08-23-2011, 09:09 AM | #151 |
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I don't use it at all. It just takes up space and I've got enough books that almost all headings in the tag browser would take far longer to scroll through than just typing part or all of the relevant tag, author, title, etc. that I'm looking for. I also like finding related books, so if I type "Asimov" in the search box, I get all books written by Isaac Asimov, but I also get books where the comments say inspired by Isaac Asimov's Caves of Steel, etc. I like finding the cross links that I wouldn't find with a perfect author search produced by clicking on the tag browser.
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08-23-2011, 10:08 AM | #152 | |
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Speaking of work habits, even when newer and the tag browser was vital to me, I always kept Tag Browser and Cover Browser hidden, wanting more room to see more fields at once. And the only time I opened one or the other was when I specifically needed to do something with covers or links or something useful in Tag Browser. |
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08-23-2011, 11:34 AM | #153 |
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BTW, please take as a given that I'd like to get feedback from people setting me straight about anything I've posted containing any bad assumptions, strategies, methods, workflows, work habits, etc. If you suggest an alternative I'll be happy. And any discussion is welcome, corrective or not.
Last edited by unboggling; 08-25-2011 at 04:50 PM. |
08-26-2011, 03:54 AM | #154 |
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Link to latest version: Workflow with Examples for New calibre Users, Version 0.90, 2011-09-24, ThreadPost #288. --- KISS for New calibre Users (v 0.50) 2011-08-26 I'm using the "verb" form of the principle "Keep It Simple Stupid" as meaning "to simplify a complex project or series of tasks in order to improve results." The word "Stupid" in the principle is not used or intended in a pejorative manner against myself or anyone else. "To KISS" means "to simplify and improve." Saying someone KISSed something has a connotation of praise. A brief Wikipedia explanation is here. I want to KISS my use of eBooks. I want to KISS my use of calibre. This is how I'm trying to do that. KISS Post Revision History Spoiler:
Strategy for eBooks Spoiler:
General Work Habits Spoiler:
Calibre Overall Work Habits Spoiler:
Adding Books Work Habits Spoiler:
Metadata Work Habits Spoiler:
Conversion Work Habits Spoiler:
Devices Work Habits Spoiler:
KISS Project Information Spoiler:
Progress Spoiler:
Last edited by unboggling; 09-24-2011 at 12:10 PM. Reason: Link to newer version. |
08-27-2011, 01:01 PM | #155 |
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Some major work habits of mine are not so simple and streamlined as I thought.
Finally tried the Goodreads metadata download plugin today now that I've added about 200 books from Baen and Amazon and have enough books to test results on. I generally like the Goodreads metadata and the simple, consistent way they do genre tags. And I realized my workflow sequence and methods for entering metadata as described in any KISS versions to date aren't very KISS after all. And same for my use of abbreviations and avoiding downloaded tags. So now I'm considering a major revision of how I work that includes:
-unbo Last edited by unboggling; 08-27-2011 at 02:29 PM. Reason: clarify |
08-27-2011, 03:03 PM | #156 |
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@unboggling - I've not followed this thread in detail at all, but as you asked for feedback I will say that your "Metadata work habits" above has very little that is "simple" about it imho. As a personal choice you can do what you like of course, but if you are trying to come up with a "here's a simple way to go about organising your library and working with Calibre" I think it is way too OTT. i.e.
_q4, ((fn, (mgc, (ya, [om, %sma, %su, r3 I wouldn't recommend inflicting that on anyone - seriously! I guess it depends on what your goal is. If you are wanting to show people what you are doing to get their feedback, of course you should write (and do) what you like. If it is more focused on the "simple" side of things to help others get started with some "best practices", I think you should reduce the scope in some areas and push them into a more "Advanced usage" type section. You are going through the Calibre discovery process as we all have, and only through experimentation will you find exactly the balance that suits. On past threads that have looked at what people use custom columns for, it is quite astounding the amount of detail some users store in their library. I'm glad you are using some of my plugins, most of them came about because of ways that I wanted to work. I have spent more time "using" than "developing for" Calibre the last few months, and it has given me a chance to refine my own workflow and plugin usage. And with thousands of books in Calibre I have had to fine tune things for my needs to get the balance between what is "really important" versus just data for the sake of it. For instance things like quality - I just use a yes/no column called #retail that tells me whether I have a retail quality version or something that isn't. I only keep books that are readable - if it is a poor quality OCR scan or whatever then I trash it. I mean, why keep crap? I have too many books to read as it is - and if I really want a book that I only have crap versions of I will just buy the retail version when it is available one day. Just in case anyone was interested, this is my rough workflow/setup (I'm not suggesting in any way it is better, just publishing it for your info). I make no apologies for the fact that it sounds like an extended plugin advert - I wrote them mostly for my own usage and here is most of them I use daily. Spoiler:
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08-27-2011, 03:40 PM | #157 |
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@kiwidude - that was exactly what I was hoping for, and you delivered above my hopes about 2000%. You've given me ideas and suggestions I already want to integrate into my own use of calibre, and that's without yet having it all fully sink in and considering further implications. Thank You !!!!
