Requesting a comic book editor

[fdwojo]

Just as a preface, I searched the entire forum and can't find any info or requests for something like this, so...

I apologize if I thought this request to be too simple a task, but if it's possible, here is what I am looking for.

Background: I read lots of comics (using ComicRack). However, sometimes I'll be reading through one and there are all these unwanted, unneeded advertisement pages in the comic book that I'd love to get rid of.

Request: Can a program be written so that it could open a CBZ file, let me view and pick out any unwanted pages and actually delete them and then save the modified files back into the same file again.

Option 1) it might be even easier if I could see a whole slew of pages as thumbnails (perhaps 20 or 30 per screen) because I don't really need to read the comic book if all I need is just to pick out the unwanted stuff.

Option 2) allow this for CBR as well. I know that giving it full RAR (CBR) capability is expensive to add to a program, but perhaps you could just restrict it to only work if the user has WinRAR already installed. Otherwise, it would be a disabled option. This idea is something that SKWIRE did with his "Comic Book Archive Creator"

Thanks for listening. Please let me know if it's an option.

P.S. I am primarily after a solution that will actually delete unwanted pictures, not just mark them as hidden. But, this brings another option to my mind. If deleting is a problem or unwise, renaming the file so that anything that is a JPG, PNG, etc. could be renamed to have a ZZZ (or some other unused 3-letter extension). That way, it wouldn't be actually deleted, but instead would be totally hidden it wouldn't show up in viewing it with my Comic Rack viewer. This method would have the side benefit of working with every single comic viewer out there and wouldn't need to rely on maintaining an external list of what pages to view and what pages to hide.

Thanks again.

[skwire]

Perhaps you can leverage my Comic Book Archive Creator for your purposes?

http://skwire.dcmembers.com/fp/?page=comic-book-archive-creator

[fdwojo]

Well... correct me if I'm wrong, but your program is meant to create comic book files (CBZ/CB7/....) not edit them. If you'd like, I'll be happy to admit that I'm lazy. Yes, I could instead (manually):

A) rename comic book file to .ZIP or .RAR
B) extract all files into a folder
C) view all files with my primary single image viewer and delete as I go
D) re-compress all the files into a .ZIP or .RAR (I prefer ZIP)
E) rename the extension back to .CBZ or .CBR

The way I see it, your program would only allow me to combine steps D and E together. Not to mention that I still have to give it the same name it had from before.

I guess I'm trying to automate things as much as possible.  Of course, the best option would be for my comics viewer (ComicRack) to allow me to do that, but the only thing it will do is to allow me to mark the desired images as hidden (it's called deleted in the program, but they are actually hidden.) And then if I send these files to someone else or one of my other devices, such as my tablet, the unwanted pictures are still there and reappear, thereby defeating the intent. Of course my last option above (the renaming of the extension) would leave the file there, but at least it would not be viewable at all.

Lastly, I'm sorry if I have misunderstood the capabilities of CBAR, because I have downloaded it and used it for making them, but as I said before, it seems like it can only create CB archives, and all the editing is still left to me like I mentioned above.

Thank you, though.

[skwire]

The other solution I can think of would be a zip/compression program that had thumbnail viewing of images.  You could then view the images in the cb? file directly within the compression app and delete as you see fit.  Anybody familiar with a zip/compression app that has internal image thumbnail viewing?

[4wd]

Never mind, it can't delete within the archive, (nice little explorer though).

PowerArchiver can do it although it isn't free, same with DOpus.

[fdwojo]

Wow, that sounds like it would do just what I'm looking for. I'm off to try it folks!  If you don't hear from me, I'm either very happy with this solution (very likely) or else you guys have just gotten me addicted to your wonderfulness of solving requests.

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Okay, I tried it out. It's like a combined file explorer and comic book viewer. There's only one problem: It does indeed let me view the images, but I cannot delete them inside the CB? files. In effect, it's just a viewer, not an editor. I still would be faced with doing all the steps I mentioned above.

Well, thanks for the suggestion, though. I'll keep looking and hoping.

And apparently you posted your last thoughts as I was downloading, trying out, and then writing about it.

[4wd]

Yep, my bad, because it could view the contents of archives I assumed it would operate on them as most other file managers do.

However, I have found one that works quite well you need a web browser and SilverLight installed.

ComicTool

Comic Tool feature:

• Zooming
• CBZ/CBR support
• Drag file from local machine support
• Editing/Saving
•  - Delete Pages
•  - Add/Reorder Pages?
•  - Save edited comics as PDF
•  - Save viewed file with no changes
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Translation Viewing (via ComicInfo schema with embedded SVG to display foreign languages)
• OOB Support on Windows and OS X

You can view the pages and then right-click->Delete page and when you're finished, right-click->Export CBZ



He mentions having to fix CBZ export on the website but it seemed to work OK for the limited test I did.  Also, there's nothing to stop you from running this from your web server, (if you have one), then as long as the computer you're using has SilverLight you can run it from anywhere.

Addendum to that, he runs it on his server also, so you have an online editor available now here.

[fdwojo]

Okay, I tried it out. As a side note (not that I mentioned it before), but I must say that I have never liked online tools because of how long it can take, not to mention needing an internet connection. I was hoping from your writeup that online was optional as well as local view/editing. But, not.

Anyway, I tried it out with a typical CBZ file and I tried it again with a CBR file.  I went thru the process of opening, picked out a few images and deleted them and then the moment of truth: I tried to export to CBZ and boom, it failed. Admittedly, I don't want to export to PDF. What with the errors and all, it seems to sadly not to be an option.

I also did some searching for other tools. I found a tool called CBXShell, but it only shows how many files, but not the ability to view/edit/delete.

Once again, I guess I'm still looking.  Thank you for your efforts though.

[4wd]

Okay, I tried it out. As a side note (not that I mentioned it before), but I must say that I have never liked online tools because of how long it can take, not to mention needing an internet connection. I was hoping from your writeup that online was optional as well as local view/editing. But, not.

To run locally: download the archive, extract and open the index.html in your browser.

Anyway, I tried it out with a typical CBZ file and I tried it again with a CBR file.  I went thru the process of opening, picked out a few images and deleted them and then the moment of truth: I tried to export to CBZ and boom, it failed.

Any chance of a link to the CBZ you used?

[panzer]

Try these:
http://www.cdisplay.me/
http://www.cdisplayex.com/
http://wfpbookreader.codeplex.com/

[fdwojo]

4WD: Sorry about the delay, but I didn't see your reply. I uploaded a CBZ file I had on my own computer up to the site, it wasn't a CBZ that was online. Also, the CBZ file works fine in my own Comic Rack program.

Panzer: I'll check those out and see how well they work.

Thanks

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By the way, I was thinking that although I was looking for a comic book viewer that would let me delete files (images), I realized that another way to look at it is to find an archiver with the ability to see thumbnails of images.  I'm not sure what version they added this with, but I found that WinZip v17 (Pro) includes this very capability.  Problem solved. (yes, I know it's not free, but I haven't upgraded my WinZip since v6 which was in the early 1990's, so it was definitely about time.)  Maybe this might help you guys, too.

Thanks again!

[app103]

Perhaps nharding could be convinced to add the feature you want to DCDisplay?