The Main Library Window, aka the GUI

Once the welcome wizard finishes you will be presented with the main application window. There are a few components I would like to bring to your attention. The central piece is the book list. This takes up the majority of the window and displays the books in a table. Just above the book list you will see the search area (more on this later) and above that, the tool bar. When you connect a supported e-book reader a ‘Device’ icon will appear next to the ’Library’ icon in the tool bar. You can switch between viewing books in your library and books on your e-book reader by clicking on their respective icons.

The panel along the right of the window shows details about the currently selected book, including its cover. If you double click anywhere in the detail area (including on the book cover) another window will open exposing more information about the book. Clicking on any blue text in this area will perform an action specific to the information. For example, clicking the author’s name will open your web browser and search Wikipedia for information about the author.

At the bottom right of the window there are four icons and the word “Jobs”. Clicking any of these icons will toggle a given view state in the GUI. From left to right:

• The luggage tag toggles the tag browser (on the left of the window). More on this later.
• The curved arrow toggles the cover flow display. Cover flow displays the book covers in a fashion similar to how a juke box lays out albums. The selected book is in the center while the neighboring covers are shown at an angle. You can navigate though the book covers with the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard. The book list will still be visible under the cover flow area.
• The nine squares in a grid toggles cover grid view. The cover grid replaces the book list with a grid of book covers. You might want to think of this as bookshelf view.
• The book toggles seeing the details panel on the right.
• The jobs indicator is one of the most important pieces of the GUI. This is the word ‘Jobs:’, the number next to it and the circular progress indicator. Whenever calibre is working on something (conversion, sending books to the reader, downloading news, etc.) the circular icon will spin and the number will reflect the number of jobs (activities) calibre is working on. You can click any part of the jobs indicator to show more detail about the jobs in progress.