ComicRack Tips and Tricks (1st Ed) PDF

ComicRack
tips & tricks

the book that will help you (mis)use ComicRack to its full potential!
ComicRack
tips & tricks
the book that will help you (mis)use ComicRack to its full potential!
(mis)use = innovate + misuse
cYo soft 1st edition

Dedicated to unfulfilled feature requests
Table of Contents
1. Why only ComicRack? ..................................................05

2. The Zero-day affair ..................................................07
3. Clean up your messes .......................................................11
4. Chronologies et al ....................................................14
5. Collect em all ....................................................18
6. Rack on a Mac ....................................................21
7. Reviews in the Rack ..................................................24
5 u ComicRack Tips & Tricks
WHY ONLY COMIC RACK?

The wide variety of books you can manage with your ComicRack software
ComicRack is the best comic reader and manager. Yes, we know that you already know this. But, we ask you:
Why only Comic Rack? ComicRack is also an excellent PDF and DJVU reader and manager. You can add all
your PDFs to your ComicRack library, and let it do the rest!
You would need to enter relevant text in the metadata fields needed to organize the books in the way you
want. However, since ComicRack is built to manage comics by default, you can tweak the metadata fields to
suit your needs. We would just need to make smart lists for each category of our non-comic books.
In the genre metadata field, enter a
keyword that would come in handy
while making a smart list with the
genre criterion. This could be, for ex-
ample, any of these:
eBook
Programming
Chess
Next you would need a grouping field. You can (mis)use any metadata field for this, which you usually dont
use for organizing your comics. These grouping fields, for example, may be:
eBooks: Fiction, Non-fiction, Magazines
Programming: C#, Python, .NET
Chess: Openings, Middle game, Strategy, Endgames
eBookRack
From Robert Ludlam to

Stephen King to Readers
Digest to the Steve Jobs
biography, get all your eb-
ook PDFs in ComicRack.
Once you group your eb-

ooks, these can be further
stacked upon like regular
comics. So, you can even
easily manage maga-
zines that ship weekly or
monthly.
comicrack.cyolito.com
ProgrammingRack
So, you are a programmer,

and love to read and learn
from the plethora of in-
formative texts. And how
do you quickly find a book
from the many you have?
Ever wished them to be
organized by the comput-
ing language groups? Or
would you rather have
them sorted out by the
publishing category (for
instance, all Head First
books together)?
ComicRack is the answer!
ChessRack
Chess lover? Need a way

to manage your ever-
growing digital collection
of chess books?
Just bring all your chess

books in ComicRack under
the chess genre. Next,
you may group them, for
example, by openings/
strategy/endgames.
You can also simply group

them by authors or pub-
lishers, as you would do
for your regular comics.
THE ZERO DAY AFFAIR

Managing zero day comics with ComicRack
Whats the best way of using ComicRack for managing new comics added to your ever-expanding digital col-
lection? Well, it is a matter of personal opinion as to how every user likes to organize his books. As a regular
user of ComicRack, you would already know that the metadata fields in the Info dialog are the key to having
a well-managed ComicRack library. Lets us then proceed with this knowledge and explore one of the better
ways (out of so many) of managing your newly added comics, especially the zero day comics that you get
every week.
Priming the comics
u Scrape Me
Make a smart list that picks up all the newly added books in the library. These are the books that have largely
empty metadata fields, save for those that Comicrack automatically picks up from the filename (like series,
year, number).
One of the easiest criterion for making a scrape me

smart list is the publisher is <blank> rule. This pulls out
all books with an empty publisher field.
You can add a number of excluding criteria for omitting

books from this list. These could be webcomics, daily
newspaper strips, previews, variant covers, non-comic
books etc.
Now run the ComicVine Scraper

