Pardon me if this is an old topic, but my searches have found no threads, FAQs or Wiki entries addressing this question:

I have a huge library of comics stored in that most exotic of all formats: JPG files in descriptively-named folders. I can't find any way of making ComicRack view these. I can browse to a folder, but all I get is a blank in the page list.

Am I correct in concluding that this advanced Windows comic reader simply cannot view this most trivial Windows graphics format? Or is there some trick to it that my decades of PC experience have not adequately prepared me to unravel?

Fung0,

Compact your JPG's in zip and use Comicrack.
ComicRack isn't a image viewer, but the best Comic Reader the world.

Fung0,

Compact your JPG's in zip and use Comicrack.
ComicRack isn't a image viewer, but the best Comic Reader the world.

Thanks very much for your reply. I am most sincerely sorry there isn't a better solution. But I'm afraid the idea of putting JPGs in a Zip is laughable. I can't fathom why comic fans have opted to go this route - but a general lack of technical know-how must be a big part of it.

You actually use the word "compact"... Surely you must realize that Zip won't compress a JPG to any useful degree?? (If that even matters, now that terabytes are dirt cheap...)

Laboriously combining JPGs into (misnamed) Zip and RAR archives is a ludicrous waste of time (both CPU and human). It produces monolithic files that are more 'brittle' and more difficult to manage than the obvious folder structure supplied by all operating systems. And it apparently results in the creation of preposterous graphics viewers that can view JPGs inside a proprietary archive container, but can't view them when stored within the native filesystem of the OS. Hilarious!

Poof goes ComicRack off my system. I only hope .NET 4 isn't too hard to eradicate...

While your more "classical" approach is understandable, having scans zipped into a single file has certain advantages. First of all, the possibility to add metadata, and organize your library dynamically rather than simply moving folders and renaming individual pages. Metadata is used to filter, order, organize, create quick lists, etc Think of it as something like the IDtags in mp3 files - can you imagine the nightmare of organizing thousands of mp3s that have no tag, simply named track1.mp3, track2.mp3 and so on, and simply base everything on folder structure?

That's why zipped archives are usually preferred, easier to store/share/backup/maintain.

At least, that's my 2 cents.

Perhaps what you need is simply a good image viewer (give Faststone a shot - I use that for my images and it works a treat)

I see we're now in the realm of "Feature Requests." Great!

I also like your use of the term "classical" in this context. Sometimes the classics are best. On the other hand, I can't buy into your arguments in favor of archives. They are in no way easier to store, share, backup or maintain. Feel free to skip the following notes, but in the interest of 'cutting to the chase,' I'd like to be comprehensive.

Storing is no more efficient with archives - and efficiency doesn't really matter anyway, on today's hardware. Sharing is far more efficient via individual files. Download 19 pages of a 20 page comic, and you may only be missing an ad; grab 95% of a RAR file and you've got pure garbage. Also, single JPG files can be sampled; Zips cannot. Backup? It's a wash. No matter what approach you take, folders are just as easy to back up as bunches of archive files. (Which are undoubtedly IN folders.) Maintain? JPGs are just as easy. I use WhereIsIt to catalog all my comics, music, movies, software and documents. It has about ten times as much capability as I have actual time to exploit it. I never rename individual files, just folders. So again, no difference.

As far as metadata, my JPG photos have more EXIF data attached to them than I'll ever need. Secondly, my folder naming conventions (which are far from complex) give me more than enough information about their contents - magazine, issue, creator, quality level, and so forth. Thirdly, metadata can be stored in many ways - in data files in each folder, for example, or in a separate database. There are trade-offs either way, but no more so than with scanning metadata for individual archives. Again, no advantage for archives. (ComicRack uses a special feature of NTFS for some of its own metadata. Interesting, but probably a really bad idea. For one thing, it locks you out of other file systems. My comics server runs Linux... and we may all be headed that direction.)

