My Manga Program

[Mr. Dalliard]

These English versions of manga, are they just scanned and translated by fans?

[lilman]

Originally Posted by opticalsky

I'm getting this error. I'm not sure what it means. This is what I get when I try running this on my OS X. So far I've been having to reboot into XP every time I needed to convert a manga.

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
at common.utils.ExtFilter.isValid(ExtFilter.java:102)
at common.utils.ExtFilter.isValid(ExtFilter.java:120)
at common.utils.FileUtils.getZipFileList(FileUtils.ja va:134)
at manga.ConvertManga.main(ConvertManga.java:1329)

It stops right after it says this ^.

I'll look into it. I may pm you for additional info.
-Edit-
I think I fixed the problem. I've pm'd you an updated version of Canti. If it fixes the problem then I'll post the update publicly.
-Edit 2-
opticalsky has confirmed that the problem has been fixed. I've included this fix in Canti v1.83.

Originally Posted by opticalsky

On another note, I should say an option where you can have subfolders apart of ONE pdf file would be nice. I have zips of manga but in each zip the chapters that comprise of one volume would all be separated into different subfolders. This results in the program making a separate pdf for each subfolder; this can be a hassle when its just better to have one file that contains all the chapters in the volume. (which makes up the volume).

Ah, I see, that would have been a nice feature. Unfortunately I have to start a new project so I won't be able to program that feature. I'll make a note of it and if I have time later I'll add in that functionality. For now you will have to unzip your volume archive to place the chapter archives in -parent_folder, and then if you want these chapter archives to form a single pdf you will need to set up a bind.txt file.

Originally Posted by Mr. Dalliard

These English versions of manga, are they just scanned and translated by fans?

That is one source of English manga. There is also a lot of manga that has been licensed in the West that you can purchase in book or specialty stores and scan the pages yourself.

[lilman]

Here's Canti v1.83

New to version 1.83:
-Bug fix: Potential crash when trying to determine the file extension of a file with no extension
Oops, left the potential for a NullPointerException if Canti tries to determine the extension of a file which has no extension. Problem has been fixed.
-Bug fix: Can't create .properties file for certain Sony devices
Canti had the incorrect filenames for the default .properties files of several Sony devices. This was easily fixed.
-Auto sense suffix length
In the last release of Canti, the naming scheme for auto sense suffix changed (see the notes for v1.82 for details). I've added @auto_sense_suffix_length for those that preferred the previous auto sense suffix naming scheme.
@auto_sense_suffix_length is the number of digits to use when auto sensing the suffix of folders. An auto sensed suffix whose length is less than this value will be padded with leading 0's.
The length of a suffix is the number of digits before the decimal. For example, 1.999 has a length of one, 01.999 has a length of two.
Acceptable values: -1 (to disable), or an integer greater than or equal to 1
Recomended: -1 (if you don't want to pad the auto sensed suffix) or 4 (if you want to pad, 4 digits should be enough to handle most series (how many series have more than 9999 issues?))
This is set up in the .properties file.

Enjoy and let me know if this works for you

[lilman]

Here's Canti v1.84

New to version 1.84:
-Use original filenames
Canti uses -title, -manga_prefix, and a suffix (either auto sensed or size specified by -num_chars_keep_suffix) to form the output filenames.
The basic naming scheme is: [title]_-_[manga_prefix][suffix], for example: School_Rumble_-_Ch.1
@use_original_filenames allows you to use the original filenames of the source manga as the output filenames. This can be especially useful if your source files are not named in a way that auto sense suffix can handle (i.e. they don't end with the chapter or volume number).
This option supersedes the default of using auto sense suffix but can be disabled at runtime by specifying -num_chars_keep_suffix [integer]
This is set up in the .properties file.

