Reading Comics through Hyperspin

[Invincer]

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This is split into three youtube videos (hopefully audio won't be erased by them). I tried to get enough of each theme to give a general idea, though each is too long a montage video on them to record them all the way through for this preview.

This is what I have been working on. I am not in any way a practiced theme maker but I played around with these till I was personally happy with them. Used character wallpapers, comic thumbnails as images, customized special series swfs, custom pointer, sounds from super hero cartoons, and some pretty good and appropriate super hero tribute videos on youtube.

My cab is a super hero themed cab, so in addition to MAME, I wanted super hero games, movies, cartoons, and of course comics. I had collected comics as a kid and recently thanks to digital comics as cbr and cbz files the colllection urges have arisen again, especially since it is much more feasable to have a fulll collection of a large say 600+ series as digital comics than it ever would be as the real things. Thank Marvel for selling their entire series runs on DVD a few years ago (although those were on old yucky PDF files) for getting me interested again.

There have beeen a few digital comic readers through the years, but a new one called ComicRack has recently sprung up which can open a browser of a folder of comics in thumbnail format. Scroll up down left right find the one you want, mapped apprpriate button opens comic in new window and move through it with joystick. Even better, for those of us with dual monitors, the browser can open on 2nd display, choose comic to read, opens full screen in primary display while comic browser in 2nd display. Actually quite comfortable to read on the cab too.

Integration with Hyperspin: Since the main and 21 series themes are ready, now trying to figure out how to get Hyperspin (or HyperLaunch.ahk in particular) to push through a series of events to open a comic series through Hyperspin. There is a config file for ComicRack in it's folder under Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\cYo\ComicRack\ called config.xml. In it there is a line...

<LastExplorerFolder>Z:\COMICS\Amazing Spider-Man</LastExplorerFolder>

..Z:\COMICS\ is obviously where I keep my comics, and the subfolder would be the name/description of what would be the series opening as categorized. For instance, in the above example, "The Amazing Spider-Man" was the last folder I had open in ComicRack. So let's say I wanted to click on the Uncanny X-Men theme to read a comic from that series/folder. What I need Hyperlaunch to do would be to acccess the config file, change
<LastExplorerFolder>Z:\COMICS\Amazing Spider-Man</LastExplorerFolder>
to <LastExplorerFolder>Z:\COMICS\Uncanny X-Men</LastExplorerFolder>, re-save the config file, open ComicRack, send F7 (puts ComicRack into folders view), send F10 (turns on the folder sidebar- for some reason the sidebar must be on for the thumbnail images to initially display from te folder), immediately send F10 again to close the sidebar, and ta da! ready to read some comics.

The only thing I am presently stumped on is the changing of that one line in the xml. Lashek made a great addition with the Betabrite code to grab the description of the database theme/rom sent in Hyperspin so the folder name could be captured aesily enough, just need to figure the easiest way to put it in the right spot on the xml file and save it. Then the part aftter that is child's play to get working pretty much.

So would anyone else use these or just me? Adding a poll here to gauge any interest in making this available once I get it workking. Input apreciated...

[koolbrez67]

I've looked into this myself . But for game manuals . I will look into it again in the future.

[Invincer]

Youtube rejected the video for being too long, splitting and will put up here in a few minutes...

[Zinger19]

I thought about doing that...but for nintendo power.

[Invincer]

Took a while, but videos uploaded to Youtube and linked at the top of this thread..

[StarControl]

I like it! The videos are way too small for my taste, but the content is excellent!

I was looking over the autohotkey documentation here:

http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands.htm

It looks like what you need to do is read the file in line by line, check each line to see if it needs changing and then write the lines out to a different file. When done you just rename the new file appropriately.

I think these two pages should get you started:

http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/LoopReadFile.htm

http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/RegExReplace.htm

I had to give up on Comic Rack this week. I was doing some hi-res 300dpi png manual scans for Saturn, and Comic Rack is puking on them. It is only showing about 2/3 of the width. Have you experienced anything like that? Here's a sample if you want to see what I mean: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ARLZV4C0

[Invincer]

Hey StarControl,

I will look into the commmands you mentioned, but I am not keen on writing the entire XML file over line by line. The problem is every person's config.xml may be unique on their config settings for how they want ComicRack to display. It controls the layout, whether there is one or dual screens, hotkeys etc. It would be best if it would just read and change the one line about the folder. I am going to try to look into Xpath which SophT turned me onto, but that may be over my head, we'll see.