script on all the comics pulled by
the scrape me smart list. The meta-
data fields will now automatically
get filled via the information from
the comic vine website.
v CVDB Skip
There may be a number of books that
the comic vine scraper will miss, due to
lack of data in the comicvine website. You
can easily manage these books by adding
a CVDBSKIP tag to these books. This can
be done automatically during scraping by
holding the CTRL key when pressing the
skip button on the scraper. Then make
a smart list that pulls all the CVDB skip
books. Unfortunately, You would have to
fill in the metadata fields for these books
manually.
w Add Scanner Tags
While the scraper fills in most of the

fields, it cannot find the scanners name
(for obvious reasons). you need the Scan
info from filename script for that.
Make a smart list titled Add scanner tags

with a single criterion of scanning infor-
mation is <blank> to pull all the books
which need to have the scanning informa-
tion filled up. Now, just run the Scan info
from filename script on the books pulled
by your newly made smart list!
Run the Scan info from filename script on all the books pulled by this smart list. The scanner name wil get
added. You can optionally (manually) add a Scanner: unknown tag to all the books missed by the script.
x CBR Finder
As you already know the importance* of

having CBZ files for storing the metadata
information (as comicinfo.xml file), we
would now like to convert all the CBR files
to CBZ files.
Make a smart list titled CBR Finder with

a single criterion of file format contains
rar to pull all the books which are CBR ar-
chives.
Select all the books pulled by this smart

list, and convert them to CBZ, using the
Export books function from the browser
right-click context menu.
* Editors note: Read the ComicRack Manual (5th edition) chapter 1 - page 6
Organizing
0-day packs
u Input the zero day week date
Zero day scans are arranged according to the weeks in which they are
released. This requires a folder for each month, which includes sub-
folders for each week. There are always some new scans which are of
older books, and hence are not zero days. These get their own folder
(usually prefixed: Hitlists, in the order of the day on which they were
released.
To get this hierarchy in our ComicRack, we will smartly (mis)use a

metadata field which we do not normally use. In this example, we will
choose the Owner field of the Catalog tab. Here you would have to
input the week date of the zero day when you get it. This could be in
many formats:
2011.12.14
0-Day Week of 2011.12.14
2011-CW-49 December 14 (this format includes CW, the Calender
Week, to help us include the actual name of the month and still let A typical zero day pack structure. Folders are ar-
ranged by the weeks released. Non-zero day scans
the weeks arrange in alphabetical order) are arranged as day-wise Hitlists.
For maintaining an alphabetical order, we need to input the week Some users like to see the month name instead of the month num-
dates as year-month-day. You can choose to prefix this with an in- ber (e.g. December instead of 12). Calender weeks (from 1 to 52)
formative 0-Day Week of. help in maintaining the alphabetical order here. So, a sample date
looks like: 2011-CW-52 December 28.
v Make zero day smart lists
Make smart lists for each week as it comes, (mis)using

the Owner field. A simple criterion like Book Owner Is
0-Day Week of 2011.12.14 is required.
You can make as many smart lists as you wish, each

smart list reflecting the packs of a week. Once your
books are tagged with the week date, making these Make a smart list with a single criteria like Book Owner Is 0-Day Week of
2011.12.14. Name the smart list to something informative, most commonly
lists wont take much time. You can also copy-paste the 0-day week. You would have to make similar smart lists for all the 0-day
the lists in the sidebar, and them edit them to get the weeks.
job done even faster.
w Make folders for months
Make folders in the sidebar for each month. Move all the
0-day smart lists of that month into its respective folder.
While making the folder, it is better to choose the option All
books from every list. This means that you can simply click at
the folder and get the stacked 0-day packs (just stack by the
owner field we used to tag the 0 days).
x Set browser views and layout
If you have followed the previous chapter, your 0-day comics already have the Scan Information field prop-
erly filled up with the scanner name. Just set the browser view of your choice, and group by Scan Informa-
tion. Now, all your 0-day packs are neatly grouped by the scanner name!
0 Day Weeks Group by Scan Information
Hitlists
CLEAN UP YOUR MESSES

