And more to the point — we all complain about Calibre, yet no other app exists
that even does a fraction of what it does.

~~~
Razengan
> _“I bitch because I care”_

This. Or:

 _" I WANT it to be better."_

It's sad that the response to that is often _" Stop bitching or stop using
it", "Make it yourself"_, or _" If you don't like it why don't you go
somewhere else?"_ (and it's often from other users who try to speak on behalf
on the developers.)

------
robk
Calibre is so darn useful. It gets hate for the eclectic ui but it's
absolutely essential for any ebook Downloaders imo. Kovid is a real hero for
as much work as he does on this. He must spend several hours a day every day
of the year on it.

~~~
elwell
Got to respect dedication and hard work. But why doesn't his homepage support
Chrome? [https://kovidgoyal.net](https://kovidgoyal.net)

Edit: I was referring to the alert() upon loading the site:

    
    
        W A R N I N G! Your browser is not supported by this site.
        I cannot guarantee that things will work as they should.
        Consider downloading either Mozilla >=1.4 or Internet Explorer >= 6

~~~
dominotw
> This site was made along time ago, when I was interested in web programming,
> using DHTML and javascript, long before the advent of modern cross browser
> techniques. As such, it's a bit of an artifact, showing what was possible,
> (with a lot of work in the 1990's).

~~~
russdpale
Brother, this is a great site, don't ever change it! I liked some of your
poems, and this line "fault tolerant quantum computers" Definitely made me
raise an eyebrow or two.

------
Mediterraneo10
There have been complaints about the UI since forever, and the developer is
well-known for bristling at any constructive criticism and telling people to
either accept the way he likes things, or simply don't use the application.
Consequently, I am surprised that no one has forked Calibre, even if it was
just to kept the backend but simply overhaul the UI.

Something that I would like to see in a future version of Calibre (or a fork)
is news-download recipes changed to a plugin system that can be updated
separately of Calibre itself. It is not ideal that if a news recipe becomes
obsolete due to changes on the respective news website, one has to upgrade
Calibre to a new version. For users whose distros package only a certain
version of Calibre, it would be nice to continue running that distro-supported
version but simply be able to update the news recipes from within the Calibre
settings.

~~~
TheCraiggers
The code base is a nightmare and still uses Python 2. I'm not surprised it
hasn't been forked, although I'm a little surprised it hasn't been replaced.

Frankly, the software is just fine for most needs, and the person in charge is
still active, so the desire to replace it just hasn't materialized.

EDIT: Looks like somebody actually took the initiative to port it to Python 3.

~~~
scrollaway
Calling the codebase a nightmare is the understatement of the year. I tried
forking it at some point. I don't think I could reasonably even attempt
describe the codebase in a way that wouldn't get me banned from HN, and most
likely the rest of the internet.

Needless to say I gave up.

~~~
echelon
We would actually _love_ to read that.

An article title such as "Popular open source software Calibre has a codebase
that isn't just bad, it's outright dangerous" would definitely make me click.

If you feel strongly, please do this. It adds value. The creator might really
benefit from it.

~~~
6gvONxR4sf7o
How would you feel if someone came out with an article about "echelon's code
isn't just bad, it's outright dangerous" and wrote a whole article attacking
and shaming you, just because you might benefit from it?

Sure you might benefit, but there are much more constructive, kinder ways to
do it. Even if he and his code aren't great, Goyal's done a lot of free public
service here. Let's not be dicks.

If you want to learn about the codebase, here it is
[https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibre](https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibre)

~~~
echelon
Good point. I was responding to the tone of the OP, but it's not at all kind
or constructive.

They should be praised for their contributions, not torn down. That would be a
dick move.

Forgive me, I have the flu and I'm grumpy today.

------
pwinnski
Surveying this thread, I see an amazingly wide range of uses for Calibre. Yes,
the UI is really bad, perhaps especially on a Mac, but it is so mind-
bogglingly good at so many different things that it is difficult to believe
that Kovid Goyal manages all of this by himself.

Other people have different use-cases than I do, and Calibre satisfies us all.
Excellent, amazing, wonderful work, Mr. Goyal!

~~~
ece
This used to be called function over form.

