Digital Comic Museum

Digital Comic Museum => News and Announcements => Topic started by: Captain DJ on October 25, 2010, 10:36:49 PM

Title: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Captain DJ on October 25, 2010, 10:36:49 PM
NOTE - a tutorial for how to use this feature can be found here:
https://digitalcomicmuseum.com/forum/index.php/topic,7697.0.html


++++++

Hey All,

It's been a long time since I really posted here but got a new feature for you to play with!

DCM Preview Feature viewer

In the file section of the site now when you browse a comic file you will notice there is a link called Preview... I'll put an image to help show you.

(http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/preview_comic.jpg)Clicking on "PREVIEW" will open the comic for your viewing/preview pleasure.

Screenshot of the Comic Viewer in action:
(http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/images/preview_comic2.jpg)Features:
* Supports all comics on the site both old and new
* Only displays the image files contained within the cbr/cbz files (no txt files etc)
* Left arrow key goes to previous page
* Right arrow key goes to next page
* Try it and see for yourself....

This doesn't mean you can't download the comics but means you can now try before you download.

Just another feature from us to you as a thank you for supporting us.

TIP: If you own a PS3/Xbox etc visit the site and view comics full screen on your TV.

Any comments/bugs/feedback let us know.
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Captain DJ on October 25, 2010, 10:44:21 PM
Notes: Broadband connection required. Images are coming out of the cbr/cbz files. I refuse to change quality of the pages since we would all dislike that so they remain at original size. Most images are good size but some are rather big.

Anyone with decent internet connection won't notice too much.
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Captain DJ on October 26, 2010, 06:04:27 AM
Update:

Got a PM today about Comic Viewer:

Hi,

I couldn't reply to the News and Announcements thread because it is apparently locked, but I wanted to thank you for the Previewer. It works really nice (plus, you used one of my scans for your screenshot sample ;)

If I might offer one small suggestion: in the title bar, it might be nice to display the filename of the image you are displaying. This would give the viewer a cue as to what they are seeing in certain cases (i.e. if there are more than one cover scan included, or if the pages are numbered oddly and the comics is not being displayed in the correct page order).

Again, nice job!

  - Snard

Have taken the suggestion and made it part of the viewer.

Title bar will now say: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer: Comic Name - Page Name
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Roygbiv666 on October 26, 2010, 07:48:25 AM
Cool, nice work.

Is there any way to make the "preview" link a bit more prominent? Can you use an image that you'd click on?
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Captain DJ on October 26, 2010, 07:49:23 AM
Cool, nice work.

Is there any way to make the "preview" link a bit more prominent? Can you use an image that you'd click on?

Yes it's planned. Want to fix a small bug in preview script first that caused by cbz files containing sub folders. Once that fixed will make preview link nicer.
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: fett on October 26, 2010, 09:40:47 AM
Awesome add-on Captain Sir!!! :)
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: bchat on October 26, 2010, 10:52:38 AM
I also want to say that I think this is a great idea.  There's a lot of books I'ld rather just preview, rather than download, to see if there's anything of interest to me.  Great job!
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: narfstar on October 26, 2010, 05:47:28 PM
Awesome
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Captain DJ on October 26, 2010, 06:29:23 PM
Fixed: Bug that caused cbz files containing subfolders to display incorrectly.
Fixed: Page name in title now encoded correctly.
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Roygbiv666 on October 27, 2010, 12:10:10 PM
FYI

Tried to preview this one:
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?dlid=10886

and got the following error:

Warning: ZipArchive::close() [ziparchive.close]: Invalid or unitialized Zip object in /home/public_html/preview/index.php on line 151

I'm running Internet Explorer 7.0.5730
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Captain DJ on October 27, 2010, 12:18:23 PM
Will look into it, thanks :)
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Captain DJ on October 28, 2010, 10:37:15 AM
Cool, nice work.

Is there any way to make the "preview" link a bit more prominent? Can you use an image that you'd click on?

Any better now?
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Roygbiv666 on October 28, 2010, 10:40:04 AM
Cool, nice work.

Is there any way to make the "preview" link a bit more prominent? Can you use an image that you'd click on?

Any better now?

Works for me.

Can something be added to the "front" page that indicates this new feature is available?
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Captain DJ on October 28, 2010, 10:53:41 AM
Right now its a special treat for all those members who read the forum and also spot differences.

It will either be put on front page or in few weeks when get few more features out on site will mass e-mail all members with list of site changes since most of them visited etc.
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: builderboy on October 28, 2010, 07:37:15 PM
Capt, let me say first...AWESOME feature! I totally love it, and now it makes having an iPad make complete sense.

Second, I need to ask how the naming convention works. I upped a file that doesn't sort correctly under the previewer, but does under CDisplay, and I would like to fix the image names in the future so the previews work correctly.

If you want to check out the specific file, it is wings comics #009.

This site just keeps getting better and better....
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Captain DJ on October 29, 2010, 05:11:38 AM
Should just sort a-z etc but will check that issue now and get back to you on if can easily put it into script or how you can edit your naming system to allow it to auto work.
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Captain DJ on October 29, 2010, 05:22:56 AM
Capt, let me say first...AWESOME feature! I totally love it, and now it makes having an iPad make complete sense.

Second, I need to ask how the naming convention works. I upped a file that doesn't sort correctly under the previewer, but does under CDisplay, and I would like to fix the image names in the future so the previews work correctly.

If you want to check out the specific file, it is wings comics #009.

This site just keeps getting better and better....

OK its another bug in my code with dealing with cbz files.

I will fix it tonight after done little shopping
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Yoc on October 29, 2010, 11:16:15 AM
Fantastic work Capt!
I love the feature and that you've made the links much more obvious.

