Calibre ui made me stay away, I don't mind different but sometimes you do need to get a bit more mainstream. Blender 2.80 did this move and it helped a lot I believe.
> A single charge lasts up to six (6) weeks, based on a half hour of reading per day with wireless off and the light setting at 13. [0]
We were still pretty pissed at the blatant false advertising (a hardcore book reader reads for only a half hour a day!?!), but moving forward, she keeps the device in airplane mode 95% of the time, only turning it off to download whatever new book she just bought. It increased to at least 2-3 weeks after that, instead of a single week.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Paperwhite-Waterproof-Storage-...
Comparing new WiFi model to new 3G model, out of airplane mode, the 3G drains about 2x to 3x faster than WiFi model.
You can keep the display of the kindle on for hours at a time with minimal drain
Of course, modern e-readers have a backlight. Though you can never fully turn it off, at least on my first-gen Paperwhite, which is unfortunate.
As I said, functionally, it is marvellous. But using it interactively is painful.
The Kobo integrates Pocket natively, so it works seamlessly. It's one of the reasons I bought a Kobo. Native Overdrive integration was a huge plus, too.
Once that's done you get a "My Articles" option in the hamburger menu, and that's your Pocket content.
I then go to a cafe next door and read them. They don't look like an ebook on a Kindle, more like a Kindle magazine. I adore that feature.
> The server has gained all the major capabilities of the main calibre interface. You can now edit metadata, convert books, and add/remove books and formats just as is possible with calibre itself.
It not only replaced Calibre's server for me, but also those few functionalities for which I've previously used Goodreads: organizing books into shelves, marking them as read, keeping track of how many books I read in a year.
If I were designing a "competitor," for a start:
- have a "File" menu that collects the commands relating to, you know, files: open, delete, rename, add, edit metadata (akin to the "Get Info" command in most other file menus), etc. Converting between file types could be in a submenu here.
- have an "Edit" menu that does Edit Menu Things (tm), most notably copy, cut, and paste . - let me drag and drop files to add them to the library.
- when I connect a Kindle or other device, show me a second pane with its content side-by-side with my library, rather than making me switch between "here is your library with flags to indicate what's on your device" and "here is your device with flags to indicate what's in your library."
- since I have two panes like the gods intended, let me copy files from my library to my device with drag and drop.
Calibre has all of that functionality, but it ignores three decades of UX convention to no particular benefit.
But, at the same time, I wonder how many HNers have even built a UI for a product with so many features. It's incredibly hard to find a good place for everything. And experimentation is expensive and time consuming.
from screenshots it looks like itunes+pdf reader to me
I get that tiny icons are in these days, but my icons are less than 40x40 pixels. Is that considered large? They look the same size as the icons in Firefox.
I think it helps avoid distraction and resource usage.
You have a search box with a big list box underneath and a preview frame on the side. I guess it's 'dated' in the sense it doesn't use a browser engine, layout everything with CSS, and have icons that match 201XQY's design fad.
At this point, I've got a pretty good sample of apps that were native and have now become Electron, and the Electron versions use 8-10x more memory across the board.
This is not ok. At this point, Outlook is the least resource-hungry productivity application that I need to use on a daily basis. Outlook!
I am curious.
These days, electron seems like a popular base for any desktop app! See a whole list here: https://electronjs.org/apps