------
zczc
Just updated. Alas, the new viewer still does not provide nondestructive
viewing. Open file, press PgDn, exit, and the viewed file is silently changed.
The viewer writes current position in the viewed file itself (META-
INF/calibre_bookmarks.txt).

UPDATE: just found out there is now a checkbox in the viewer preferences:
"Keep a copy of annotations/bookmarks in the e-book file, for easy sharing".
If unchecked, the viewed files are kept intact. Nice!

~~~
Santosh83
Where on Earth is this setting inside the Calibre preferences menu?? I just
spent about 5 minutes looking and simply couldn't find it anywhere!

~~~
thesimp
It is not in the Calibre preferences but in the Viewer preferences. Open an
ebook in the Viewer and while in the Viewer press ESC to get to the menu, then
the option is under Miscellaneous.

~~~
coldacid
Of course. So you still have to destructively edit your books before you can
tell Calibre to stop destructively editing your books. Genius!

~~~
pritambaral
I just checked and I can open the E-Book Viewer standalone, without a book.

I also checked that the destructive edit happens upon viewer close, not open
or page turn.

~~~
Santosh83
That behaviour was for the old viewer with version 3. The new version 4 one
reverts to what GP is saying: you have to open an ebook before you can even
access the settings through pressing ESC or right click.

Also the version 4 ebook viewer is step back from the old one, as it stands
now. It is slower, more resource hungry and buggier. The only arguable
improvement is it now uses a 'flat' theme that doesn't look dated. I'm even
considering reverting back to Calibre 3 because of the ebook viewer randomly
freezing on large epubs with equations and so on.

------
zmix
While Calibre is not what I'd consider to be a "beautiful" program, I do not
care. It's functionality is unbeaten.

What I really hate about it is the directory structure, it forces upon you. I
have my books sorted in topical directories and Calibre sorts them by author.
That sucks. If this single issue would be addressed, I couldn't be happier
with Calibre, especially, since Kovid is a very helpful person.

~~~
pnutjam
Do you tag your books? The metadata can be very helpful.

You could also consider libraries by topic.

~~~
zmix
I tag my files on macOS since the OpenMeta days. But I refuse to access any
library with an application frontend, it's the file system or nothing. These
Librarian apps are good for metadata management. That's what I use them for.

However, I am mostly on Windows, these days, so no chance for filesystem tags,
even worse now, that I have all my eBooks on a home server.

~~~
pnutjam
The DB frontend is very useful for metadata, short descriptions, and finding
duplicates.

I run a headless version of Calibre in the cloud, so I can read in the browser
and do other stuff.

------
the_af
Kudos to Calibre and its author. It's one of the first programs I install on
any Linux machine I own.

Yes, the UI is a bit quirky, but who cares? I spend my time actually reading
the books, and for managing my library and converting between formats Calibre
is ace.

That useful software like this exists makes me very happy.

------
AdmiralAsshat
Great app. I know everyone likes to extol the UNIX "A program should do one
thing and do it well" philosophy, but Calibre is one of the few "monolithic"
apps I can think of that justifies the bulk. It does _everything_ you could
want it to do regarding eBooks: viewing, editing, management, delivery, etc.

~~~
tomlong
Somewhat interestingly, under the hood calibre seems to be a bunch of little
tools, strung together by the UI:

Here's what's under calibre/bin

    
    
      calibre
      calibre-complete
      calibre-customize
      calibredb
      calibre-debug
      calibre-parallel
      calibre_postinstall
      calibre-server
      calibre-smtp
      cjpeg
      ebook-convert
      ebook-device
      ebook-edit
      ebook-meta
      ebook-polish
      ebook-viewer
      fetch-ebook-metadata
      jpegtran
      JxrDecApp
      lrf2lrs
      lrfviewer
      lrs2lrf
      markdown-calibre
      optipng
      pdfinfo
      pdftohtml
      pdftoppm
      web2disk
    

You can use many (possibly all) of these independently of the UI.

~~~
danmg
Poettering should learn from the design of this software.

~~~
dralley
If you had spent 2 seconds looking at the source code to Calibre, you would
not be praising it's codebase.

Also, systemd is not one binary. It's like 50 different binaries.

------
jimstr
If you like it and want to support development, the main developer is on
Patreon
[https://www.patreon.com/kovidgoyal](https://www.patreon.com/kovidgoyal)

~~~
ru999gol
you might want to read up on the controversies surrounding him first though

~~~
ninjin
You might want to add some specifics and references to back up such a
statement. Otherwise it very much looks like a fairly cheap character attack
to an outsider such as myself.

