Currently, desktop workflows are being upgraded and transformed by various AI tools. However, AI integration into the current software ecosystem is still quite poor, resulting in a lot of work being reduced to copy-and-paste operations. The core issue that copy-pasting addresses is: “How can we, in the shortest time and with the least user effort, enable AI tools to synchronize contextual information?” In other words, how can AI understand what I’m doing and, through text-based interaction, help me find the optimal solution?
Real-World Need: calibre Plugin Lacking AI Models
calibre is an excellent open-source reading software with the following advantages:
- Fully offline, free from data algorithms
- Strong privacy protection
- Ideal for managing small document libraries
Most existing plugins focus on organizing existing data, such as cleaning or updating data in EPUB files. This area is well-supported by mature plugins, including those specialized in full-book translations like Ebook Translator.
Prioritizing Privacy Protection
Based on an analysis of calibre’s target users, I lean toward the conclusion that most users care deeply about privacy and may even harbor a degree of distrust toward AI tools. This could also explain why the calibre developer community has been relatively slow to adopt AI tools.
To be honest, calibre’s default interface feels outdated and seems to have gone years without significant updates or iterations. However, at the code level, it’s remarkably robust and full of vitality. The core developer is still actively iterating and updating it, as evidenced by calibre developer Kovid Goyal’s GitHub commit history.
Thus, beyond using calibre as management software for e-readers, heavy users are more likely aiming to maintain their own private document libraries. The fact that they tolerate such an unmodern UI suggests that users have other core priorities. Free access, privacy protection, and resistance to digital rights management (DRM) are likely their key demands.
Therefore, this software needs to maintain a high level of sensitivity to privacy handling and adopt transparent processing measures.
Although the current plugins fall short of my initial vision—“Reading a book with AI just like coding in Windsurf”—the current approach still represents an initialization process from 0 to 1, while ensuring a certain degree of privacy.
A Small Incident: Encountering Anti-Musk Content
Development was completed quickly, but the next challenge was figuring out how to get calibre to index it. I speculate that indexing with calibre might require two stages:
- Thorough validation and testing in a production environment;
- Testing and confirmation by a kind-hearted core developer, followed by the subsequent indexing process.
So, I quickly posted about it on MobileRead and Reddit’s /r/calibre subreddit (MobileRead, Reddit) to seek more formal user testing. Unexpectedly, the word “Grok” may have triggered a response from an Anti-Musk Reddit account:
“I am sure you are a very talented programmer, and have wonderful intentions. But I have to be honest here. Grok. The product owned by one of the most reviled human beings on the planet right now? Not a chance I will use it, recommend it, or support it in any way. There’s nothing you could program with that AI that would ever tempt me to support that man ever. Personally, I hope to live long enough to see the day Musk, the evil nazi, is bankrupt and every one of his business ventures has failed miserably.”
🤦
Plugin project address: https://github.com/sheldonrrr/ask_grok