Keeping your ComicRack library well maintained
Now that all your comics are scraped and the 0-day packs are in order, we can now move on to a few clean-
up steps needed to fine tune the ComicRack library. The smart lists of ComicRack shall prove to be most
helpful here. Please note that as you are reading the Tips & Tricks manual, we assume that you are already
acquainted with the basics of making reading lists.
u Count Errors
The comics belonging to a particular mini-series
are supposed to have an of counts field. e.g. 5 (of
5). A number of mini-series books in your library
may have this counts field filled up, while others
might be empty.
The count errors smart list will look up your library

for such books. This needs to use a single regular
expression based criteria: Expression is True {Sta
tsMaxCount}<>{StatsMinCount}. You would now
need to manually correct the count fields in the
books pulled by this list.
v Series Gaps
Missing issues are another source of frequent

trouble for digital comic collectors. You just need
the series gaps smart list to find the comics which
are missing in a series run present in your library.
The smart list needs to follow any of these 2 rules:

Series: Start of gap is Yes and Series: End of gap
is Yes. You would also need to exclude atypical
books from this list, like issue #10,000.
The smart list is best viewed in the browser in

the details view, grouped by series. Make sure
the number and the gap information fields are
turned on.
Now you can easily find which comics are missing,

so that you may get them and fill the gaps.
The GapInformation field in the details view

shows visual information about missing issues
of a series.
gap starts here
gap both before & after this issue
gap ends here
Gap Information
w Single issues not being #1s
Many-a-times, we only have a single issue of a se-

ries. Obviously, in this scenario, the series gaps
smart list would not be helpful.
To find such books, the easiest way is to make a

smart list with 2 rules:
Series:book count is 1
Number is greater 1
This would easily fetch you books which are soli-

tary and yet are not #1s or one-shots. You can now
choose to either get the rest of the books in the
series or renumber the books accordingly.
x Cover Only
A number of archives in your collection are just a

single page variant cover CBZ files. It is always a
good practice to keep them separate from the full
comics, so as to avoid any confusion. To find such
books, a really smart smart list is needed:
File Name contains cover only / variant: This

works only if you are lucky to have preserved
the filename, which contains words like cover
only or variant cover.
File size is smaller <value>MB: Since a single
page CBZ would mostly be less than 1 Mb in size,
we can use this value. However, to account for
ads/scanner credit pages, we can pad it safely
to, say, 3 MB.
Various exclusion criteria to avoid false-positives
(see screenshot)
y Duplicates
We will make use of ComicRacks in-built duplicates finder plus the excellent duplicates manager script. This
script basically chooses which of the duplicated comics to keep (and which to delete) based on the rules you
specify. So first, you need to setup the rules for the duplicates manager script.
Locate the dmrules.dat in the script directory (On a typical Win- You first need to edit the dmrules.dat file and set to true the variables MOVE-
dows 7 system, this would be C:\Users\username\Appdata\ FILES and REMOVEFROMLIB. The dmrules.dat accepts a list of rules in your
Roaming\cYo\ComicRack\Scripts\Duplicate Manager\dmrules. preferred order, as shown in the example above. Details of rule making are
dat). Open this file in any text editor (like notepad). explained in the script wiki and the ComicRack Manual (5th edition).
i ii iii
From the Views menu on All the duplicate files in your Now select all the books in
the browser toolbar, choose library will now be visible in the browser and click the
the Show duplicates option. the browser (best viewed duplicates manager button
when grouped by series). on the browser toolbar.
Everytime you need to wipe

the duplicates from your Co-
micRack library, just repeat
these 3 quick steps: choose
the Show duplicates option,
select all books and then
click the duplicates man-
ager button. Thats all you
would ever need to do!
CHRONOLOGIES et al
How to use ComicRack to manage crossovers and events
ComicRack can adeptly manage your comic book events/crossovers by its excellent capabilities of chronologi-
cal list making. In this section, we will explore the various manners in which ComicRack handles chronological
book orders. By now, you would have also known that chronological reading lists have maximum functional-
ity in the details view, where you can sort them according to the order they are meant to be.
The standard way
The standard ComicRack way of making chronologies

