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Yes

1 (11.1%)

No

3 (33.3%)

I think it's usefull, but I think it breaks some copyright rules

0 (0%)

I don't care, I prefere to watch the comics browsing in their site.

5 (55.6%)

Total Members Voted: 2

Voting closed: 22 Apr 2006, 02:09

[ComicFan]

Would you think that a software for downloading comics and saving them on your computer would be a bad ideea ?

I, for example, have a few comics that I like to watch, and I also want to save them so I would have the collection. I'm not an artist or a comics series author, but I do follow some comics, of which Questionable Content is one of my favourites, but I wonder if by doing such an application I would violate some copyright stuff or something. I repeat... I don't want to do anything with the comics, just to view them and have them stored on my computer also. It would also be usefull for the persons that follow comics to view each comics as they are posted by the authors.
I would especially like to hear the oppinion of some comic series authors, if they would mind me doing something like this. Of course, I would provide a way for the user to open the original page of the comics with the press of a button .

So... Please share your oppinions, if you think such a software would be usefull...

Best of luck. Bye

[Luke]

By "software for downloading," do you mean a standard internet browser that lets you right-click --> Save Image As?

Being on a dialup connection, I would very much like to download the archives of some of my favorite comics, since going back into the archives can be a very tedious process at times.

Being a comic author, I'm torn. People saving my work on their computers makes them prone to start violating copyrights, but on the other hand, being able to browse my archives on their computer instead of on my website could save me a lot of bandwidth in the long run.

I'm no professional, though, so take this with a grain of salt.

[ComicFan]

Ok... I've done the program, for myself in the first place. I have no intention whatsoever to violate any copyrights. My sole purpose was to save the images to have the collection. Sometimes it's very nice to just sit down, start acdsee (or whatever viewing application you like) and just browse thru the comics without having to wait for the images to load. And you can do that even when you use up all your band for other downloads or you have been left without internet because of some incompetent ISPs.

Luke, you said that users are prone to violate copyrights if they have the comics saved, but with or without any program, the users can still save the images, because lots of them prefere to have their favourite comics saved localy, without any hidden intention, just to view them whenever they feel like it.

Now, to explain about the program. It's not a browser, it's a simple application, that allows you to create rules for the comics you like, and then press a button and start downloading the images for that comic. For each comic you have to specify the rule of how the URL is formed, the rule of how the path of the local image is formed, the site where the comics originate from (so when a user wants to go to the original site, he presses a button and the browser opens at the site of the comics), and some other things... The program allows you to download as many comics as you want. I have found about 24 comic series that are nice or some other users talked about, and I have created rules for them, and included them in the archive, but everyone can make as many rules as they like and share them.

I feel there is nothing bad about this application, because it's purpose is not to do "bad things", only to help the users. The authors should be glad their fans have the opportunity to follow their comics more easily. And whenever a user wants to go to the original site, where the comics are downloaded from, he just presses a button an he is taken there. The program is just a tool for the fans. I hope it's interpreted as it is, and nothing more. It's meant to help, and the users that tried it already are happy they can view the comics more easily...

I will post the link to the archive as soon as I finish testing some new things I've modified. I really hope you'll like it and find it usefull. Since I've made it for me, it's absolutelly free. The users that find it usefull are payment enough for me

I'll return with the link soon.

Regards and best of luck.

[ComicFan]

Well... I'm back, as I said, with the link to the program. The latest version seems to work fine, but in case you spot some bugs, please, do tell .

You should be able to use the program without much explanation from me, but if you're confused, press F1 and read the instructions and how the program works.

Just unpack and run... the program will create everything it needs. The program doesn't need to be installed in order to work, so if you don't like it, you can delete the program and that's it... no files are installed anywhere outside the program and nothing is changed in the registry.

In order to start downloading comics, press the Add button in the main window to add some comics into the list of Active comics. If you want to modify some comics or create new comics, press the "Manage comics" button. You can have a look at some of the included examples and I think you'll figure it out.

If you want to create new languages, read at the end of the instructions how to do that. If you create some files or new rules for other comics, do share... and give them to me too, so I can include them in the next version of the program.