~~~
kranner
[https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/853934](https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/853934)

~~~
the_af
Where's the controversy? A maintainer and a contributor disagreeing about a
bug report, and it gets a bit heated. Nothing important to see there, and
nothing we haven't seen a thousand times in public bug trackers.

~~~
BeetleB
The submitter was pretty civil for the most part, and Kovid ended with:

> Something answering posts from fools like you over the years should have
> taught me a long time ago.

And submitter is correct - he does this often. I recall a _security_ bug that
he refused to fix as fixing it would break some convenient feature. That one
got really heated, and only when distributions declared they will stop
carrying calibre in their package management system did he cave in and fix it.

Nevertheless, I don't see these as obvious reasons not to support him in
Patreon.

~~~
unsined
I stumbled into that git issue and couldn't stop reading. He was immediately
dismissive of the security suggestion, even when that person had gone out of
their way to provide verifiable examples of the vulnerability. I ended up not
installing the software.

~~~
the_af
You mean you didn't install Calibre because of a bug report where the author
allegedly misbehaved? That's odd. A lot of open source software is riddled
with ego and personality clashes, and because they play out in public forums,
mailing lists and bug trackers for everyone to see, these flamewars tend to be
very visible (also see: Linus Torvalds' outbursts). Do you also not use these
programs?

Did you need Calibre in the first place? If so, what did you end up using
instead?

------
SamuelAdams
Does this still insist on making a copy of all my books on my local hard
drive? I have about 10,000+ books on a network share. It would be nice to be
able to search through them and download just the ones I'm interested in, but
past versions of Calibre require the book to be downloaded to your local HDD
before it pulls any metadata.

~~~
virtualritz
Just mount the network share where Calibre expects its library and be ok with
the way it organizes the books in there. No local copy happening then.

~~~
ivanb
This is a bad advice. Calibre (as of version 3) doesn't support this mode of
operation. If the network disconnects you will most likely corrupt your
library database.

~~~
peterloron
How often does your network disconnect? Sure, it would be great if the backend
storage system was better at handling atomic operations, but I don't think
this is really a huge problem assuming you're not using a really crappy
network.

I run Calibre with the library mounted from a NAS. Works fine for my ~2000
book collection. Not as speedy as local SSD, but it is ok.

~~~
nirvdrum
Does that work okay with multiple machines connected at the same time? I've
been worried about what happens when there's a write conflict to the DB. I'd
really like a way to easily share and manage my eBook library from both my
laptop and desktop.

~~~
xbmcuser
You can now at least manage the library through the web interface because of
the new server.

------
agumonkey
Calibre ui made me stay away, I don't mind different but sometimes you do need
to get a bit more mainstream. Blender 2.80 did this move and it helped a lot I
believe.

~~~
mmsimanga
Perhaps I have a different use case. I spend very little time in Calibre but
loads more time on my Kobo reader. The time I spend is so little that I have
never really noticed the user interface. I use Calibre to transfer books to
and from my reader and occasionally download meta data for books. I know
Calibre has functionality to download blogs and so on but I use Kobo's
integration with Pocket[0] to read online articles.

[0][https://getpocket.com/](https://getpocket.com/)

~~~
efdee
I have only used Calibre a few times, but doesn't the Kobo show up as a
storage device, allowing you to drag/drop the books there? What advantage does
Calibre offer purely for transferring?

~~~
mmsimanga
YMMV. I probably have more books and documents than I will ever read. I use
Calibre to manage this collection. It is easier to flip through my collection
of books on a computer when deciding what to read next than on my ereader.
Being able to download meta data helps me decide what to read next. I use the
Calibre storage as my backup for my ebooks. My first ereader was a Kindle
which I stupidly trashed while trying to swat a fly (true story). I then
bought a Kobo. Calibre converted my books as I loaded them onto Kobo.

------
QuadrupleA
It's interesting, my complaint with Calibre was always performance rather than
UI - it can be surprisingly slow for processing & converting mostly-text
formats.