Apart from all that, RAR and Zip are ill-adapted as mere container formats. They needlessly add a level of encoding over and above JPG itself. On top of which, RAR is proprietary, and should be avoided for that reason alone. (I noticed that ComicRack can't write to CBR because of the cost of licensing. So why support it at all?? The music community shifted painlessly enough from APE to FLAC for less reason than that, and is now facing far more painful transitions from MP3 to Ogg Vorbis, and x264 to WebM. Why get stuck?)

It is a shame that Microsoft's promised SQL-based file system got dropped from 'Longhorn.' But if and when something like that does arrive, you can bet it will enhance my library of JPGs-in-folders a lot more dramatically than your library of CBR and CBZ archives. There's also the long term to consider. JPG is a more entrenched format, and ten or twenty years from now, I'm going to have a lot easier time dealing with my aging library than you are with yours. (Even today, very few CBR/CBZ viewers are actively maintained.)

In short, CBR and CBZ offer no advantage, plenty of potential disadvantages. I suspect that the main reason these pseudo-formats exist is for uploading to systems that are no longer widely used, and, more importantly, to make users who really don't understand folders feel that things are somehow "more tidy." They're not... in both cases, you're looking at a bunch of blocks of data. Mine are encoded in a more standard, less complex way, and are more easily accessible to standard tools. That's the technological reality.

Well, it may just be me, but it seems that rather than discuss ComicRack, your idea is to criticize the use of cbr/cbz as opposed to folders containing images. Fair point, de gustibus - no point arguing over who prefers what.

What he said. While your points about file sizes and practicality etcetc are all very valid, the comics community distributes books in archives by an overwhelming majority. It's the standard, and that's what we use. Nobody's forcing you to use this free software, but I think you'll find if you actually use it it's like nothing else out there.

EDIT: And you probably don't intend to, but you're coming off as a little uncivil. Our discourse is friendly here and we're glad to discuss whatever concerns or thoughts you have. <3

Shinrai wrote:

Well said there..

Dear fung0, howsoever correct or incorrect you may be (that is not for me to judge), your views do not coincide with that of the majority of eComic readers. We get your point, and we are sorry to say that your request is unlikely to be incorporated in ComicRack.

fung0 wrote:

As for the fact that you could not find this topic discussed earlier, here is from our archives :

quidam wrote:

{Oo} wrote:

For one moment, just a moment, think if you are un-necessarily complicating things by using "JPG files in descriptively-named folders".. give the little cbz format a chance, and may be you won't dislike it that much..

All that said, your post was a good read. Not all people can express their viewpoints that clearly. Differences in opinion should not lead to any hard feelings. Here is hoping to seeing you more often on the forum.

I truly do admire the persistence of your beliefs. However...

First: this is definitely not a question of taste, but of technology. As I tried to explain, and won't try to reiterate. Of course, it's quite true that I am not discussing ComicRack... for the simple reason that it won't actually work with my extensive library of comics. Even so, I'm not insisting that it should... just pointing out why it should.

Second: yes, CBR/CBZ is "the standard" - in the relatively insignificant e-comics community. (Just don't give me that "we" stuff... I've been trading digital comics as long as anyone here.) Trouble is, there are today (charitably) a half-dozen active software projects that deal with CBR/CBZ. If (when) those fold up (and we all shift to Linux, or Windows 9-1/2), you're going to be looking at a huge library and no convenient way to access it. I've seen it happen too many times, both hardware and software: ARC (the original archive format); Iomega ZIP discs; PCX graphics; endless others. SHN (Shorten) audio, hugely popular in the live-concert trading community, recently petered out exactly because there were no longer any good tools for it. Yes, you can still decipher all those formats if you have to... but it can be an awful pain. So why go down that path?

Third: it's not a question of either/or. Even poor old CDisplay can manage CBR, CBZ and JPG. So it's not unreasonable to wonder why the far more elaborate and up-to-date ComicRack can't do the same.

Finally: if I'm being "uncivil," it's only to a file format, for heaven's sake. If you want to take that personally, you're not exactly doing your side of the argument any favors.

Anyway, I leave it in the lap of the developers. I'll check back in a few weeks, or months, and see if I should give ComicRack another shot. So long, and thanks for all the fiche...