I had tried to keep the vids small to not cover up too much of the main backgrounds. If everyone would rather they be bigger I could try expanding their sizes in the themes (keep in mind if anyone wants to resize video on any theme is is easy and can be done in seconds on the theme's xml).

ComicRack allows you to save ComicLists (essentially "cbl"files) which amount to be similar to folders with their own views. Unfortunately, being pretty new software, I have noticed some bugs if delving into their more advanced features. For instance, if opening a cbl file in ComicRack would take me to the CBL file upon opening like any other application in this situation would, making it work with Hyperspin would be easy. Right now it doesn't pretty much making CBL files useless in this facet. I have commented on their forums and mentioned this, they responded that the next release will concentrate more on CBL files, which would give an easy solution for working with or in Hyperspin. Still, if this can be done with folders on the config.xml line it would be easier for users since they would only need to put the cbr/cbz file in the apprpriate folder to have it work; where you would have to reupdate your cbl file every time you added a comic using cbls. We will see.

You may want to try editing that config of yours manually and see if that has anything to do with it not working right on your scans though... Maybe try deleting the config or renaming it making ComicRackk open and create adefault one might work?

[koolbrez67]

I thought about doing that...but for nintendo power.

That would be hella cool as well

[StarControl]

Hey StarControl,

I will look into the commmands you mentioned, but I am not keen on writing the entire XML file over line by line. The problem is every person's config.xml may be unique on their config settings for how they want ComicRack to display. It controls the layout, whether there is one or dual screens, hotkeys etc. It would be best if it would just read and change the one line about the folder. I am going to try to look into Xpath which SophT turned me onto, but that may be over my head, we'll see.

Well, definitely check out Xpath. But if you copy the lines over one at a time and don't change anything but the one line then you are not going to hurt anybody's configuration settings. In fact, if you find any sort of library routine that will do what you want I can guarantee you that under the hood it is copying the old file over to a temp file line by line, modifying what needs modifying as it goes and then overwriting the old file with the new file. It's not technically possible to modify a variable length field like that any other way. (Well, technically there is one other way, but it increases the possiblity of file corruption and requires platform-specific system calls so nobody uses that technique any more.)

[X360]

Hi Invincer,

I saw that you have been working on having the ability to read digital comic books with HyperSpin. Good job; very nice.. I have a huge collection (1.5TB) of digital comic books and would also like to be reading them inside my arcade cabinet with HyperSpin.

I would interested in getting the comic book Wheel Logos and backgrounds you have created as shown on youtube.. I will be also using Hyperspin to read my whole collection of digital comics inside my cabinet which has a 26" LCD flat screen; perfect for 2-page reading.

However, I would probably using CDisplay instead of ComicRack to read the comics; with a simple wheel for the type of comics (Batman, Spider-Man, etc..) and then select the issue to read; hopefully splitting in in decades for large collections.

My only concern is how to handle such a large collection such as Batman with all the main, monthly, mini-series, crossovers, story-arcs and one-shots; and be able to categories it properly using the wheel.

Would you be willing to share your comic book wheel and backgrounds you have created so far.. you would save me some time.. we can also work together for the other ones that needs to be created.. If you need any complete comic book collections, I can also help.

Let me kow,

Philippe

X360

[BadBoyBill]

I could probably make a cool reader, like a 3d flipping page animation book that you could use to view magazines or comics, the only problem would be that it would be the possibility that the pdf pages might need to be images, not sure though.

[koolbrez67]

That would be cool . You could also be able to do manuals and strategy guides if you did that BBB.

[X360]

Hi BBB, a cool comic book reader would be great!.. I would really appreaciated it; if you get around making this.

By the way, digital comic books now are at 99% in CBR or CBZ which are simply RAR/ZIP files with sequential jpeg images inside (CBR: Comic Book RAR).