But the sheer number of features & formats makes it worth the downsides.
Indeed it's probably a good reminder to me as a developer, I can get too
focused on making things snappy, efficient and pretty where perhaps I could
have delivered twice the features if I took a little more of an 80/20
approach.

~~~
AdrianB1
I am very curious if the performance problems come from the architecture, the
code or from being written in Python.

------
snvzz
Calibre does the trick.

It's a shame there's no good hardware ereader to use it with. Every e-ink
device is closed hardware, runs only closed software, and is trying to lock
you into some DRM-rich ecosystem.

~~~
Hitton
Actually there are ways to install software on many ereaders. About 10 years
ago I used PRS+ on Sony's PRS-500. Nowadays Sony's ereaders are pretty much
dead, but there is alternative software for Kindle, Kobo and others. By quick
googling I just found:

[https://github.com/koreader/koreader](https://github.com/koreader/koreader)

[https://github.com/ccoffing/OcherBook](https://github.com/ccoffing/OcherBook)

[https://github.com/lgeek/okreader](https://github.com/lgeek/okreader)

[https://fread.ink/](https://fread.ink/)

Also:

[https://onyxboox.com/](https://onyxboox.com/) \- this is Android so I guess
it's bit more hackable

[https://the-digital-reader.com/2015/06/19/is-the-booq-cervan...](https://the-
digital-reader.com/2015/06/19/is-the-booq-cervantes-the-first-open-source-
ereader/)

~~~
snvzz
Android is ill-suited to readers. Installing "homebrew" applications through
hackish means has been a thing for a while.

None of this is a replacement to a properly open ebook reading device which
does not exist.

On the software side, openinkpot existed at some point, but the project died.

I'd love a properly made piece of very low power open hardware running e.g.
nuttx rather than boring Linux/Android.

~~~
brandmeyer
FBReader is quite nice for reading offline ebooks on Android.

I realize that you are griping about dedicated e-readers, but I want to make
clear that its not strictly an Android problem. The more open Android devices
work just fine as e-readers.

My flow is basically Calibre -> managed library -> android phone -> offline
reading anywhere.

~~~
snvzz
My flow is pretty much the same. But oled != eink, even though I really like
orange text on black with oled.

~~~
xbmcuser
I have 2 apps that I use on my android based eink reader. I mostly read
fiction so those 2 our enough for me. Turn on wifi every 2-3 weeks to transfer
the books from calibre to calibre companion.

1\. Calibre Companion 2\. Coolreader

------
thrower123
Surprised to see so much hate for Calibre's UI here. I'm not sure I
understand. I can load damn near anything that pretends to be an ebook into
it, and then I can double-click on the row for that item, and it pops open a
reader window. That's all I need it to do.

At least on Windows, I've been pretty underwhelmed with other ebook viewer
apps I have tried. The various Kindle apps tend to blow for anything you don't
obtain through Amazon, and often don't work great for syncing even Kindle
ebooks. I still have a bunch of Microsoft Reader .lit files kicking around,
and Calibre is one of the only things that will open them. The Calibre PDF
reader is pretty terrible, but setting is up to pop open to Adobe or whatever
instead doesn't take much ceremony.

~~~
hestipod
Seeing how many people prioritize fashion over function...in this topic, and
life in general, depresses me. Calibre works very well and you have people
saying they "can't" use it because it's not pretty enough. It's one guy, does
SO much, and it's free. I don't care what it looks like. It's amazing.

------
scarejunba
I used this for a bit ages ago. Useful tool. Funnily, I think it's a great
example of how building some things is way harder than people think. For
instance, everyone has complained about Calibre since the beginning of time.
Code, UI, everything. And yet, no one has come up with a replacement. Maybe
pandoc captures some use cases.

It's like OpenSSL in that respect alone. Everyone wants something like it but
it's too hard to build so they'll just use what they think is an inferior
solution (when really it's superiority as a solution is that it exists).

~~~
hombre_fatal
Well put.

Another comment here exemplifies this by reminiscing how they worked up a
design draft for their Calibre competitor yet never even started it because
it's just too hard and unrewarding.