Thanks!
:)
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Jedifish on October 29, 2010, 11:32:21 AM
Awesome feature. Thanks for adding it.
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Roygbiv666 on October 29, 2010, 12:34:43 PM
work on ps3 browser, nice.
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Captain DJ on October 29, 2010, 01:28:32 PM
work on ps3 browser, nice.

lol Was first place I tested it out also. Works pretty well on PS3 :)
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: kusunoki on October 31, 2010, 02:44:57 AM
Great job, Captain. Really appreciate all the work you have been doing.
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: loftypilot on October 31, 2010, 06:04:11 PM
Totally Totally Awesome job Captain DJ.   :o  It really just keeps getting better here, thanks!  And looking forward to seeing any future improvements you may have in mind, but this one will be hard to top I would think.

--Lofty
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Astaldo711 on November 02, 2010, 03:54:03 PM
What a terrific idea! Way to go guys!
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Roygbiv666 on November 04, 2010, 08:54:53 PM
FYI

this title http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?dlid=5451
yields error message: "Warning: ZipArchive::close() [ziparchive.close]: Invalid or unitialized Zip object in /home/gac/public_html/preview/index.php on line 151"
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Geo (RIP) on November 04, 2010, 09:58:47 PM
Thank you Roy, please if you find anymore, post them up on this thread.

Geo
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: freddyfly on November 09, 2010, 01:23:22 AM
Hi,
Love all the new features, but... (sorry to be a grinch) could we also have a "don't show images" link for each title's page (not necessary on the publisher pages)? I can only see 4 issues at a time now (5 if I really shrink the font), and I often want to scan through the list of all available issues/scans. Thx.
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Captain DJ on November 09, 2010, 02:09:43 AM
Hi,
Love all the new features, but... (sorry to be a grinch) could we also have a "don't show images" link for each title's page (not necessary on the publisher pages)? I can only see 4 issues at a time now (5 if I really shrink the font), and I often want to scan through the list of all available issues/scans. Thx.

Removed from publisher page listing. Hope this is what you wanted.

Was just an experiment to how it looked there and went to bed soon afterwards but I kinda agree better to leave it off so more pages can be listed.
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: darwination on November 09, 2010, 07:28:23 AM
WOW!!!!!

Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Captain DJ on November 11, 2010, 03:21:44 AM
Bug Fix: Zip/CBZ files should now all appear in order. Bug was caused by way zip files are organised and my function didn't take that into account.
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Yoc on November 11, 2010, 08:53:41 AM
Tnx Capt!
And I agree with Len and you, the page listing issues available for for each title should remain a list only. 
Covers only clutter the page and slow down finding out if an issue is needed or not.
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Jedifish on November 15, 2010, 09:49:44 AM
I didn't see it addressed earlier in the thread. For Tom Corbett (specifically the Digital Comic Museum uploads), I'm getting this error when trying to Preview:

Can't open CBR file

http://www.digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?cid=649

Thanks
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Yoc on November 15, 2010, 01:45:59 PM
I notice the 'Comment' link is also missing for all the books in the 'Tom Corbett' section as well.
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Snard on November 15, 2010, 03:11:55 PM
I didn't see it addressed earlier in the thread. For Tom Corbett (specifically the Digital Comic Museum uploads), I'm getting this error when trying to Preview:

Can't open CBR file

http://www.digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?cid=649

Thanks
I believe I have found the problem, at least for Tom Corbett 004. The download file has an extension of .cbr, but is actually a ZIP file, so the file name should be .cbz. (I downloaded the file and looked inside with a hex editor, and confirmed it has a ZIP-file signature instead of a RAR one).

  - Snard
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Yoc on November 15, 2010, 05:54:32 PM
Tnx Snard.
The Comment option was missing from all the Tom Corbett issues though so something else is going on as well.
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Jedifish on November 16, 2010, 06:42:50 AM
Thanks Snard

That explains what's happening, and that's the reason why I now have to download these files with Chrome in stead of Explorer. With Chrome, it will unlock the zip files for me, even with the cbr extension. It won't do anything in Explorer.
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Captain DJ on November 16, 2010, 09:05:38 AM
I didn't see it addressed earlier in the thread. For Tom Corbett (specifically the Digital Comic Museum uploads), I'm getting this error when trying to Preview:

Can't open CBR file

http://www.digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?cid=649

Thanks
I believe I have found the problem, at least for Tom Corbett 004. The download file has an extension of .cbr, but is actually a ZIP file, so the file name should be .cbz. (I downloaded the file and looked inside with a hex editor, and confirmed it has a ZIP-file signature instead of a RAR one).

  - Snard

You get a cookie since your right about the Can't open cbr error etc.

It basically just checked if its extension of cbr/rar or cbz/zip. If its a CBR it goes through unraring it in memory and extracting pages to temp. If for some reason the cbr file is actually a zip file then it refuses to touch it and gives error message.
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Yoc on November 16, 2010, 12:30:01 PM
Capt, there will be several with this problem.
If one fails might the feature try the other format?

-Yoc
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Drahken on December 15, 2010, 09:40:43 AM
Very good feature, although I'm not so hot on the idea of it always fitting to browser width (in my case, resulting in enlarged images). I think an option to display the page in it's original size would be a big improvement.

*edit* Hmm... It looks like the size of the scans actually varies quite a bit. Perhaps a more advanced zoom function would be called for.
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Roygbiv666 on December 24, 2010, 04:00:16 PM
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?dlid=5451

"We have encountered an error.
This comic book cannot be previewed.
Instead we present you with this:"

A lovely Bettie Page image, but ...
Title: Re: Digital Comic Museum Comic Viewer (Preview Comics)
Post by: Yoc on December 24, 2010, 04:39:09 PM
It happens Roy.  For technical reasons some books are beyond previewing.
Nested CBZ files within a ZIP file will do it for instance.