Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
1 Preface
2 Introduction
2.2 Features 10
3 Installation
4 Getting Started
5.2 Menus 26
6 The Browser
7 The Reader
7.1 Overlays 45
8 Configuring ComicRack
8.1 Preferences 51
8.7 Workspaces 74
8.9 Others 78
9 Network Sharing
10 WebComics
12 Donations
13 Acknowledgements
The Good:
1. ComicRack users have always felt the lack of exhaustive documentation. This manual will try to fill that gap.
2. The manual follows a highly visual style to introduce the full range of features provided by the ComicRack
software, thus increasing the new user acceptance.
3.Many sections from this manual can also be used for updating the wiki.
The Shortcomings:
I have been working on this project for the past few months, and after multiple revisions (alphas?) and
re-revisions (beta?), I have gathered sufficient courage to release it out. However, I know that it is far from
perfect. Why? read below:
1. To quote PCWorld, "ComicRack is not just features rich, it is Bill Gates features rich". So, there is so much
to cover that some omissions are inadvertent.
2. Since I am no web designer or software geek, the manual's look is still amatuerish despite of my hard work.
3. Some sections are shamelessly copied from the ComicRack wiki.
4. Inspite of using ComicRack for many years, I am still not completely familiar with some features (like
Network Sharing and and terminologies(like anamorphic scaling).
Please download the manual and give it a read. Please point out any errors (of both omission and
commission) and I'll try my best to rectify them in the next update. Please do give suggestions as to how we
can further improve the look of the manual. If you dislike anything in the manual (or the whole of it), please
feel free to give constructive criticism. In case you like it, do give me some good karma. :-)
The Reader
The Library
Comic Info
Comic Pages
Configurable
Processor: 400 MHz Pentium processor or equivalent (Minimum); 1GHz Pentium processor or equivalent
(Recommended)
RAM: 128 MB (Minimum); 2 GB (Recommended)
Hard Disk: Up to 40 MB of available space may be required
CD or DVD Drive: Not required
Display: 800 x 600, 256 colors (Minimum); 1024 x 768 high color, 32-bit (Recommended)
Just below the Main Menu (1) is the Library Tab Bar (2).
The Library Tab Bar contains tabs for the Library Browser
(1), Folders Browser (2), and Pages Browser (3), which are
all integrated with the Browser window and the Browser
toolbar.
File Menu
Browse Menu
Display Menu
Ribbons
Stars
You may occasionally see coloured stars on eComic thumbnails or in the state column if you use the list view.
Blue: The eComic in the current list that was last opened in the reader.
The second icon will create a new library folder. Note that
this folder is not a folder that exists outside of ComicRack
and on your computer; it exists only within ComicRack and
serves the purpose of collecting your lists.
List Creator
Third from the left, this icon will create a simple list in the
folder of your choosing. A simple list has no rules, and
ecomics must be manually added. A list of this type can
be used to add random comics that couldn't be filtered
through any rules using a smart list, and you can sort by
sequence of addition, through the Position arrangement.
Second from the right, this icon will open the currently
selected library, list or folder in a separate window.
Last icon on the right, this icon will open the currently
selected library, list or folder in a tab. You can return to
the library and leave the tab open, or open multiple tabs.
Viewing Pages
You can reorder pages by simply clicking and dragging them to where
you want them to be. A black line shows where it will be reinserted.
Page Filter
The Page Filter menu can be used to toggle types of pages on and off.
These changes also apply to any other comics as well as the reader view.
For example you can un-check the Advertisement setting and you will never
see a page marked as Advertisement as you're reading a comic.
Exporting Pages
The first set of buttons are the Previous / Next arrows, which
assist in quickly moving to the first / last page in the eComic open
in the reader. A Random eComic can also be opened using the
Next arrow.
The Zoom and Rotate buttons are next. The Zoom and Rotate
options can also be accessed from the Display menu.
Reader Setup
Libraries
Scripts
Currently, a large number of ComicRack scripts are being actively developed and maintained. Please read
the chapter on Current Popular Scripts to find about some of them.
Advanced
Ratings
Once rated, the rating is displayed on the top left corner of the eComic thumbnail in the
Browser.
Mark As Read/Unread
Select OK, and all selected data will be added to the new
ecomic. Note that the data can be added to as many
issues as are selected. This feature will not transfer
bookmarks.
Views
From the Views menu, you may easily choose the view that you
wish: Thumbnails, Tiles or Details. Also present are the options to
show all / unread / reading / read eComics as well as Duplicate
eComics.
Thumbnail Resizer
The Comic Display Settings dialog can be opened by the using the
Display menu at the top, or by simply hitting F9.