The program is free... it has no limitations, no spyware, no nothing. It only connects to the sites from where it downloads the comics. If some of you are programmers and are curious as of how the program works, tell me and I'll give you pieces of code. The program was made with Delphi 7. I can give you the sources too, because there's nothing to hide, but I used some downloaded components, so it's not likely that it will compile on your machine.

You can download the program from here, and this is the page of the program. I'll try to keep it updated so it would take you to the latest version...

I hope you'll enjoy it

PS: please excuse my spelling mistakes. I'm not a native English speaker

[ComicFan]

No one tryed the program ? . I was hoping to receive some feed-back, if you like it or not, and if you have any sugestions for improvement...

[Sean C]

I actually found a blog owned by someone who created a program that e-mails the latest comic of comic X when it updates, and that my comic was listed among the 10 or 12 he had written code for. A short time after that, several nasty spider programs hit CNG and ate up a ton of bandwidth, which we had to pay for. The best part was one of those programs was downloading every image on the site, and got caught in a loop, endlessly repeating the task. That one did the most damage. Seems suspect to me, hmmm; perhaps said programmer's coding wasn't as good as it seemed.

No, I don't like those applications, for reasons like that. Many kinds of programs that could download comics could hit a site like those spiders did, cost the comickers money they don't necessarily have, and deny those creators a few extra needed clicks on Google ads to help make up the cost. If you want to read it, just go to the damn site. It's more work to download the application, make the folder, etc...

[Alegis]

Just tried it and downloaded ctrl alt del and QC

Very nice, as it works sweet with the comics in that list.

As for wondermark, which I was just about to read, the comics range from
http://www.wondermark.com/comics/1.gif  to ~167.gif.
What am I doing wrong if I set it to Linear and the path to http://www.wondermark.com/comics/%i%.gif ?

Well Sean, prefer to read on sites that have a nice system like WM, this is merely for archive purposes to find that one comic faster.

Doing a great job !

[ComicFan]

Thank you for your critics.

I have some answers for some of your questions:


Sean C, this is a program, not a web application, it has nothing to do with spiders, and the application doesn't go thru the pages and searches for links or anything... the paths are generated with the help of variables. You tell the program exactly what you want to get and he gets it. After each download, the index or the date is incremented, and the new data saved into the configuration file of each comic, so no image is downloaded twice. It even generates less trafic, because none of the rest of the elements from the page need to be downloaded . You can download the program and if you don't trust it, use whatever programs necessary to see the exchage of information. It only connects to the sites of the comics, and only gets images, nothing more. And another thing... it's not that difficult to download one zip file (which is not even very big... under 1 mb) and unpack. The program takes care of all the folders... you don't have to create folder for each comics...

Alegis, I have studied the comic site that you exemplified. There was one little mistake in your judgement... it's not 1.gif, but 001.gif. So the correct variable would be %3i%. That way, it will be a 3 characters long index, starting from 1: 001, ..., 009, 010, ..., 099, 100, ... and so on. On your side, you can use any index variable you like... I prefere to use %5i%, so I'd get filenames that have 5 character names, filled with zeroes. That way, if I sort the images in Windows explorer after name, they'll be in the correct order. So if the program gets the file 001.gif, on my computer it will be saved as 00001.gif, and so on...

So, if you want to create rules for that comic, use for the url:

Code: [Select]

http://www.wondermark.com/comics/%3I%.gif
and for the save path you can use something like:

Code: [Select]

%gp%%name%\%5I%.gif
On this forum I don't think I can attach files, but if you want the content of the Wondermark comic file, create a new text file, write the following content in it:

Code: [Select]

[Comic]
name=Wondermark
URL=http://www.wondermark.com/comics/%3I%.gif
type=1
start year=2006
start month=4
start day=26
start index=1
first year=0
first month=0
first day=0
first index=1
save dir=%gp%%name%\%5I%.gif
last comic=
site=http://www.wondermark.com
last comic's date=0


  and then rename your file to Wondermark.cmc and either manually copy it in the engines folder, or use the Comic -> Import comic command if the file is in another directory. If you copy the file manually in the engines folder, restart the program in order for the comic settings to load.

Hope it helpes.

[ComicFan]

I've made a new version of the program. With this release, you can also download comics that need a referer. To make the new version work, just read the readme.txt file included in the archive.

Also, there are about 50 comics included in this release, but you can make rules for as many as you want

The program can be downloaded from here.

Enjoy