Re goals for the thread, yeah, I had conflicting motives and a hard time with being confused between my own relatively new user needs, and a completely starting out new user's needs. Theducks also proposed the idea of separating stuff out for new users and intermediate level users. Good idea, but difficult for me while I'm still so new, confused, and experimenting. I consider your post a gentle nudge in good directions and appreciate the time you spent doing it. Last edited by unboggling; 08-27-2011 at 03:45 PM. Reason: spelling |
08-27-2011, 04:00 PM | #158 |
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Glad you found it useful - not many people are brave enough to ask for critique on how they are organising their library and even less to spend time turning that into a tutorial/guide so along with others I applaud your efforts.
There is no "one true way", and as probably 95% of Calibre users have never downloaded a plugin in their life my workflow obviously has a bunch of steps in it others don't bother with (or do manually with more effort). For every point on my list you are guaranteed to find someone who will argue the opposite. But if something in there sparks an idea for you or someone else then it's all good... |
08-27-2011, 04:16 PM | #159 |
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More like a firestorm of ideas than a mere spark…. So I'll sleep on it all. Then the wise thing would be for me to let it all cook at slow simmer for a few days while I add more books from Baen CDs do non-eBook/non-calibre things. Heh, I don't think I'm that wise, I'll probably start implementing changes without enough forethought tomorrow.
Last edited by unboggling; 08-28-2011 at 04:20 AM. Reason: (a little wiser, less to change later) |
08-29-2011, 01:52 AM | #160 |
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Aaaaarrrrrrrggggg!
I'm trashing the proposed strategy to "obtain on demand and clean up shortly before reading". I didn't consider how much time it takes to find books, get their metadata accurate up to my library standard, clean-up formats if necessary. The strategy sounded good on paper screen, doesn't work in real life. |
08-29-2011, 03:15 AM | #161 |
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Also at a similar level of overall strategy, kiwidude's point about using ePub as the "master" and generating formats for various devices from that makes sense to me too and I plan to do that for nearly all formats except certain technical, graphic-laden, or otherwise complex PDFs which I'll keep in the record and not bother to convert. And not keeping the original incoming format in calibre in most cases makes sense to me too, if I keep those outside calibre in a "Raw Books" folder. If in the future I need it back in calibre, I can import it as a new record and work with it from there, plus easily merge it with the ePub/Mobi record if necessary. Personally, keeping those uncleaned formats in the same record as cleaned formats confuses me as to which is which. (That is why I originally started out using ePub as "master" and deleting all the incomings from calibre.)
I generally like how kiwidude does his library organization and workflow too and am presently stealing borrowing adopting as much of it as fits my needs - which is a lot of it - and will also incorporate a lot of it into the next KISS posts. For the KISS posts I'm planning to separate into two separate posts, one for new users of calibre at the beginning level, with most of the conversion, format, and other technical discussion moved to one that's just documenting what I'm doing. Those will be titled something like "Keep It Simple for New calibre Users" and "My KISS Project". Those revisions probably won't be written and posted until sometime next month. Last edited by unboggling; 08-29-2011 at 02:57 PM. Reason: Added PDF exception; removed comma from "Keep It Simple, for New calibre Users" |
08-29-2011, 06:10 AM | #162 |
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@unboggling - re the metadata as you go thing. I will share one of my "failure" experiences here, which only applies to people who have a very large collection of books to begin with.