Handling RAR files with jpeg's inside should be easy to handle for you..

Features I would like to see apart of the 3D flipping page would be the ability to zoom to each frame in full size and have it smoothly transition to the next box from left to right, down and then up to the first box on the other page; for easy reading and close appreciation of the artwork. Since the images are in high-resolution this would be quite nice to really appreciate digital comic books.

I would really enjoy seeing all comic book logos on the hyperspin wheel and having the ability to scroll thru the comic book covers in a cool way (covers are the first image within each CBR file)

Right now, I am using the CDisplay small application to display my comics in a 2-page fullscreen with Hyperspin; pressing ESC brings me back to Hyperspin wheel. Nothing fancy here but still functional to access and read my digital comic books collections with Hyperspin.

Now if you are able make this even better with a cool way to read them by having a 3D page flipping and the ability for to smoothly Zoom between each frames that would be awesome..

Keep us posted about your interest in making this possible!

Cheers,

PS. I just supported your transition project buy purchasing both packs. Great stuff! Thank you.

X360

[BadBoyBill]

Hi BBB, a cool comic book reader would be great!.. I would really appreaciated it; if you get around making this.

By the way, digital comic books now are at 99% in CBR or CBZ which are simply RAR/ZIP files with sequential jpeg images inside (CBR: Comic Book RAR).

Handling RAR files with jpeg's inside should be easy to handle for you..

Features I would like to see apart of the 3D flipping page would be the ability to zoom to each frame in full size and have it smoothly transition to the next box from left to right and then up to the first box on the other page; for easy reading and close appreciation of the artwork. Since the images are in high-resolution this would be quite nice to really appreciate digital comic books.

I would really enjoy seeing all comic book logos on the hyperspin wheel and having the ability to scroll thru the comic book covers in a cool way (covers are the first image within each CBR file)

Right now, I am using the CDisplay small application to display my comics in a 2-page fullscreen with Hyperspin; pressing ESC brings me back to Hyperspin wheel. Nothing fancy here but still functional to access and read my digital comic books collections with Hyperspin.

Now if you are able make this even better with a cool way to read them by having a 3D page flipping and the ability for to smoothly Zoom between each frames that would be awesome..

Keep us posted about your interest in making this possible!

Cheers,

PS. I just supported your transition project buy purchasing both packs. Great stuff! Thank you.

X360

Ya man, I'll look into this, might take me a month or so to write something like that, but it would be sweet in the end, thanks for the support to!

[X360]

If possible, I would be great to be able to navigate with the menus like this

example:

DC COMICS > BATMAN > MAIN SERIES > 1940-1950 > COVERS (scrolling thru covers)

DC COMICS > BATMAN > MONTHLY SERIES > BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL > COVERS

DC COMICS > BATMAN > STORY-ARCS > KNIGHTFALL > COVERS

DC COMICS > BATMAN > CROSSOVERS > 1990-2000 > COVERS

DC COMICS > BATMAN > ONE-SHOTS> 1990-2000 > COVERS

MARVEL > ...

VERTIGO > ...

ETC...

Can you imagine this setup? ..would be fantastic!

[Invincer]

Hi Guys,

As I mentioned in the thread about manuals and using ComicRack through Hyperspin for manuals, I set up the comics theme on MegaUpload, but it is massive in size mostly because of the videos. Anyone is free to use any part of it or edit anything that dan be improved, and if someone can shrink down the vids Bill may even want to put it on the FTP. I offered to give the link to anyone that wanted to try it out to make sure they could work on someone else's set up, but no one PM'd me for a link.

So, anyways, this is the link... if it works for anyone DLing it let it be know,, and if not, let me know so I can change it if anything needs changing.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SPI470S4

In reference to using Hyperspin with CDisplay, originally I was going to go that route, but with Hyperspin not being able to do sub-directories, it would havve been a nightmare to go through thousands of comics that way. It would have made going through MAME games a walk in the park in comparison. The maiin reason for using ComicRack was CR is able to save groups of comics as a comiclibrary group in a custom .cbl file. So all Amazing Spider-Man comics, annuals, limited series, etc can be saved as say "Amazing Spider-Man.cbl" or something similar. Then in the Comics theme from the main menu in HS I click the Amazing Spider-Man theme which points to the Amazing Spider-Man.cbl and voila; the group of ASM comics opens in CR. Then in CR I find the exact comic I want to read.

