Comment 4 for bug 1061631

ok, no offense, but that's a classic example what's wrong with calibre's UI. too many options in too many places and in this case at a particular confusing place, together with the wrong defaults.

Here is my thought process:

calibre is a library and a converter. a lot of people have multiple reading devices. when shelving ones ebooks, you want to be able to read them afterwards on multiple devices. no matter what format the input file, you want to have them automatically available in /all/ output formats. anything wrong with these thoughts so far?

ok, now I head over to the preferences panel.

first text box is easy enough, specify the import folder. that's enough for most of the users. make the second line (ignore duplicates) a default (it's the obvious choice, who likes duplicates?) and put it into a modal "import options" window together with the "formats to be ignored" list (most people don't care if they have a format to many, again, the obvious choice).

the third line is the most confusing one:

"automatically convert added files to the /current/ output format."

which one is it? how can I change it? why just one format?

the auto conversion should be on a separate tab, as you didn't put auto import on the first page of the "add book" preferences, why putting this one together with auto import? the tought is this: all users want to add books, some users want to auto import and some more want to have auto conversions. in the auto conversions tab you should have a list of formats you can select as your desired formats.

as most users have only the devices and don't know jack about "formats"

a) put a tool tip with the devices, that support each format over the formats or
b) better, have a list of devices/ebook readers there (hard to maintain, I understand) together with a modal "options page" where a user can select which format he prefers for his particular device or
c) put at least a link to something like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats on it.