Enjoy and let me know if it works for you

[lilman]

Here's Canti v1.85

New to version 1.85:
-Bug fix: @manga_prefix not working properly
If you set @manga_prefix to default, Canti interpreted it literally (meaning you would get something like School_Rumble_-_default1.cbz). This has been fixed.
Also, the auto setting for @manga_prefix wasn't working correctly. I think it has been fixed now.
-Bug fix: Auto binding not working properly
This problem is hard to explain. Just know that auto binding was a little bit broken but has been fixed.
-Bug fix: Binding not working properly
Binding was considering all folders in output_folder as potential folders to bind when it should have only considered image folders of the currently processing series. This has been fixed.
-Added support for spaces in paths
Spaces in paths has been a pita since the beginning of Canti. I finally tracked down the cause of the problem (it was an issue with the way Java interacts with external programs like ImageMagick) and it has been fixed.
Remember that when specifying a path with spaces you must put "" around the path (for example: -parent_folder "C:\\Program Files\\manga\\").
-User can specify location of .properties file
I got some requests for this feature, and since it took ~3mins to program I added it in :P
New command line option -properties [path to .properties file] allows you to specify the location of the .properties file.
By default, Canti assumes that the .properties file is in the same directory as the .jar, so if you haven't moved the .properties file from its default location then you don't need to set this option.
-Added more default .properties profiles
Added requested .properties profiles for Ectaco JetBook and JetBook Lite. They can be created by running (respectively):

java -jar Canti.jar -create_properties jb
java -jar Canti.jar -create_properties jbl

Currently, the JetBook regular and lite version settings are the same, but Canti still handles them separately in case their specs change in the future.
-User can specify -auto_bind [integer] in command line
This should make it easier to use auto binding as needed since I doubt most people like to leave it enabled all the time.
This value supersedes the one in the .properties file.

Enjoy and let me know if it works for you

[lanfearl]

lilman, I hope you don't mind if I ask a few questions here....

I can see you've spent a ton of time on this... I currently use Mangle with my K2..

Why is making your manga into PDF's better for the Kindle?

And is there any way you could right a barebones how-to with maybe one full example? I've taken a programming course before but some of the things your talking about are still fuzzy to me.

But my biggest question is just why PDF's are way better for Manga on the kindle.. I'm got my k3 preordered.. Pretty excited.

[lilman]

Originally Posted by lanfearl

I can see you've spent a ton of time on this... I currently use Mangle with my K2..

Why is making your manga into PDF's better for the Kindle?

My manga format preference is based on reading on my KDX, so it may not apply to the K2 as well. I tried both image folders and pdf manga on the KDX and posted my experience here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...59&postcount=6

Originally Posted by lanfearl

And is there any way you could right a barebones how-to with maybe one full example? I've taken a programming course before but some of the things your talking about are still fuzzy to me.

Download the latest version of Canti and go through the readme. The first section of the readme includes a full example of running Canti.

Originally Posted by lanfearl

But my biggest question is just why PDF's are way better for Manga on the kindle.. I'm got my k3 preordered.. Pretty excited.

I suggest you try both image folder and pdf manga and see which you like better. The default Canti profile for k2 outputs both pdfs and image folders so you can easily drag and drop one of each onto your kindle and see which works better for you.

[lilman]

Here's Canti v1.85a

New to version 1.85a:
-Bug fix: Binding may be ordered incorrectly
I was relying on Java's built-in sorter to sort bindings alphabetically, but this wasn't always working properly. For example, if you had:

School_Rumble_Ch.1
School_Rumble_Ch.2
...
School_Rumble_Ch.10

It would sort as:

School_Rumble_Ch.1
School_Rumble_Ch.10
School_Rumble_Ch.2
...

I think the problem was that Java's built-in sorter couldn't tell that Ch.10 refers to the number "10", not ".10".
Anyway, I wrote my own comparator so the sorting problem should be fixed.
-Bug fix: Zipping could cause a "Too many open files" exception
The zipping algorithm (used to zip an image folder into a .zip/.cbz archive) left file streams open, which could potentially cause a "Too many open files" exception, crashing the program. This has been fixed.
-User can specify -use_original_filenames [true or false] in command line
If enabled (-use_original_filenames true) then the output files will have the same filenames as the source files.
This value supersedes the one in the .properties file.