is by using the Alternate Series field. Obviously, this
requires filling up of the alternate series field (com-
icvine scraper) and, most importantly, the alternate
number field (manually). You then just need to make
a smart list based on a single criterion of Alternate
Series is <name>. Just sort the list by the alternate
number field, and your simplest chronology is ready!
Sort by Published
Veteran ComicRack team member Forkicks discovered

this extremely simple method of sorting by the Pub-
lished field for making chronological lists. This method
has stood the test of time, and holds correct for almost
90% of lists (provided you are not anal regarding the
exact minute-by-minute sequence of events in the se-
ries). For example, the crossovers of 2011, Flashpoint
& Fear Itself, are quite nicely sorted by this method.
However, sorting by Published is not of much use

when the event/chronology involves a relatively small
number of books published over a small period of
time (1-2 months). e.g. Bruce Wayne: The road home. The Flashpoint chronology, sorted by the Published field.
Complicated
scenarios
Prefixing the alternate series field
Now let us explore some complicated scenarios. Suppose you wish to make a chronological list for the Marvel
cosmic universe. These books are spread over many (self-contained) mini-series, each respecting its own is-
sue numbers. Similar scenarios can occur while making chronological lists for entire series like Hellboy or Star
Wars. This poses a new level of difficulty that can not (yet) be managed by ComicRack. But, (mis)use we can!
Such a problem can be easily remedied by prefixing the Alternate series field by a 2-digit number, in the read-
ing order we desire. All the mini-series which are supposed to be present in the chronology will get their own
alternate series, each having preceding 2-digit numbers like 01, 02, 03 and so on. All the alternate series can
then be brought under one smart list, and then these can be grouped by alternate series. As we have already
prefixed them with numerals, these will be sorted in our desired reading order.
u Prefix the Alternate Series with a number, in

the order you wish to arrange the various books.
e.g. Instead of inputting the Alternate series as
Annihilation: Book One, write it as 01 Annihila-
tion: Book One. Also input the Alternate Number
as desired to maintain the correct order for the
series. Do the same for the rest of the series in
the chronology.
v Make a smart list that gathers all these books

that you wish to include in the chronology. This
can be done by including all the alternate series
in the smart list.
w Open the smart list in the browser window by

clicking it in the sidebar. Choose the details view
and group by Alternate Series. The chronology is
ready to be read in the order you desired!
Using folders for grouping
There are instances where you already have a neatly-made folder that contains sub-folders with chronologi-
cally arranged comics. There is a simple way to reflect this chronology in ComicRack, and then convert the
pre-made folder structure into a meaningful(?) alternate series reading order.
u Add the base folder (that contains all the sub-folders of the chro-
nology) to the ComicRack library.
v Make a smart list that gathers all these books present in the base
folder. This can be done easily by using criteria like - File Path begins
with Hellboy.
w Open the smart list in the browser window by clicking it in the

sidebar. Choose the details view and group by File Path. The chronol-
ogy is ready to be read in the order you desired!
Converting a folder-based chronology into an Alternate series chronology
u Select books belonging to the first folder group e.g. In our example shown along-
side, this would be all the 5 books of the Hellboy - Wake the devil mini-series.
v Input in the Alternate Series field:

grouping name + a number + series.
e.g. For the Hellboy - Wake the devil books in the Hellboy chronology:
Grouping name = Hellboy
Number = 03
Series = Wake the devil
w Make a smart list that gathers all these books that you wish to include in the
chronology. This can be done easily by using criteria like - Alternate series begins
with Hellboy.
x Open the smart list in the browser window by clicking it in the sidebar. Choose
the details view and group by Alternate Series. The chronology is ready to be read in
the order you desired!
Alternate Number
vs. Position
Many users like to sort their chronologies using the Position metadata field. As compared to the Alternate
number field for sorting the books, this has certain merits and demerits.
Using the Position field for sorting is helpful if you want one book in more than one lists, and thus cant
utilize the Alternate number field (which would obviously be different in different lists). Moreover, the posi-
tion field is also helpful when you wish to export your books to share them with your friends, or just wish
to backup the lists for yourself. On the other hand, using the Position field is more prone to sorting errors
resulting from accidental drags and drops.
Converting Alternate number to Position
u Here you can see a chronological list for Seven Soldiers, with a single v The positions will automatically get in sync with the Alternate number.
criterion of Alternate Series being Seven Soldiers. Note that the position This way you can be sure that the positions will always be correct. You will
is haphazard, while the Alternate Numbers are well in place. Once you are also save the hassle of dragging and dropping them into your desired posi-
satisfied with the order, just make a new custom list (empty), and drag all tions (replaced by a lesser hassle of putting up Alternate numbers).
the books into it.
Converting Position to Alternate numbers

An easy way of converting Position numbers to Alternate number is
by using the in-built Autonumber wizard script.
Select the desired books, and open the script. Choose the Number
Alternate Series option and enter the beginning number. All the
books will get their alternate number fields filled in the order of their
positions.
COLLECT EM ALL
How to manage your bookstore wishlist and purchases
If you are a regular buyer of comic books, you are quite likely to have a good amount of books on your
wishlist, a number of books currently on order from online bookstores, and a handsome number of books
and trades nicely stored on your bookshelves! How do you manage all this? If your answer is ComicRack,
what follows in this section can help you a lot. ComicRack has an excellent cataloging system for managing
and organizing fileless books. In this section, we will explore how we can (mis)use this to further our needs!
What we shall need is some tweaking of the metadata fields in the Catalog tab of the Info dialog. Here is a
quick look at how we plan to alter some of these:
Store
Price
Wishlist CW Date Wishlist month
ETA
Collection Status
ISBN
Pages
Date Purchased
Date Read
While we would use many fields for the purposes they are meant to be, some of them would need to be used
as described below (and in the forthcoming pages):
Store
Price
Owner: use this field as Wishlist CW Date - input a calender week styled date e.g. 2011 CW 25 June 23
Age: use this field as Purchase Month - input the month name preceded by the year e.g. 2011-06 June
Book Location: use this field as ETA - input estimated time of arrival e.g. 3-5 business days
ISBN
Pages
Date Purchased
Date Read
Collection Status
Notes: use for inputting the book details from the bookstore webpage
Bookstore Collections
The Collection Status field can be easily used to organize your purchased (and to-be purchased) books in the
following categories:
In Collection
Wishlist
On Order
Out of Stock
Choose the Thumbnails view, dont group and stack by Book Collection Status. Your fileless collection is now
organized by the Collection Status. You can see the total number of the books in each category below the
stacks. If you have forgotten to assign some books to a particular Collection Status , you will get them stacked
as Unspecified. You can clean-up your list by giving these books their collection status.
Bookstore Purchases
As we saw on the previous page, the Age field is (mis)used as the Purchase Month, where we input the month
name preceded by the year e.g. 2011-06 June. Grouping by this Age / Purchase Month field, we can have a
birds eye view of all our purchases, neatly arranged by the year & month of purchase. You can also view the
exact day when you bought the book by having the Book Owner field (masquerading as the purchase date).
Choose the Details view, and group by Age. Choose the metadata fields as shown in the screenshot above.
You can see at a glance all your book purchases.
Next book to buy
If you are a regular buyer of comics, there are many chances that you buy them every week. These may range
from recently released zero-days to old trades. Once you make up your mind as to which books you wish to
buy in the coming weeks, ComicRack can easily help you view the next book in your purchase list!
For our purposes, we can (mis)use the Owner field as the Wishlist CW Date. Here we will input a calender
week styled date in the format of Year-Calender week-Month name-Date (e.g. 2011 CW 25 June 23). This will
be the date when we would place an order for our desired book. Input Wishlist in the Collection Status field
Now, to pull these books, make a smart list with a single criteria: Book collection status is wishlist.
Group by Book Owner and dont stack.