The only way I could imagine CDisplay (or manuals) to work well in HS would be generating some sort of html files for each colllection, then clicking say Iron Man on the wheel to give a HTML list of all Iron Man comics where you click on a link and it opens the comic in CDisplay (or similarly the PDF file in Adobe Reader for manuals). Maybe Bill has some oter ideas. Either way, this link above had all the artwork etc I used, so feel free touse it as long as the link stays up.

[loppydog]

Thanks invincer, I am DL'ing now and I will be checking it out. Thanks for sharing your hard work. Does comicrack take a long time to load for you? It seems to take forever to load for me.

[X360]

Hi Guys,

In reference to using Hyperspin with CDisplay, originally I was going to go that route, but with Hyperspin not being able to do sub-directories, it would have been a nightmare to go through thousands of comics that way. It would have made going through MAME games a walk in the park in comparison. The maiin reason for using ComicRack was CR is able to save groups of comics as a comiclibrary group in a custom .cbl file. So all Amazing Spider-Man comics, annuals, limited series, etc can be saved as say "Amazing Spider-Man.cbl" or something similar. Then in the Comics theme from the main menu in HS I click the Amazing Spider-Man theme which points to the Amazing Spider-Man.cbl and voila; the group of ASM comics opens in CR. Then in CR I find the exact comic I want to read.

I agree, I would prefer having a deeper sub-menus system within HS for those if us who do not mind going thru a few wheels for large collections; but it is still possible without it.

For now, a simple way to do it with CDisplay and HS for reading comic books would be to split each collection seperately on the main wheel and create an horizontal menu with each issue covers of that group.

I agree that we will need to split large collections into smart 2, 3 or 4 parts/volumes on the main wheel such as "DETECTIVE COMICS Gold Age", "DETECTIVE COMICS Silver Age" etc.. (I would create my own logos for the wheel) and then scroll thru the covers horizontally to select the one you want to read. And to scroll between the issues from slow to faster speed when holding the sitck in the same direction.

The pleasure having HS read our comic books is to make it as visual as possible, I would hate the idea to select an issue from a text list instead of seeing the actual comic book covers; and avoid having to use any external applications to group comic books covers outside of HyperSpin.

I would also avoid having videos with my themes since videos of TV comics series or related movies is not really related and not the same to me. I like reading comic books but not necessary to watch their TV kind. For me, it's all about the covers and comic book artwork.

Looking forward to see what BBB will be able to do; 3D page-flipping and smart zooming would be great.

[bLAZER]

Thanks invincer, I am DL'ing now and I will be checking it out. Thanks for sharing your hard work. Does comicrack take a long time to load for you? It seems to take forever to load for me.

Yes, it takes a while... I'm guessing it's the bloated .NET Framework who's the culprit.

[THK]

Maybe a way around the subdirectories is the have just your favorite comic series as the wheel when entering the comics wheel and have all the rest of the series (including the one you start with) with their respective xmls in a genre wheel.

[X360]

Hi all..

What`s the latest about this? I've looked around the FTP site and haven't found any themes for comic books.. Can anyone point me to the right direction?

Can wait to set up HyperSpin to read my digital comic book collections..

thanks in advance!

X360

[X360]

Hi BBB,

Do you still have the interest in making this happen?

Would love to see your magic for digital Comics books working on HS.

Let us know..

Cheers!

[X360]

Anyone out there with a HyperSopin comic book theme that can be sent to me or uploaded to the FTP site..?

Desperately looking for a good based in order for me to add more to it and share with the whole community..

thanks in advance..

[X360]

Where is this comic book theme available?

_wpeLdSpmdU

ZVC4exSF9KM

hKYzecBxJM0

[HzerbThaWizherb]

Kind of an old thread but is anyone still working on comic books in HS. I've started and have had some success in launching CDisplay through HS and getting a corresponding xml list to go with it. Still in the early stages but wouldn't mind someone else to bounce ideas/resolve issues with.