That doesn't mean it's well-designed, it just means it's not using custom widgets. Those of us who aren't particularly thrilled with Calibre's UX are mostly annoyed by how it doesn't bother with typical UI conventions when it comes to menus, displays, command keys, etc.
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.
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.