I also think people are too hard on the author's personality quirks. Yes, they
can be grating, but this quirky person is presumably the sort of person who
can build it and continue shepherding and maintaining it for over a decade.
None of us with our infinite patience and epic social skillz apparently are
doing it.

How many here have even maintained a popular, complex product for any real
duration? Or had to be your own product's customer service agent? It's not
easy. I've seen people break down just fielding customer demands at Target
during one summer job.

------
_el
Other commenters are pretty ruthless. Calibre's great for managing e-books and
putting them onto an e-reader. It works reliably and I've never had an issue.

Imagine writing a useful (free!) tool and the best thing people can say is
"well, the code is a nightmare and the UI is ugly". Shameful - remember that
there's a real, hard-working person on the other side of your comments.

~~~
nottorp
Yeah, what's the problem with the UI? You use it 3 minutes to convert/upload a
book that will keep you busy for hours. I really don't think they need a
redesign or anything.

------
Tomte
I relly want to like and use Calibre, but none of my several tries to get
started were successful.

No idea how to browse my Kindle library, how to browse books on my Kindle, or
do anything else. It's a totally non-intuitive GUI.

~~~
calcifer
When you plug your Kindle in, a big Kindle icon appears on the top menu and
you can browse the contents by clicking on it. How is that unintuitive?

~~~
Tomte
Okay. Where are my bought books not currently on Kindle? I've already logged
into my Kindle account.

~~~
calcifer
Amazon doesn't provide any APIs for querying your non-device Kindle library,
so naturally you won't see those books in Calibre.

But, you can integrate Amazon's email-to-Kindle feature with Calibre [1] so
new books are automatically added to your Calibre library as well.

[1] [http://blog.calibre-ebook.com/2017/01/managing-your-
kindle-l...](http://blog.calibre-ebook.com/2017/01/managing-your-kindle-
library-is-easy.html)

~~~
Tomte
Okay. Would be great if Calibre told you that.

After it prompts me for my Amazon password I sure expect those books to show
up.

As I said, the UI/UX is very confusing.

------
mwsfc
Well, given the subject here, it seems relevant to ask how everyone is
organizing their libraries in Calibre. Is there such a thing as "best
practices"? Would really love to hear ideas as I've found library mgmt in
Calibre to be cumbersome, sluggish, and rather none intuitive compared to
something like Plex for movies & TV shows.

~~~
input_sh
Check out Calibre-Web ([https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-
web/](https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web/)). I'm only mentioning it
because you've mentioned Plex, because it comes with a theme that's a clone of
Plex:
[https://github.com/leram84/layer.Cake/tree/master/caliBlur](https://github.com/leram84/layer.Cake/tree/master/caliBlur)

------
umvi
Calibre CLI is awesome. I've used it to convert ebooks to PDF

------
qwerty456127
I wish it was more unix-way-ish so I could write my own UI with just the
features I need, my own back-end (I'd like a less-bloated library storage
convention without directories for every book, without title transliteration,
with support for multiple files of same format (e.g. .code.zip, audio.zip,
.html.zip) for plain HTML files and embedded metadata) and ony use Calibre for
tagging and conversion (with conversion customization, and I can also see no
reason why conversion tools should not be a separate project).

Calibre is by far the best yet still could be made a way better.

------
2rsf
Is there a good replacement for Calibre ?

one the converts from any format to any format, strips DRM (so I heard),
adapts to different readers and if you really have to allows you to read
(though the reader looks terrible)

------
majkinetor
For people who don't like its desktop GUI, you can also run integrated web
server and access/edit books via browser.

------
captn3m0
Is it switching to Python 3?

~~~
duckerude
Yes.

[https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibre/blob/master/README.pyt...](https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibre/blob/master/README.python3)

[https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibre/pull/870](https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibre/pull/870)

> Yeah there are not a lot of low hanging fruit left. Now one just has to get
> betas out and have people test them and report bugs. And plugin developers
> use the betas to port their plugins. But it is going to have to wait until
> after the webengine migration is done and calibre 4 is released.

