10 ms·

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 repl

by 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.

kingaillas 8y ago
>To reiterate, for me it seems that itunes and ebook reader generation of devices and applications don't seem to value custom directory organization. Do you primarily or only use one computer or one os? I'm on 3 different OSes regularly, over 5 different computers counting ones at work. For me, the effort to setup custom directory organization is a complete waste of time unless structure and tags can easily travel between computers, filesystems, and OSes. Letting the app (Calibre for books, Mendeley Desktop for pdf's) organize however it wants lets me just clone the directory and preserve tags, which is actually what is important to me (or in the case of Mendeley, log in and sync documents/tags). I'm not a music listener at work or I'd just let an app organize that too if it syncs my tags.
- ori_b 8y ago
  > structure and tags can easily travel between computers, filesystems, and OSes. They can -- they're just files.
pnutjam 8y ago
At the very least you need the title and author metadata. This can be done in the filesytem, but it's unweildy. I use Fbreader and run a Calibre server to manage my collection and epub metadata. Fbreader lets me browse the filesystem, or search by different metadata.
apostacy 8y ago
I am honestly very curious about what file structure you use for your ebooks. After 500 or so, I threw up my hands and just wrote some Perl scripts to flatten the filenames into something meaningful, and threw them into a big git-annex repository. I have at least two dimensions I'm dealing with: title, and file type. Really though, it's nice to also organize by genre, and year. I also dislike most of these walled garden library apps, and they are usually poorly written and obtuse. I would love an app that can scan my existing ebook repo, and then also create an index database, and make the books available on my mobile device. One pattern for sharing my rigidly structured data from my desktop to my iPad, is to just share my working tree over Dropbox, because I use git-annex for my file collections. That way, I have automatic syncing of the files, but also the safety of snapshots. If I do want to incorporate a change I make on a mobile device, I can simply make a commit on my desktop, but if some poorly written app decides to start screwing with my metadata, I can re-check the files out. OSX Preview.app is infamous for this.
- chme 8y ago
  I use syncthing for file syncronization between laptop, desktop, nas and mobile phone. And scripts that 'index' the books and create a directory structure of the metadata (like tags, series, publication date etc.) containing symlinks to the real books.
PurpleRamen 8y ago
> To reiterate, for me it seems that itunes and ebook reader generation of devices and applications don't seem to value custom directory organization. Yes, because it's expensive and has little value for the user. A guided application, streamlinend for well defined purpose is always simpler to create and cheaper to maintain. There is a reason why free software is usually more open for user-custimization. > While the library part of calibre is very good, the reader part is not so great Indeed. I thinks it's mainly because calibre is mostly used for feeding devices and maintaining and manipulating the library, less for actual reading books on desktop-PCs.

by chme 8y ago

kingaillas 8y ago

>To reiterate, for me it seems that itunes and ebook reader generation of devices and applications don't seem to value custom directory organization. Do you primarily or only use one computer or one os? I'm on 3 different OSes regularly, over 5 different computers counting ones at work. For me, the effort to setup custom directory organization is a complete waste of time unless structure and tags can easily travel between computers, filesystems, and OSes. Letting the app (Calibre for books, Mendeley Desktop for pdf's) organize however it wants lets me just clone the directory and preserve tags, which is actually what is important to me (or in the case of Mendeley, log in and sync documents/tags). I'm not a music listener at work or I'd just let an app organize that too if it syncs my tags.

ori_b 8y ago
> structure and tags can easily travel between computers, filesystems, and OSes. They can -- they're just files.

pnutjam 8y ago

At the very least you need the title and author metadata. This can be done in the filesytem, but it's unweildy. I use Fbreader and run a Calibre server to manage my collection and epub metadata. Fbreader lets me browse the filesystem, or search by different metadata.

apostacy 8y ago

I am honestly very curious about what file structure you use for your ebooks. After 500 or so, I threw up my hands and just wrote some Perl scripts to flatten the filenames into something meaningful, and threw them into a big git-annex repository. I have at least two dimensions I'm dealing with: title, and file type. Really though, it's nice to also organize by genre, and year. I also dislike most of these walled garden library apps, and they are usually poorly written and obtuse. I would love an app that can scan my existing ebook repo, and then also create an index database, and make the books available on my mobile device. One pattern for sharing my rigidly structured data from my desktop to my iPad, is to just share my working tree over Dropbox, because I use git-annex for my file collections. That way, I have automatic syncing of the files, but also the safety of snapshots. If I do want to incorporate a change I make on a mobile device, I can simply make a commit on my desktop, but if some poorly written app decides to start screwing with my metadata, I can re-check the files out. OSX Preview.app is infamous for this.

chme 8y ago
I use syncthing for file syncronization between laptop, desktop, nas and mobile phone. And scripts that 'index' the books and create a directory structure of the metadata (like tags, series, publication date etc.) containing symlinks to the real books.

PurpleRamen 8y ago

> To reiterate, for me it seems that itunes and ebook reader generation of devices and applications don't seem to value custom directory organization. Yes, because it's expensive and has little value for the user. A guided application, streamlinend for well defined purpose is always simpler to create and cheaper to maintain. There is a reason why free software is usually more open for user-custimization. > While the library part of calibre is very good, the reader part is not so great Indeed. I thinks it's mainly because calibre is mostly used for feeding devices and maintaining and manipulating the library, less for actual reading books on desktop-PCs.