Contribution to the Open Source Project - Calibre Software
Components
Calibre is a fantastic open suite software that allows users to create a virtual library for themselves and syncing it to their own mobile device. Being a kindle publisher, I use this software for my clients who are Indie authors to help them create ePub books for their library. The great thing about this software is that it allows us to create our own ePub books as we fetch information from the net.
- Website: https://calibre-ebook.com/
- Github Repository: https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibre
Proposal
In order to have all the suggestions of this feature in one post, I have 3 technical suggestions to make in my proposal:
#1. I want to suggest a unique feature of "Get Blogs" so that we can create ePUB format from these blogs to read on our device at our convenience. While we can "Fetch News" from the net, I suggestion also that we can "Get Blogs" from the net as this will make the Calibre software more unique and have a wider usage with this added function. In this way the user can create their own library with more features to use and to read at their own pleasure.
#2. I suggest a "Search" for these Blogs that the project owner decides on to make them available for users. At the same time, it would be good that these blogs can have a variety of different languages to choose. In this way, users all over the world can choose when they create these ePUB books to read.
Mockups / Examples
Suggestion 1: Create a New Tab for Blog Feed
I suggest that we can have a "Blog Feed" Tab on the Tool Bar. If not on the Tool Bar, then in the "Preference" section section where people can customize it to their Tool Bar. Once it is set on the Tool Bar, it would be easy to click on when we open the Calibre software.
The arrow points to the tool bar where the project owner can put this Tab there.
Suggestion 2: Create Search of Great Blogs in Different Languages to Choose
The project owner can choose the worthy blogs in different languages for users to download. This allows not only English reader but Arabic, German, Spanish, Chinese readers to choose any one of these blogs provided by the Project owner.
So under this Tab "Blog Feeds", there is a Search Bar for Users to choose the different languages of Blogs.
Here is a mock up example of putting the language in alphabetic order for users to choose:
Under these different languages, the project owner can provide different Blog Sites for users to choose from. For eg. some great blog sites can be Science, Geography, Education, etc.
Benefits
There are lots of benefits when this "Blog Feature" is implemented into the software. The Calibre software allows us to create our own ePUB books for our own pleasure reading. So when these download features are activated, Calibre software allows us to create ePUB books with clickable Table of Contents that become hyperlinks directing us to different chapters of the books.
- When we create these ePUB books via the Calibre software, it allows us to read these Blogs in ebook where all the links and Headings are provided at the Table of Content for easy navigation. ePUB book are all html based therefore the links would automatically appear conveniently within the ePUB book.
Most important of all is that we can save great content in these ePUB books for our own resources.
After these ePUB books are created, we can always delete them weekly after we finish reading them or we can keep these ePUB books that have valuable content for our use.
Conclusion
I have been using this software for 10 years now and the project owner has done a great job from the start of making this software available for Indie authors. I used to think that this software is only for people who are in Kindle Books Publishing. But in the last few years, the project owner had added new features that even non-authors can use readily. The team updates their development all the time. If only the world realizes that this software can actually be used by everyone and not limited to publishing authors to create their ePUB books, I believe everyone will download this software for their personal enjoyment. Now that mobile device is so common, Calibre software makes it easy for us to create ePUB ebooks to read on our ipads, iphones and smartphones.
Thank you for your time and kind attention,
Hope you like reading this post!
谢谢你的阅读！希望你喜欢。
You can contact me at Utopian here: https://utopian.io/@rosatravels
Posted on Utopian.io - Rewarding Open Source Contributors