General options
To create a new smartlist click the create new smartlist button (blue).
You will be asked to name your new smartlist. It is best to name it something descriptive.
Now right-click on the smartlist and choose edit. A window will pop up with the smartlist options.
Single Rules
Right now this smartlist contains one rule that will search
for anywhere in All the comics data that contains New
Smart List. You can change New Smart List to anything
you like. For example say you want to find any comics that
have X-Men in its data. You could change New Smart
List to X-Men and click OK and the smartlist would
display any comics with X-Men in its data.
If you specify Match All then all the rules would have to be true for a comic in order for it to be displayed.
If you specify Match Any then if any one rule is true for a comic it will be displayed.
Click the + button next to a rule to add a new rule to the smartlist.
Rule Groups
To create a preset first open the Export eComics settings menu by right-clicking on an eComic and choosing
Export eComicsExport eComics.. (or the keyboard combination Ctrl+Shift+E)
Now set any settings you want your preset to have. After you get the settings to your liking, click the Add
button and give your preset a name.
The List Layout options can be accessed either via the List Layout icon on
the library toolbar or via the Browse menu. Clicking the Edit List Layout
button opens up the List Options window.
Once you are satisfied wth a list layout and wish to save it for quick use
later, simply click the Save List Layout button.
Make sure you open ports 7612 and 7613 TCP/UDP on the computer sharing the library, and/or allow
ComicRack through your firewall. This varies depending on the firewall software you use.
If sharing on the LAN: After you enable sharing, and restart ComicRack, if you start the program in another
computer you will see a new tab with the name of the shared Library on the main program window (next to
Library, Folders and Pages tabs). Clicking on it will allow you access to the shared library.
If sharing over the Internet: If the computer sharing the library is behind a router, you will need to go to the
Router configuration, to a section called Port Forwarding (or similar, varies across brands), and create a
new port forwarding for the port 7612 TCP, so that the External port 7612 is forwarded to the IP of the
computer sharing the library. Check out portforward.com for guides on how to forward a port in many different
brands of routers
For example, if the IP of the computer sharing the library behind the router is 192.168.0.5, you will need to
forward port 7612 TCP to 192.168.0.5:7612.
To connect to this shared library, open ComicRack, File menu, Open Remote Library and enter the
external ip address of the router. If the port forward is done correctly, you should see a new tab appear with
the shared library name.
To find out the external IP, from the computer sharing the library, visit http://www.whatismyip.com/. If your IP
changes often, as is the case with most xDSL connections, you should set up a dynamic dns service (for
example, http://www.dyndns.com/).
If you have a very large library and a slow connection, you may encounter errors when you try to click on the
shared library. If it happens, try sharing only part of the library instead, by going into Edit menu, Preferences,
Libraries tab and choosing only some lists instead of Share All.
Variables
This is a an optional collection to define textual variables you can reuse in the image entries (with the {key}
construct).
Images / Image
This is a collection of Image entries that define the actual pages of the WebComic. In the simplest case this
can be direct links to images on the internet or it can be complex scraping definitions.
To find the regular expressions, select View Source in your browser and copy the html code into a regex
testing tool of your choice. Play around to the the regular expression. If you think you're done put the
expressions into the WebComic file and open it with ComicRack.
Please note that ComicRack works with the .NET implementation of RegEx. If the expression contains a link
group, this one is used. Otherwise the matched expression is used.
Interface Options
ComicVine Scraper
To open the scraper, select an eComic (or a batch of eComics) and either
click the green icon on the library toolbar, or Right-click -> Automation ->
Comicvine scraper.
The Comic Vine scraper configuration dialog will open, where you can
select the metadata fields that you wish to update.
Once everything is set, hit Ok and the scraper starts downloading the
metadata.
The user must first manually set the root directory where they want their eComics to reside on the computer.
Then, after selcting the desired comics in the library, the script is run. The script then creates a new subfolder
of the Publisher within the root folder, then an Imprint subfolder if it exists, and finally a Series subfolder. The
Series subfolder also gets the beginning year it was published at the end.
Then there is the file naming structure. The syntax for this is:
[Series] Vol. [Volume] # [Number with leading zeros] (of [Count if exist] ) ( [Month in text format] , [Year] )
Starting out as a pet project for myself it has evolved into what you currently see, a multi language application
with it's own web site and support forums, simply put a place for the ComicRack community.
So if you think ComicRack adds value to your life, give something back. 10,000s of downloads and usually an
average of 10 donations a month do not really fit together. It's not about getting rich (as you can estimate
from the above value), but it is about justifying the time and work put into this and also the feeling that there is
some worth in it.
Alan Scott - thanks for your wiki updates, and your great posts