Your next book to buy wishlist is ready.
Now you dont need to remember which
book you thought about buying last week,
and the coming week and the week next
to that. Every week as you order the book,
dont forget to change the Collection Sta-
tus field from Wishlist to On Order, and
when you finally get the book, to In Col-
lection.
Using HC (hardcover) or TPB (trade paper back) as the Title looks

quite nice in the Tiles view!
Book ETA
This is for completionists only. While placing an order for a book, various bookstores have a different esti-
mated time of arrival (ETA). How good it would be if we could organize our books by their ETA!
We can (mis)use the Book Location field as the ETA Date. Here we will input the estimated time of arrival
(e.g. 3-5 business days). This will be the date when we would place an order for our desired book. Input
Wishlist in the Collection Status field Now, to pull these books, make a smart list with a single criteria: Book
collection status is wishlist.
Choose the Details view, and group by

Book Location. Your wishlist is now orga-
nized by the ETA. Now you can see at a
glance which of your books would be de-
livered when.
Every week as you get your books, dont

forget to change the book location field to
wherever your books are kept, e.g. Book-
shelf.
RACK ON A MAC
How to install Windows on a Mac to run ComicRack
Writer: O.Ren
The Mac platform has a number of good comic readers/managers, but none of them come even close to
ComicRack. So, if you are a Mac user and still wish to enjoy ComicRack, heres how you can run Windows on
your Mac and use ComicRack to read and organize your digital comics.
What youll need
A fairly recent version of Mac OS, with around 20-25 GB of free space on the hard drive
A Windows installation DVD, or an image of a Windows disk (for example, an .ISO file)
A virtualization software (like VirtualBox , freely downloadable from www.virtualbox.org)
Install VirtualBox
Download VirtualBox, and install it like you would do any app. Virtualbox will create a virtual disk on which it
will install Windows. This virtual disk is in fact a file, that you will store on your Mac. Virtualbox will allow you
to use Windows through a simple app window.
1a 1b 1c
Click on the New icon in Virtual Box window if the Installation Wizard doesnt pop-up.
Pick a name for your virtual machine. Well go with Win7.
Choose the version of Windows you have a DVD or image of, and want to install.
Assign some of your memory (RAM) to your future Windows. Pick an amount greater than 512MB. How-
ever, keep in mind that this amount of memory you are giving Windows will be taken from your Macs
memory. Normally, 1GB is enough for ComicRack and a couple of other light things to run on Windows 7
Home.
Create Virtual Disc
On the next 2 screens, leave the default setting as is.

Next, pick Fixed Size for the storage details. Choose where to store your Windows virtual disk. By default,
the future Windows drive is set to 20GB.
On the next step, youll get a summary of your virtual disk setup.
If youre happy with it, click on Create and Virtualbox will create the virtual disk file on your Mac.
2a 2b 2c
Install Windows on
the virtual disc
Once Virtualbox is done creating your virtual disk, you will see it appear on the sidebar of the app. Go to
the Settings menu by clicking the yellow icon in Virtualbox. Then go to the Storage option. There, you
should have an empty CD/DVD line on the left side, under the IDE Controller Storage Tree. Select it, then
go to the right panel and click on the little CD icon. If you have a Windows DVD, insert it in your DVD
reader and select the DVD Reader in the dropdown list.
If you are using a DVD image file, pick the first choice, Choose a CD/DVD disk file and select your disk
image file through the Finder window that will pop-up. Once this is done, click OK to exit the Settings
window. Go back to the top bar of Virtual Box, and this time, click on the green arrow to launch your
Windows virtual machine.
3a 3b
The virtual machine will boot on the DVD or disk image file you assigned on the previous step. As almost all
the recent Windows CDs/DVDs are bootable, so it will right away start installing Windows from the disk/im-
age you used.
Just follow Windows installation steps

