The AI integration in question, from the Calibre changelog:
- Allow asking AI questions about any book in your calibre library.
- Right click the "View" button and choose "Discuss selected book(s) with AI"
- AI: Allow asking AI what book to read next by right clicking on a book and using the "Similar books" menu
- AI: Add a new backend for "LM Studio" which allows running various AI models locally
It seems pretty harmless really.
I understand some people feel that AI is overhyped and don't particularly like it, but this level of weird knee-jerk "anything AI is the devil incarnate" response is just as ridiculous, IMO.
I had to look into the changelog to see what they meant but it’s not too intrusive IMO [1]. That being said, I find it way easier using calibre-web-automated [2]. Everything is through a web server, has usual control, and syncs with Kobo. All it takes in one docker compose and you’re up in less than 10 minutes.
I personally think Goyal should focus on making Calibre’s UI less unpleasant before adding yet another bolted-on AI chat textbox, but this doesn’t feel very productive or useful.
Post this when a release is made. Currently this fork doesn't have any commit (beyond stating the intention of the fork without explaining why) and it is useless.
As best I can tell Goyal started adding AI-related code to Calibre back in August, merging the LLM tab work from https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibre/pull/2838, and created the chat widget in November with commit 41d0da4267dc6f7f7e48fb9bb7e8609a2e251cb7.
I looked at forking the project myself:
the challenges are that it's a very quirky application,
its design and implementation doesn't share conventions with any other application,
and the build system is complex and unique to Calibre.
It's a shame there's no good open source ebook library application with a more conventional design.
Shoving AI into everything,
even when it defaults to "off" (for now),
is getting old.
The AI integration in question, from the Calibre changelog:
- Allow asking AI questions about any book in your calibre library.
- Right click the "View" button and choose "Discuss selected book(s) with AI"
- AI: Allow asking AI what book to read next by right clicking on a book and using the "Similar books" menu
- AI: Add a new backend for "LM Studio" which allows running various AI models locally
It seems pretty harmless really.
I understand some people feel that AI is overhyped and don't particularly like it, but this level of weird knee-jerk "anything AI is the devil incarnate" response is just as ridiculous, IMO.
From Calibre's repository README:
> Supports hundreds of AI models via Providers [...] no AI related code is even loaded until you configure an AI provider.
This fork is pretty much useless.
That's not true: there's some menu items and supporting code by default.
I'd prefer a fork that uses AI to convert ebooks into custom audio books.
I had to look into the changelog to see what they meant but it’s not too intrusive IMO [1]. That being said, I find it way easier using calibre-web-automated [2]. Everything is through a web server, has usual control, and syncs with Kobo. All it takes in one docker compose and you’re up in less than 10 minutes.
[1] https://calibre-ebook.com/whats-new [2] https://github.com/crocodilestick/Calibre-Web-Automated
I personally think Goyal should focus on making Calibre’s UI less unpleasant before adding yet another bolted-on AI chat textbox, but this doesn’t feel very productive or useful.
"Unpleasant" is a fairly good word for describing Calibre's UI (as much as I love Calibre)
It's not terrible, but it's not great. You get used to it very quickly, but it's still clunky.
Oh well. I suspect that sort of update would be a lot of refactoring. Supremely happy with Calibre altogether :)
Post this when a release is made. Currently this fork doesn't have any commit (beyond stating the intention of the fork without explaining why) and it is useless.
I haven't use Calibre in several years. What does it use AI for?
Looks like it's pretty standard: ask AI questions about your current book and across all books in your library.
https://calibre-ebook.com/whats-new
> Allow asking AI questions about any book in your calibre library. Right click the "View" button and choose "Discuss selected book(s) with AI"
> AI: Allow asking AI what book to read next by right clicking on a book and using the "Similar books" menu
> AI: Add a new backend for "LM Studio" which allows running various AI models locally
The only difference is the README.
It’s 1 readme commit. It should say, “an aspiration to modify Calibre”
A good usecase for LLMs with an option to use local models?
Better remove it.
As best I can tell Goyal started adding AI-related code to Calibre back in August, merging the LLM tab work from https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibre/pull/2838, and created the chat widget in November with commit 41d0da4267dc6f7f7e48fb9bb7e8609a2e251cb7.
I looked at forking the project myself: the challenges are that it's a very quirky application, its design and implementation doesn't share conventions with any other application, and the build system is complex and unique to Calibre.
It's a shame there's no good open source ebook library application with a more conventional design. Shoving AI into everything, even when it defaults to "off" (for now), is getting old.