Comic Book Reader

[Netbug 26]

I have about 100GB of comic books that I have to shuttle back and forth between skydrive, dropbox, and storage on my tablet.

 

Most comic book files are simply cbr and cbz archives, which are just renamed rar and zip files respectively.

 

I'm not sure how hard it would be to implement, but with the influx of tablets and tablet support for MB, I think a comic book section would be a fantastic addition to MB for centralized control and metadata management.

 

Here's one existing comic book metadata format: http://code.google.com/p/comicbookinfo/

[Redshirt 1487]

My MB Bookshelf plugin is in it's infancy, but it does support comics if they are still using the cbr/cbz file extension. The MBC plugin will pass the comic to windows to open in your preferred reader program such as comicrack. MBT's external players can be configured to open books as well. The Android client handles comics as well. MB3 is way ahead of you  

[wraslor 70]

Am I reading that right in that I can stream comics to my android tablet via the bookshelf plugin?

[Netbug 26]

Very cool.

 

I'm having a little trouble with configuration. Do you have any tutorials yet?

 

Also, I see MBC, MB Android, and MBT... any chance we could get it worked into the Windows 8 app?

 

How do I get it to scrape metadata? It seems to be having trouble with all of mine.

Edited November 30, 2013 by Netbug

[Luke 40065]

I was planning on introducing MB3 and the plugin to Calibre:

 

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=166

 

Perhaps if we can bring more book users to mb3, our ui developers will be more motivated to spend more time on them.

[Redshirt 1487]

Am I reading that right in that I can stream comics to my android tablet via the bookshelf plugin?

 

If your using my android client then when a book/comic is played it will be downloaded to the downloads (or comics) folder if it's not there already and then opened in a supported reader.. 

[Netbug 26]

I was planning on introducing MB3 and the plugin to Calibre:

 

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=166

 

Perhaps if we can bring more book users to mb3, our ui developers will be more motivated to spend more time on them.

 

That would be fantastic. I use Calibre for my entire ebook collection and love the way it handles them. I haven't endeavoured to have it look after my comics yet though.

[Redshirt 1487]

Very cool.

 

I'm having a little trouble with configuration. Do you have any tutorials yet?

 

Also, I see MBC, MB Android, and MBT... any chance we could get it worked into the Windows 8 app?

 

How do I get it to scrape metadata? It seems to be having trouble with all of mine.

 

I wrote a brief example here. Metadata is where this plugin still needs to grow. It supports local metadata for books and comics,  and online metadata from comicvine for comics. it doesn't yet extract a folder image from the comics/books, so a local image is needed if not sourced from the web.

[Netbug 26]

I wrote a brief example here. Metadata is where this plugin still needs to grow. It supports local metadata for books and comics,  and online metadata from comicvine for comics. it doesn't yet extract a folder image from the comics/books, so a local image is needed if not sourced from the web.

 

So I think the following structure, which is what I use, may be problematic...

 

Comics/Marvel/[Marvel] - Avengers Assemble/Avengers Assemble #001.cbr

Comics/Marvel/[Marvel] - Avengers Assemble/Avengers Assemble #002.cbr

etc.

 

Will this not work? Does every issue need to be in its own folder?

[Redshirt 1487]

That structure will work, but the naming convention won't... The plugin can't resolve the issue number if it's preceeded with a #. I need a Regex wizard to step up and help me with that...

 

Also, the name of the series may be an issue. The plugin uses the parent folder to match the series name, and MB filters out anything in hard brackets. So the plugin would be trying to match " - Avengers Assemble" rather than "Avengers Assemble". I'm pretty sure I filter out the dash and other characters, I'm just emphasizing that the folder name has to match the series name on comicvine.

[Netbug 26]

That structure will work, but the naming convention won't... The plugin can't resolve the issue number if it's preceeded with a #. I need a Regex wizard to step up and help me with that...

 

Also, the name of the series may be an issue. The plugin uses the parent folder to match the series name, and MB filters out anything in hard brackets. So the plugin would be trying to match " - Avengers Assemble" rather than "Avengers Assemble". I'm pretty sure I filter out the dash and other characters, I'm just emphasizing that the folder name has to match the series name on comicvine.

 

Ok. I'll go through an manually pull the hard brackets. I've never used ComicRack but after messing around with it for a bit, it doesn't play well with network drives. I'm going to need a different solution for metadata editing, which is a problem. :/

[Redshirt 1487]

Better metadata support is very high on my bucket list of things to do with this plugin. I just need to find more time. Perhaps clone myself.

[Netbug 26]

Cloning would be wise.

 

I'll mess around with it for a bit and see if I can break it. For now, if I need to edit metadata, can it be done through the web interface at all?

[Redshirt 1487]

I want to say yes, but I don't think the storing it locally option would work.

[Netbug 26]

Doh. No worries. Glad there's someone working on a solution. If you need me to break anything for testing, let me know... i seem to be good at that.

[lanos 4]

I have it set so I can access my server from outside the network and I'm having trouble opening my cbr/cbz files on my windows 7 tablet pc. When I try to open using comic rack the program opens but doesn't open the book, when I use CDisplay the program opens and gives an error. Is the android app the only way to access books from outside the network?

[markle88 15]

Has there been any progress on this plugin? The only client i can get to work is the android. I love this concept and would really like to see it expanded for cbz files. The Metadata issue seems to be a big obstacle. All of my comics have a Comicinfo.xml file stored internally. It would be great if the plugin could read that file directly.

[Luke 40065]

I'm sure we will get to it. Right now books just don't have a large enough audience relative to the other media types.

[GiGo 105]

Any movement on this?

[Luke 40065]

Not yet, sorry.

[darkbeuh 2]

I've been looking at Emby because Plex is starting to piss me off as a whole.

 

And this is a feature they are totally ignoring even though it is heavily demanded.

 

Emby does this and I'm switching in an instant.

 

I have yet to find a decent client/server solution to read my comics on a tablet from my distant server.

 

There is a need. Please consider 

[MembyR 0]

I've been looking at Emby because Plex is starting to piss me off as a whole.

 

And this is a feature they are totally ignoring even though it is heavily demanded.

 

Emby does this and I'm switching in an instant.

 

I have yet to find a decent client/server solution to read my comics on a tablet from my distant server.

 

There is a need. Please consider 

That makes two of us!

[MSOBadger 13]

Add me to the list of folks who would love to see comic book functionality added to Emby!

[alex194 3]

another one here.... i have tons of comics i would like to add to my emby server.

[miniliQuid 91]

Feature has been requested, add votes there
Need more ebook & comic book lovers to get the request rolling though, it doesn't have nearly enough interest.