Huge shout-out to Kovid Goyal's Calibre! I've been expanding my use of Calibre for months and finally decided to try out the "Fetch News" functionality this past week. I was floored! I have over 50 news sources that auto-fetch every day. It took me awhile to refine the sources that work, but now I can read all my news natively in Calibre.

I've been working on debugging why some of the news sources fail to fetch to learn more about Calibre and to design my own fetching for custom news sources. But, I'm a programming newb so that will take me awhile

On a related note, another Calibre feature that has helped me organize my life is "Virtual Libraries". I was finally able to separate my library into 3 categories that enable me to stay focused. For me these were:

Hobby Reading
News & Magazines
Study and Resources It takes almost no time at all to set up this functionality.

Thank you Kovid and everyone who contributes to this amazing OS project!

all 22 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] skeezix@lemmy.world 27 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I’m very excited about the disk defragmentation tool being added and the new grocery shopping price comparator matrix. This is a fantastic ereader.

[–] Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 20 points 3 months ago

Calibre is fantastic software.

[–] steeznson@lemmy.world 20 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Is Goyal still trying to maintain python 2 by himself? That thread was very funny a few years ago https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/1714107

[–] theshatterstone54@feddit.uk 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I hope not. I see the Arch packager there, and I'm not sure if they'd have continued to package calibre after Arch got rid of Python 2.

[–] steeznson@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

I was talking to that guy on IRC yesterday. He was saying he still stands by his defence of Kovid in that thread. The people asking for the change were not submitting patches, just demanding that he undertake a multi-year porting effort because they wanted him to. Ultimately it did end up being ported to py3 and the process did take several years in the end.

[–] silkroadtraveler@lemmy.today 13 points 3 months ago

Also, if you like to view by covers, here is what it looks like in Cover Grid Layout!

[–] tuckerm@supermeter.social 12 points 3 months ago

Wow, that name is familiar! I had no idea that the maintainer of Calibre is also the maintainer of kitty (a terminal emulator). Someone is busy!

[–] YodaDaCoda@aussie.zone 12 points 3 months ago

I don't enjoy how Calibre works. The way it manages its library in a folder separate to where/how I store my ebooks rubs me the wrong way. It also seems to like adding itself to metadata and messing with stylesheets.

I gotta admit though, nothing else even comes close to replacing it.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 9 points 3 months ago

Wow I did not expect to get dropped into a Python script editor when I clicked on New Recipe → Switch to advanced mode 😂

[–] silkroadtraveler@lemmy.today 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Oh yeah, and Kovid posts a tracker for most used news sources so you can see what works and what other people are enjoying. https://calibre-ebook.com/dynamic/recipe-usage

[–] azron@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Is there a good mobile workflow for this?

[–] silkroadtraveler@lemmy.today 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Not sure whether this would meet you or anyone competent’s criteria for “good”, but here is mine:

Syncthing my Calibre Library folder on my primary PC
Mobius Sync to my iPhone
Load books (saved in main folder by author name sortable by date modified) or news (they’re saved in “calibre” folder by publication name) to iOS Books app or PDF in native Files app

That way I load whatever I am currently reading.

[–] gramgan@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I recommend the PDF Expert app by Readdle. I’ve never paid a cent for the pro features, but I like the free dark mode.

[–] silkroadtraveler@lemmy.today 1 points 3 months ago

Oh yes that's much needed, thank you.

[–] HotsauceHurricane@lemmy.one 4 points 3 months ago

Didnt know about this! FANTASTIC STUFF

[–] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

That's awesome, look forward to trying it out.