~~~
driverdan
870 has been open for over a year. It's clearly not high on the priority list.

~~~
icebraining
Whether "a year" is high or low depends on the project in question. If you
look at the commit list, py3 work seems clearly the predominant effort.

------
nieve
Full disclosure: I'm a sql & emacs geek so that may warp my views on
interfaces. I suspect there are a lot of features that are used by no more
than 5-10% of users, but we'd scream bloody murder if they were taken away. No
two of my heavy Calibre user friends use exactly the same set of features and
we're always swapping tricks. Calibre does a decent job for so many use cases
that I'm not sure there's any way to have a completely coherent UI that covers
them all. That doesn't mean it's not krufty and occasionally frustrating, but
I've no exaggeration never seen an alternative that did even 20% of what I
wanted.

Calibre can seem pretty overgrown and I used for years without missing
features like search-based virtual libraries, but now an ebook management app
that doesn't let me slice and dice with that kind of power. For me it's a mix
of how easy it is switching between tabbed views like new last 30 days, unread
(custom tag automatically added on import), various reading lists from the
Reading List plugin, author sets I tend to read together, missing metadata,
etc. and the composability of virtual libraries.

When you combine virtual libraries with the slightly misleadingly named
FanFicFare plugin's metadata it's a lot easier to keep track of both
original[1] & fan fictions from dozens of sites (out of several hundred
supported) and separate it out from regular books. Similarly the Reading List
& Import List plugins are great for pulling in info from outside calibre, but
they need a lot of the features that people generally ignore to do their jobs.

On the flip side most people don't seem to use multiple real libraries and
they are great for topic-specific book collections or when I really don't want
to see a book again, but don't want to just delete it.

Even simple things like being able to arbitrarily color column text based on
filters I ignored until I realized lets me set the titles of all books missing
a description red. It makes cleaning up my library easier, but nothing else
I've tried has a similar features.

[1]
[https://github.com/JimmXinu/FanFicFare/wiki/SupportedSites](https://github.com/JimmXinu/FanFicFare/wiki/SupportedSites)
It's the only thing that makes reading fiction from spacebattles.com not soul-
destroyingly annoying.

------
cheaprentalyeti
Not meaning to sound ungrateful, but does anyone know of any _good_ dark
themes for Calibre's ebook viewer? I found one on the web, but found it's
generally easier to just use calibre to manage the files, but Atril or
something similar to actually view it. This seems to especially be the case
for books with code snippets and the like, like the ones I'm often getting via
the Humble Bundle store.

------
billfruit
An issue in the past was that books loaded into Kindles through Calibre
appeared as 'personal documents' rather than as a 'book' in the Kindle,
upsetting causing the reading state sync to not work if you were reading the
same book for example through the Kindle app in your smartphone also, very
annoying, and goes against the promise of ebooks. I hope they have a fix for
this.

~~~
JonLim
I've gone through the motions of emailing the book to my Kindle, which allows
it to be downloadable on other Kindle devices or the app, and also syncs up
reading location.

Doesn't work for huge books, but has been a great boon for most books!

~~~
colomon
Right, that's actually my standard Calibre use case: Load book into Calibre.
Convert it to MOBI if needed. E-mail it to my Kindle address.

It then pops up everywhere I have a Kindle app, mostly my iPad and Galaxy S9.

Huh. Now that I'm thinking about it, it seems like this would be even easier
to do from the command line...

~~~
input_sh
If you fill out the "Sharing books by email" in Calibre's settings, you can
just right-click a book -> "Connect/share", "Email to example@kindle.com".
It'll do the conversion for you (if necessary).

I'd advise a separate email address for this functionality.

