8 ms·

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 a

by robk 7y ago

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.

bambax 7y ago
Yeah, the UI is just bizarre but it doesn't really matter. What matters is whether the update supports DRM stripping extensions. Can't find that info anywhere; won't update without knowing...
- afiori 7y ago
  That is because for legal reason it is better if they stay completely unsupported from the main developer
- Santosh83 7y ago
  You can ask this in the forums and someone ought to have tested the plugin with 4.0 by now...
- jpindar 7y ago
  I just downloaded a book from Amazon and was able to convert it from azw3 to epub.
elwell 7y ago
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
- bla3 7y ago
  Works fine over here.
  - rammy1234 7y ago
    it works in chrome latest. from the website quotes " This website makes heavy use of DHTML and requires a W3C DOM (Level 1), CSS and CSS-P compliant browser. It has been tested on Internet Explorer 6 and Mozilla 1.4. For detailed site information click on the button. " Lot of simplicity just works. ( lot of work would have gone in 1990's to get this site up and running "
- ihuman 7y ago
  It works fine for me in chrome v77
- Angostura 7y ago
  I get that in Safari too.
- dominotw 7y ago
  > 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).
  - elwell 7y ago
    I figured as much. Don't get me wrong, I love it (in an excessively creative myspace kind of way).
  - russdpale 7y ago
    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.
- icebraining 7y ago
  Are you using macOS? He didn't test that: correctOS = (this.linux || this.win32)
- kbutler 7y ago
  Interestingly, it fails for me because of Mac, not because of Chrome: this.correctBrowser = (this.nav || this.ie); this.correctVersion = (this.nav5up || this.ie5up); this.correctOS = (this.linux || this.win32); this.supported = (this.correctBrowser && this.correctVersion && this.correctOS); A case of platform detection, instead of feature detection, and an illustration of how platform detection fails in future-proofing your code.
Hendrikto 7y ago
> Kovid is a real hero Has Ph.D in quantum computing. Works on ebooks. He really is a hero.
- Barrin92 7y ago
  also probably a good place to plug his kitty terminal emulator which is really, really nice. Two pieces of software I use a lot. https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/ https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/
  - Murrawhip 7y ago
    It's a shame it's named kitty though. https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/issues/9 https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/issues/9
    - jodrellblank 7y ago
      Its GPL v3 licensed, any one of those complaining people could fork it and name it what they want it to be called.
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        That wouldn’t solve the issue. In fact it might the problem worse.
        jodrellblank 7y ago
        Wouldn't it? If the complaint is that the project is too hard to find and too hard to form any kind of online community (searchable blog posts, forum posts, etc) around, then a fork with a more distinctive name should become the dominant version by accreting the larger userbase.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - 7y ago
walrus01 7y ago
On android I greatly prefer fbreader, which has a really simple UI and gets the job done for reading epub format.

by robk 7y ago

bambax 7y ago

Yeah, the UI is just bizarre but it doesn't really matter. What matters is whether the update supports DRM stripping extensions. Can't find that info anywhere; won't update without knowing...

afiori 7y ago
That is because for legal reason it is better if they stay completely unsupported from the main developer
Santosh83 7y ago
You can ask this in the forums and someone ought to have tested the plugin with 4.0 by now...
jpindar 7y ago
I just downloaded a book from Amazon and was able to convert it from azw3 to epub.

elwell 7y ago

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

bla3 7y ago
Works fine over here.
- rammy1234 7y ago
  it works in chrome latest. from the website quotes " This website makes heavy use of DHTML and requires a W3C DOM (Level 1), CSS and CSS-P compliant browser. It has been tested on Internet Explorer 6 and Mozilla 1.4. For detailed site information click on the button. " Lot of simplicity just works. ( lot of work would have gone in 1990's to get this site up and running "
ihuman 7y ago
It works fine for me in chrome v77
Angostura 7y ago
I get that in Safari too.
dominotw 7y ago
> 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).
- elwell 7y ago
  I figured as much. Don't get me wrong, I love it (in an excessively creative myspace kind of way).
- russdpale 7y ago
  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.
icebraining 7y ago
Are you using macOS? He didn't test that: correctOS = (this.linux || this.win32)
kbutler 7y ago
Interestingly, it fails for me because of Mac, not because of Chrome: this.correctBrowser = (this.nav || this.ie); this.correctVersion = (this.nav5up || this.ie5up); this.correctOS = (this.linux || this.win32); this.supported = (this.correctBrowser && this.correctVersion && this.correctOS); A case of platform detection, instead of feature detection, and an illustration of how platform detection fails in future-proofing your code.

Hendrikto 7y ago

> Kovid is a real hero Has Ph.D in quantum computing. Works on ebooks. He really is a hero.

Barrin92 7y ago
also probably a good place to plug his kitty terminal emulator which is really, really nice. Two pieces of software I use a lot. https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/ https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/
- Murrawhip 7y ago
  It's a shame it's named kitty though. https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/issues/9 https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/issues/9
  - jodrellblank 7y ago
    Its GPL v3 licensed, any one of those complaining people could fork it and name it what they want it to be called.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      That wouldn’t solve the issue. In fact it might the problem worse.
      - jodrellblank 7y ago
        Wouldn't it? If the complaint is that the project is too hard to find and too hard to form any kind of online community (searchable blog posts, forum posts, etc) around, then a fork with a more distinctive name should become the dominant version by accreting the larger userbase.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - 7y ago

walrus01 7y ago

On android I greatly prefer fbreader, which has a really simple UI and gets the job done for reading epub format.