on the screen, and it will be installed
in a few minutes, depending on the
version of Windows you are using. It is
possible that Virtualbox reboots your
virtual machine after installing Win-
dows. Now you have Windows run-
ning on your Mac.
Setup Windows
Screen
5 Windows screen is displayed in a Virtualbox window, but by de-

fault its a very small window. To be able to resize your windows
screen, you have to install Virtualbox Guest Additions. Launch your
Windows machine by clicking on the green arrow. Select your Win-
dows screen, go to the Macs top menu bar, where you have the
Mac apple and the VirtualBox VM menu, and pick Devices. In the
drop down menu, choose Install Guest Additions. That will pop-up
a window in your Windows screen asking you if you want to run
VBoxWindowsAdditions.exe. Choose to run it and it will install it-
self. Once this is done, you will be able to resize the screen of your
Windows machine to your liking.
Install ComicRack
Go to your Windows virtual Machines screen, download the latest version of ComicRack, and install it by
double clicking on the .exe file. And thats it, youre done! You are now running ComicRack on your Mac
REVIEWS IN THE RACK

How to use ComicRack to add reviews to your comics
This section is only for people who like to read comic book reviews. ComicRack does an excellent job at let-
ting you input your ratings (and also viewing community ratings). After all, where do you get to input 0.1
incremental ratings! Still, some users (like your faithful editor) like to take it a step further and use it to enter
their own review. Unfortunately, ComicRack does not (yet) have a dedicated metadata field for this purpose.
You can always (mis)use some other field (that you do not use) for this purpose. Even a step further is adding
entire review pages to the CBZ/CBR archives. The next time you re-read your comic, you wont have to search
the web again for the review, as it will be available as just another comic page.
Add Review Pages

to ComicRack
Firstly, you need to have the webpage which has the review of your choice. Capture the page to an image file,
ready to be added to the comic book archive in the ComicRack library. Open the CBZ/CBR file with any archive
editor (like WinRar) of your choice. You can do this from within ComicRack using the Open with metascript.
Add the saved page to the comic book archive.
u Use any image/webpage-capturing application or browser extension v Save the webpage to your w Here is the Info dialog of the CBZ file to which we
to get the webpage that has the review of your choice. hard disc as a .JPG or .PNG file. would like to add our review.
x Open the CBZ file in WinRar. Use the Add button and y The review page has been now added to the z The review page shows up in
browse to the saved review page. Add this page to the archive. archive. Dont forget to mark the Page type as ComicRack as any other page in the
Other. This will come in handy later. CBZ/CBR file being read.
One-line Reviews
Ever feel like adding your own thoughts about a comic you just read? Well, since we do not have a metadata
field for that, you can (mis)use any field that you dont use to add your review.
Here you can see the reviews that have been entered in the ISBN field of the Catalog group of metadata.
The best way is to have simple one-line reviews, that can be viewed in the Details view, without the need for
opening the comic book.
Reviews Smart List
Now that you have added the reviews, you would surely wish to have all the reviewed books together, wont
you? If you have remembered to mark the review pages as other, your job is very easy.
u Use the tags field or (mis)use any existing field to add the Re- v Make a new smart list with any of these criteria: User script having books with
viewed tag for comic books to which you have added your one-line pages marked other, or the metadata field that contains the Reviewed tag.
reviews or review pages.
Now start organizing that book collection!
Solutions?
1. Specific fields for eBook management

2. Metadata field for Week
3. In-built duplicates manager
4. Metadata field for Story Arc
5. Better Catalog metadata fields
6. ComicRack iOS App
7. In-built zip file manager
Get all the manuals!
The ComicRack software has a manual for everyone! The Quick Introduction Manual introduces
you to the ComicRack software and makes you feel comfortable using and exploring it, the of-
ficial ComicRack Manual provides you with the complete know-how needed to fully understand
and enjoy ComicRack, and the Tips & Tricks Manual help you tweak the program to utilize it to
its full potential. All these manuals can be freely downloaded for personal use. So, be sure to
read them all for the perfect ComicRack experience!
Quick Introduction Manual The ComicRack Manual Tips & Tricks Manual
For the first-time user For all users For the advanced user
Pages: 19 Pages: 179 Pages: 28
Size: 2.3 MB Size: 37.5 MB Size: 7.4 MB
Please support us!