Enjoy and let me know if it works for you

[lanfearl]

Will this run is OSX?

[lilman]

Originally Posted by lanfearl

Will this run is OSX?

Yes. The program was written in Java and uses ImageMagick for image manipulation. So as long as you have a jre installed (pretty much all computers do) and you install ImageMagick (free program available for most platforms, including Mac) you're ready to go.

Download the latest version of Canti and read though the beginning of the readme for instructions on getting started. If you have any questions, reply here or pm me.

[lanfearl]

I think I'm doing the filepaths wrong....

java -jar Canti.jar -parent_folder /Users/Jack/Documents/Manga/Clannad/ -title "Clannad" -manga-prefix "Ch." -output folder /users/Jack/documents/

where the the clannad folder has ten folders in it. Clannad 1. Clannad 2. Clannad 3.

ImageMagick is installed.

When i run the command above it gives me error invalid number of arguments.

I'm not a command line guy but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Would love some help.

[lilman]

Originally Posted by lanfearl

I think I'm doing the filepaths wrong....

java -jar Canti.jar -parent_folder /Users/Jack/Documents/Manga/Clannad/ -title "Clannad" -manga-prefix "Ch." -output folder /users/Jack/documents/

When i run the command above it gives me error invalid number of arguments.

Some small spelling errors, should be:

java -jar Canti.jar -parent_folder /Users/Jack/Documents/Manga/Clannad/ -title "Clannad" -manga_prefix "Ch." -output_folder /Users/Jack/Documents/

[lilman]

Here's Canti v1.85b

Note: Only Mac users need to pick up this update.

New to version 1.85b:
-Improved finding rar/unrar on Mac
Improved the rar/unrar finding algorithm for Mac. It will now also look in the same places as it does for Linux.

Enjoy and let me know if it works for you

[SleazyC]

Couple notes on getting Canti working under OSX 10.5

For some reason I had JDK 5 set as my default, this causes problems when running Canti as a String method being invoked isn't implemented in this version of the JDK. A recent Apple patch finally gave Mac uses JDK 6 so I had to create a symlink to use it like so:

sudo ln -s /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6/Commands/java /usr/bin/java

Had to install ImageMagick and choose to use the MacPorts version.

Once I'd done all of this Canti worked. I do have a question regarding bindings though, is the bind.txt still needed? Most of my manga is in a <TITLE>_v<VOLUME NUMBER>_<CHAPTER> and I couldn't figure out how to get Canti to group together all the chapters that had the same volume number into one PDF.

[lilman]

Originally Posted by SleazyC

Couple notes on getting Canti working under OSX 10.5

For some reason I had JDK 5 set as my default, this causes problems when running Canti as a String method being invoked isn't implemented in this version of the JDK. A recent Apple patch finally gave Mac uses JDK 6 so I had to create a symlink to use it like so:

sudo ln -s /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6/Commands/java /usr/bin/java

Had to install ImageMagick and choose to use the MacPorts version.

Once I'd done all of this Canti worked.

I developed Canti using the latest jdk 6 on Ubuntu (1.6.20 I think), but I thought jre 5 would be enough to run it. Anything before jre 5 shouldn't work since I heavily use type safety. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Originally Posted by SleazyC

I do have a question regarding bindings though, is the bind.txt still needed? Most of my manga is in a <TITLE>_v<VOLUME NUMBER>_<CHAPTER> and I couldn't figure out how to get Canti to group together all the chapters that had the same volume number into one PDF.

Yes, you still need a bind file. Canti handles binding very crudely. It doesn't analyze filenames to determine volume or chapter numbers, it merely binds according to alphabetical order. This was the simplest way to program binding, and it works well if your collection is nicely organized, but it does require you to manually craft the bind file.