Like I am sure a lot of Calibre users my initial approach was to just throw all my years of books into my first Calibre library and then "clean as I go". However apart from performance issues when you have an enormous library (which subsequent Calibre releases have improved but not eliminated) it is a case of garbage in, garbage out. If your initial load of Calibre is from a clean and structured source (say a Kindle using only books bought from Amazon) then there is no problem. However if like me you have numerous duplicate formats and editions from varying sources, I found it unmanageable to take the approach of "I will just clean it up as I go later". It became just too hard and "dangerous" in the adding to the library in terms of what to do about duplicates. If you have multiple of a format for the same book they could all be varying quality, done from different conversions of different sources etc. That is all assuming the file was correctly named as the right book in the first place! So either you have to make a decision at the time you import to Calibre as to which is the best format to have, or you import them all and end up with a mammoth library(slow) with a huge duplicate problem to resolve. So what I ended up doing was almost starting again by having multiple libraries - the initial one that is the "partially clean mess", and my "clean one" that books get migrated into that is intended to contain only books that are cleaned up. Note that if I was installing Calibre for the first time today I would not have two libraries for this purpose - it is only the fact that I had already invested so many months of effort into partially cleaning the initial one that I have kept it. So now what I do is just load books into my "real" Calibre library on an author by author basis. I do an indexed search in Windows Explorer of all my mish-mash source book folders which are under a common root folder, to find all books I have for an author, sorted by type. If I have already setup books for that author in my old library I use the Copy to Library (with Delete) to move into my "clean" one. Then for each book I update the metadata/cover and identify which is the best format of it I have, and if it isn't an ePub then (some PDF exceptions noted) I convert it to ePub and do any final cleanup. Then I delete every other format, in my source directories and from Calibre (my Calibre is of course backed up). Now it didn't take very long to get enough books in my new library to ensure I would not be running out of things to read any time soon. Is every book I own in there? No. However I have just started with my most favourite/desired authors to read, and gradually chipping away at them every week. At some point I will get bored with doing this (or run out of time) as given the years of "to read" books I have already the likelihood of reading the rest is slim to none. However as an author name comes up mentioned by family or friend I can just repeat the exercise for that author to extract them from the source mess and add them to the clean library. My so called "clean" library is however not perfect, it does have a backlog built up in it. For a prodigious author where the quality is so-so it takes a long time to do all the editing, and it is easy to get distracted into adding another "small" author you know you have the retail versions for. So I have a #done yes/no column I use with each book, which in combination with #retail gives me an easy way to see which books I still need some effort on. However at least I know that format is the best I have at that point for that book/author. That was the balance that ended up working for me anyways. Like I said, if I was starting from scratch today I would just use the "author by author" gradual approach to add from windows explorer to Calibre. The risk for people who have multiple conflicting formats of a book is to try to add them all to Calibre - my advice is find your best format and only add that one in. You can associate the Calibre ebook viewer with the various file types like epub, mobi etc so it is just a double click to open them from the explorer search results. Last edited by kiwidude; 08-29-2011 at 06:13 AM. |
08-29-2011, 08:00 AM | #163 |
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Thank you for those ideas, too, kiwidude. I didn't originally have the problem of importing a lot of eBooks lying around on my computers, because I was relatively new to wanting eBooks at all. When I got my first reading device (Kindle) - that changed and I became an eBook addict who'd much rather read something on a device than a paperbook, brought on in part because I was tired of relocating with lots of bookcases and book-weight.
Eventually I dumped nearly everything I found out there on the internet into a library for cleaning-up and then moved all clean formats to my main library. And I began bogging down in the metadata-updating and format-cleaning processes. As a fresh beginning calibre user I couldn't handle putting it all into the same library as "clean" books after the first week or two. So I like your ideas. Handling metadata and/or format clean-up in small groups by author makes a lot of sense and I'll "adopt" that into the KISS posts and my own workflow too. The #done column idea (or at least specific tags for "evaluated" and "cleaned", if not separate columns) makes sense to me too. I'm still thinking about whether I'm better off using a "NeedsCleaning" library or just doing it all in one library. The past week I've been doing it all in one library. Pros and cons either way, but I still don't like mixing up unevaluated books with evaluated books, and evaluated still-need-cleaning books with cleaned books. Having evaluated and cleaned-if-necessary books in a separate library gives me warm feelings of security and accomplishment. And I still plan to be much more discriminating about content and format quality that I download in the first place. Last edited by unboggling; 08-29-2011 at 08:27 AM. Reason: clarify |
08-29-2011, 08:58 AM | #164 | |
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Most of my books were in decent shape for reading as TXT format, and I had too many to wait until they were all converted. |
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08-29-2011, 08:59 AM | #165 | |
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I toss them in and enter easily avilable data from download page - publication date, source, synopsis+some reviews... When I'm looking for reading material, it's easy to browse the covers, read the blurbs and decide. I may make some cleaning of metadata in between also (like, when in isfdb, I can look up data (awards, series, first publication) for several books I have from the author), but can't know anything about formatting and such until I've read it. Kiwidude advised to find your best format and only add that one in. I like to see at a glance what I have for the book. So my Calibre shows 'formats' in book detail and just one look tells me what I did. If there's only mobi, it means I dl-d it and have no gripes (not happened yet). Mobi/prc + txt = some gripes (maybe not worth the cleaning, maybe some other comments). Pdf/epub + prc + ace + txt = converted and cleaned up, details in txt, materials for mobi creator in ace. One click on format opens it - mobi in mobireader, pdf in acrobat, epub in Calibre reader... When I've read it, then I delete all other instances of the book from my HD (exept Calibre backup of course). Maybe in the future if I see lot of lag in Calibre (never knew that having several formats could cause it) I'll move everything exept mobi and txt to archive, but not now. |
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