ComicRack is donation-ware. You are encouraged to donate a small amount to support this project and
keep it running. ComicRack has no functional limitation whatsoever if no donation is made. Hundreds of
hours of work have been put into ComicRack to make it the best, most versatile and simply the most fun
to use comic book reader and manager in the world. Starting out as a small fun project, it has evolved
into what you currently see, a multi-language application with its own web site and support forums. So
if you think ComicRack adds value to your life, give something back.
Answers found here!
The ComicRack team sure has been busy - there is barely a feature left
untouched in this monster of a software. Even the official ComicRack
manual now does not have enough space to fully justify the infinite
potential of this awesome software. The tips & tricks manual aims to
bridge that gap.
tips & tricks

Why I started the
The important stuff you ComicRack manual
series
never knew you should
have known
There was a time when users often com-
How to make chronologies with plained of the lack of a manual on Comi-
ComicRack cRack. Making the ComicRack manuals
was a challenge for me, a fun challenge.
How to manage zero-day comics I knew that people learn best when
with ComicRack information is engaging, clearly written,
and visually appealing. Unfortunately,
How to keep your ComicRack most manuals read like dry catalogs.
library well maintained This is why I started writing the manuals
on ComicRack. With this last one, I com-
How to use ComicRack for man- plete my trilogy of ComicRack manuals.
aging non-comic books
600WPMPO is the author of

the official ComicRack manual
(now in its 5th edition) and the
Quick Manual.
cYoSoft 2012

ComicRack Tips and Tricks (1st Ed) PDF

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ComicRack

tips & tricks

(mis)use = innovate + misuse

cYo soft 1st edition

1. Why only ComicRack? ..................................................05

WHY ONLY COMIC RACK?

From Robert Ludlam to

Once you group your eb-

So, you are a programmer,

ComicRack is the answer!

Chess lover? Need a way

Just bring all your chess

You can also simply group

THE ZERO DAY AFFAIR

Priming the comics

One of the easiest criterion for making a scrape me

You can add a number of excluding criteria for omitting

Now run the ComicVine Scraper

While the scraper fills in most of the

Make a smart list titled Add scanner tags

As you already know the importance* of

Make a smart list titled CBR Finder with

Select all the books pulled by this smart

u Input the zero day week date

To get this hierarchy in our ComicRack, we will smartly (mis)use a

v Make zero day smart lists

Make smart lists for each week as it comes, (mis)using

You can make as many smart lists as you wish, each

x Set browser views and layout

0 Day Weeks Group by Scan Information

CLEAN UP YOUR MESSES

The count errors smart list will look up your library

Missing issues are another source of frequent

The smart list needs to follow any of these 2 rules:

The smart list is best viewed in the browser in

Now you can easily find which comics are missing,

The GapInformation field in the details view

gap both before & after this issue

gap ends here

Many-a-times, we only have a single issue of a se-

To find such books, the easiest way is to make a

This would easily fetch you books which are soli-

A number of archives in your collection are just a

File Name contains cover only / variant: This

Everytime you need to wipe

The standard way

The standard ComicRack way of making chronologies

Veteran ComicRack team member Forkicks discovered

However, sorting by Published is not of much use

Prefixing the alternate series field

u Prefix the Alternate Series with a number, in

v Make a smart list that gathers all these books

w Open the smart list in the browser window by

w Open the smart list in the browser window by clicking it in the

Converting a folder-based chronology into an Alternate series chronology

v Input in the Alternate Series field:

Converting Position to Alternate numbers

Group by Book Owner and dont stack.

Using HC (hardcover) or TPB (trade paper back) as the Title looks

Choose the Details view, and group by

Every week as you get your books, dont

What youll need

Create Virtual Disc