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>> I have directories on my filesystem(s), files in those directories > Your library. Yes, its already there and quite organized in directories. Now ebook rea

by chme 8y ago

>> I have directories on my filesystem(s), files in those directories > Your library. Yes, its already there and quite organized in directories. Now ebook readers came along and pressed those hierarchical data flat, with long waiting times, because it needs to index first. >> powerful applications to navigate them (Total Commander / mc / Krusader). > Not powerful enough. Filemanagers are optimized for hierachical views and don't integrate well with filetypes. Namely, they usually don't extract data from files, like metadata, covers or previews. Though, filemanagers have started to do that to some degree. grep and find works quite well for most work loads and are fast, why not enhance (or fork) them to support ebook formats? Instead ebook readers came along and reinvented filesystems, because users cannot be trusted to organize their book collection themselves. > But they still lack the "alternate view" on your library. Those Walled Garden-Apps that work with librarys are more like a relational database, offering flexible selections and content-optimized views that filemanagers are normally lacking. And at the same time omit very useful information that normal file managers show. (File creation/write/access time, size, full file name, etc.) > The major difference is really just if you want a static and inflexible organization, or something dynamic. And usually with heterogeneous datas, the dynamic approach is better for consuming beacuse it allows you to break through the hierachy. As I said, with long indexing times. I had ~50000 books on a ebook reader once and that broke it. Just because there are files stored, that should not slow down the system or even make it completely unusable. Instead they should just access the filesystem directly, then those problems don't even arise. >> (eg. where do I find all those books when I want to copy them?). > I hate Calibre for the exact same reason. > Just select your books and export them. Calibre can export to a device, but also just a local directory. Calibre in that regard is one of the better gardens. Very flexible and powerful. Just the UI sucks. Calibre is a pretty big application and they are not an ebook reader primarily. Their main feature is the library. And they spend many man years of development to improve that and it does work quite well. But very few ebook applications and handheld readers have the same resources to implement a similarly powerful library functionality. Instead they have half backed solutions that make finding and organizing the library more difficult then if they would have simply used a standard file manager and grep/find/... IMO an application that lets you just open epubs and other ebook formats and render them correctly just like so many pdf viewer do, without any half assed library functionality duck taped on to it, is highly sought after.

PurpleRamen 8y ago
> Yes, its already there and quite organized in directories. So you do understand the general concept of a library. Then you also understand the limitations of directories and how much work goes in maintaining this system. > Now ebook readers came along and pressed those hierarchical data flat, with long waiting times, because it needs to index first. I don't think Ebook-readers started this. ITunes had this first I think, or whatever app ITunes copied from back then. > grep and find works quite well for most work loads and are fast, why not enhance (or fork) them to support ebook formats? Doesn't solve the problem. Grep and find don't give a useful interface for elaborated tasks. They also don't support metadata which are not supported by a fileformat, meaning "external" metadata. > And at the same time omit very useful information that normal file managers show. (File creation/write/access time, size, full file name, etc.) Depends on the application, and the user. Not all of those information are useful for everyone. Calibre for example has good support for filemanagers. Each entry has a link to open the folder with the ebooks. The whole library is saved as a folder-hierachy with metadate extrated into seperate files. The Database-View is just an additional layer. > As I said, with long indexing times. I had ~50000 books on a ebook reader once and that broke it. Just because there are files stored, that should not slow down the system or even make it completely unusable. Indexing is a neccessary tradeoff for gaining power. The alternative would be to constantly scan all files, making every single task slower. grep and find have their price too. > But very few ebook applications and handheld readers have the same resources to implement a similarly powerful library functionality. Instead they have half backed solutions that make finding and organizing the library more difficult then if they would have simply used a standard file manager and grep/find/... Oh yeah, I guess grep on an eReader would be a real pleasure to use... > IMO an application that lets you just open epubs and other ebook formats and render them correctly just like so many pdf viewer do, without any half assed library functionality duck taped on to it, is highly sought after. Those applications exist. Calibre even comes with one out of the box. Not their fault if you just start the library and not the reader.
- chme 8y ago
  Maybe I should make myself a bit clearer here: I am not against an index or library in addition to the file hierarchy, but I am against a library or index replacing a directory listing. Both perspectives are very valuable! Also a full text search (grep) or (more or less simple) file search (find) are useful in addition to a library. To reiterate, for me it seems that itunes and ebook reader generation of devices and applications don't seem to value custom directory organization. > Those applications exist. Calibre even comes with one out of the box. Not their fault if you just start the library and not the reader. While the library part of calibre is very good, the reader part is not so great, but that just might be because a library application is much more difficult to implement than the reader, so bad UI can be looked over there, but not in the reader. Otherwise I agree that this the application of choice for reading ebooks on Linux desktop.

by chme 8y ago

PurpleRamen 8y ago

> Yes, its already there and quite organized in directories. So you do understand the general concept of a library. Then you also understand the limitations of directories and how much work goes in maintaining this system. > Now ebook readers came along and pressed those hierarchical data flat, with long waiting times, because it needs to index first. I don't think Ebook-readers started this. ITunes had this first I think, or whatever app ITunes copied from back then. > grep and find works quite well for most work loads and are fast, why not enhance (or fork) them to support ebook formats? Doesn't solve the problem. Grep and find don't give a useful interface for elaborated tasks. They also don't support metadata which are not supported by a fileformat, meaning "external" metadata. > And at the same time omit very useful information that normal file managers show. (File creation/write/access time, size, full file name, etc.) Depends on the application, and the user. Not all of those information are useful for everyone. Calibre for example has good support for filemanagers. Each entry has a link to open the folder with the ebooks. The whole library is saved as a folder-hierachy with metadate extrated into seperate files. The Database-View is just an additional layer. > As I said, with long indexing times. I had ~50000 books on a ebook reader once and that broke it. Just because there are files stored, that should not slow down the system or even make it completely unusable. Indexing is a neccessary tradeoff for gaining power. The alternative would be to constantly scan all files, making every single task slower. grep and find have their price too. > But very few ebook applications and handheld readers have the same resources to implement a similarly powerful library functionality. Instead they have half backed solutions that make finding and organizing the library more difficult then if they would have simply used a standard file manager and grep/find/... Oh yeah, I guess grep on an eReader would be a real pleasure to use... > IMO an application that lets you just open epubs and other ebook formats and render them correctly just like so many pdf viewer do, without any half assed library functionality duck taped on to it, is highly sought after. Those applications exist. Calibre even comes with one out of the box. Not their fault if you just start the library and not the reader.

chme 8y ago
Maybe I should make myself a bit clearer here: I am not against an index or library in addition to the file hierarchy, but I am against a library or index replacing a directory listing. Both perspectives are very valuable! Also a full text search (grep) or (more or less simple) file search (find) are useful in addition to a library. To reiterate, for me it seems that itunes and ebook reader generation of devices and applications don't seem to value custom directory organization. > Those applications exist. Calibre even comes with one out of the box. Not their fault if you just start the library and not the reader. While the library part of calibre is very good, the reader part is not so great, but that just might be because a library application is much more difficult to implement than the reader, so bad UI can be looked over there, but not in the reader. Otherwise I agree that this the application of choice for reading ebooks on Linux desktop.