------
prvc
Since we're sharing gripes, I wish it would only push updates when there is a
significant user-facing change (such as a fix for a major bug). It's not worth
the bother to update the app manually merely in order to gain a new formula
for the automatic news downloader. Feels like I spend more time installing the
program than using it.

~~~
Marsymars
The issue here is compounded because you typically aren't using Calibre daily,
so if you launch it once a month, there's basically a new version available
every single time you launch it. I use Homebrew on macOS and Chocolatey on
Windows to keep it updated, they both work well.

------
sigzero
If you use it, I hope you support the author.

------
ausjke
I wish ebook-viewer added highlight annotation capability, I can use PDF
viewers to highlight texts but not ebook-viewer, so I had to convert all of
epub etc to PDF under calibre.

for technical books annotation is essential for me, it's my notes so I do not
need re-read the book from start to end each time.

------
crooked-v
What I'd really like is an iOS app that can plug directly into a Calibre
library (via iCloud or Dropbox or whatever). It seems like everything that's
existed in that space requires an explicit download step rather than being
able to sync/cache stuff in the background.

------
nirvdrum
I appreciate letting me know what the license is, but I'm not convinced I
should be required to agree to the terms of it before the (Windows) installer
progresses. I'm not redistributing anything as a consumer of the software.

------
suchoudh
This is one of those things that has made my life easier. Especially avoiding
multiple copies of same pdf files. It helps me organize my e-Library much
better than I have my home library. Thanks for the updated version

------
ryanmercer
I love Calibre, been using it since way back in my kindle keyboard days.

------
ValentineC
My (only!) gripe with Calibre is that it checks for updates, but doesn't have
a feature to automatically update after that.

Thankfully, I just make do with running:

    
    
      brew cask reinstall calibre

------
fortran77
I love Calibre. Yes, It's a little clunky, but it solves problems nobody else
does.

I have a lot of eBooks, because I built a DIY Book Scanner and scanned all my
books in a couple of years ago.

------
bananamerica
Calibre is the worst piece of software thar I also happen to love.

------
corbet
Does it still phone home every time you fire it up?

------
michaelmrose
I love calibre but I find that a lot of the time I want to open a recently
read book or one I know by name. Cold starting calibre, finding the book,
opening the book, minimizing or closing calibre is a 4 step process that takes
15-30 seconds. Further it takes up about 250MB in memory to avoid that 4-8
second wait for it to start. By default without specifying a field it finds
results in text describing the book which is almost never what I want as well.

Calibre has a cli interface calibredb. One could use that but it would be
vastly more cumbersome than using the gui. It isn't at all designed to be used
interactively unless you like typing switches like --for-machine and mixing in
a lot of jq in preparation for opening a book.

What I really wanted to do was type a quick command with a search query just
like I would type at the calibre search box have it pop open a list that I
could narrow by typing hit enter and open a book. One step and 1 - 10 seconds
to open a book instead of 15-30 without a process taking up ram all the time
for no reason.

[https://github.com/michaelmrose/rdr](https://github.com/michaelmrose/rdr)

Written in clojure and compiled to a portable executable with graal next to no
requirements outside of rofi or dmenu and currently being tied to linux. Could
presumably be be compiled for mac if I had one. It uses 19MB of ram for the
and starts about instantly.

-q [query] => pass query with the same syntax as calibredb or calibregui accepts

-l => open the last book read

-r => filter the most recent 30 distinct books opened via rdr via rofi or dmenu

query string => If a string is passed in without -q -h -l -r specified it is
treated as a query

-o [file] => open with default reader and record in recent reads if part of a calibre library

-S [options] => save options passed to disk Options

-p [list] => list of formats in order of preference eg pdf,epub,mobi

-k [number] => number of recent reads to keep

\--port PORT

\--server URL

\--user USER

\--password PASSWORD"

The recommended usage is to pass the desired defaults with -S then omit them
on future invocations. Example:

rdr -S -L /path/to/library -p pdf,epub,mobi -k 10 -p 8090 --user me --password
hunter2

then

rdr -q query string here

I currently have a keybinding tied directly to rdr -l and rdr -r and use it
all the time. 1 button to go back to the most recently read book is nice.

I'd also love any feedback anyone wanted to provide about the code.

------
nirav72
calibre was one of the first freeware apps that I donated money too. Been
using it for years for storing manuals and books in pdf format

------
Havoc
Are the DRM removal plugins compatible with v4?

------
konart
Gonna give it another try on my mac. All previous attempts have failed because
of how slow it was and many crashes. The reader was terrible too.

~~~
sigzero
I use it on my Mac all the time. I've never had it crash on me. The
reader...is not so good.

~~~
konart
Some faulty pdf\epub files maybe, but none of them crash any of my other
readers, so... I gave up at some point. I love Calibre as a project, but for
now I can't really say the same for the product.

------
rexpop
I absolutely love this program! I am so grateful for it. I read voraciously,
and could not educate myself without Calibre.

------
KaoruAoiShiho
Literally the worst damn mandatory app that I need to have installed on every
computer.

