Comic-BOOKpedia?

[DonnyV]

That is great news. Thank you for the offer to share your database. Do you have any plans for an API in the future?

After reading these threads I'v realized its something people want. So its been added to our feature list.
http://comicsinventory.uservoice.com/pa ... ?ref=title

This would be a good time to talk about how you would use this and you would have influence over the design.

[Alansmithee]

Donny, Please work with Connor! The have such a great system set up for Mac. With such a need out there you guys would be great together! I think it better to catalog with my computer then have to go online to look at my inventory.

One of the element to get after we set this up is a update on the catalogs.
Current values for Insurance, and for a buy/sell site.

Getting excited again!
Steven E. Simon

[Alansmithee]

Hey guys? News on this front? I really really don't want to buy Parallels and windows! I would rather give you the money.

[Conor]

The next version will have fields to accommodate comics, we are are still working on the data sources. I'll post when there is a beta available.

[Alansmithee]

Heya Connor thank you for the update. Here is me still looking out and posting on comiccollectorlive site to work with you. There are a couple of more sites that have popped up since I have been looking that have new Database's, but none that look as promising as this. The main one I think is Comic Base, but every time I ask them about a mac version they get verstinkity and say run windows on your mac, really!

http://www.comiccollectorlive.com/Forum ... 606#477606

About a Mac software. There is a great program called Bookpedia from Bruji.com and all they need is a database. I know it is hard for people to work together, but sharing a large pie is better then not getting any pie.

Or think about it this way, if you guys got together, you can spend more time doing what you do well and work on this site while they get the headaches of dealing with such an Awesome!.... I mean hard to work with system like Mac OS.

Here is the forum for this same discussion there:

Bookpedia forum link

Please, Please, Please.

Hope that helps

P.S. soooo going back to the old posts, I see I am being redundant, or some might say tenacious kinda like a dog oh well. Just goes to show that I care'ish.

[Conor]

Thanks for putting in a good word for us. There seems to be a strong competition growing on the comic database market, but most of them have remained closed. Mostly due to the fact that it does take quite some effort to offer a stable and open API. I been greatly impressed with all the work that The Open Movie Database has put into their API and the site has really taken off due to the API and all the digital media organizers. Of course comics are not as popular as digital movies, but I think the market is ready for a collaborative open comic database.

[jenv]

The next version will have fields to accommodate comics, we are are still working on the data sources. I'll post when there is a beta available.

Will this be fairly general to accomodate magazines too? Like comics, magazines have:

1) An ISSN rather than an ISBN or UPC
2) A series designation that's basically a base year (Starlog 1976)
3) A few different ways to designate an issue

3a) Straight issue number (Batman 235, Starlog 52). Such magazines often, but not always, also have a Regular Monthly designation.

3b) Volume and Issue (Volume 3 Issue 10). Femme Fatales and Racecar Engineering designate issues this way.

3c) Regular Monthly (May 2006) which can be accomodated by the current Release field (I'd put "May 01 2006" in Release for my comics), though by strict technical definition Day doesn't matter for comics and magazines.

3d) Bimonthly (Jan-Feb 1993, Oct-Nov 2001) which Release can't handle. As a workaround I've taken to putting "Feb 01 1993" and "Nov 01 2001" in Release instead, as that seems to be the bibliographic standard in use by the databases I've seen.

3e) Quarterly/Seasonal (Winter 2004, Spring 2007), which Release also can't handle. Do note, though, that publishing standards place "Winter" in January, not December, so for sorting purposes a quarterly/seasonal release is sorted "Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall" within a given year. As a workaround I've taken to putting "Winter 2004" in Comments, and "Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct 01 2004" in Release just to get sorting to work, though that's less than ideal.

3f) Weekly. As far as I know never used by comics, generally reserved for gossip magazines like People and National Enquirer.

3f) Annual, Semi-Annual, and Semi-Monthly. These are usually addenda to regularly published titles rather than titles on their own. I have a couple of titles with both a "January" and a "Mid-January" issue, for example. You can work around this with "Jan 01" and "Jan 15" dates in Release. The other two are probably best punted. Annuals need not be published at the end of a year, after a year's worth of issues, or even 12 months apart from each other.

[creedpatton]

Hi

I've been a faithful user of Bookpedia and DVDpedia for quite a while now and have been waiting for a very, very long time for Bruji to release a comic book pedia. Connor's, your last post indicates that you've decided to add comic book fields to Bookpedia - and I applaud you for not making us spend more money on a separate program,but please make the experience as complete as possible.

You might want to check out this comic book database API - http://api.comicvine.com/
It's growing fast and good things are being said about it.

I can barely wait for the next version of Bookpedia with these features included, but please do it quickly as I don't want to further contemplate buying Collectorz Comics (if their other Mac versions are anything to go by, it isn't in the same grade of usability as a Bruji produvt).

Thanks

[Conor]

Thank you for the link, we will be sure to let you know about the beta version of Bookpedia, so you can help us test the Comic additions.

[MACrisci]

I am excited! I can't wait to be able to add all my partner's comic books to our book database.

[FrozenTrout]

I just came across the comicvine API link, and was going to post it here but it looks like somebody beat me to it! Good to hear comic support is on the way, whichever database(s) it uses.

Also, reading the comics.org FAQ, it says you can download dumps of the database for personal use. Would you be able to download the database to your hard drive, and use a search plugin for Bookpedia to search that? I haven't looked into the plugin system much to know if it's even technically possible, but if it is I might try my hand at that...

[Conor]

There is very little a plug-in can't do as they are written in Objective-C and have access to all the things a Mac program would be able to do. The plug-ins get sent the search term and they return an NSDictionary (which is a structure that groups values under given keys, for example that under the key "title" would be what Bookpedia makes the title). The complex part comes in reading the dump from comics.org, the ease of programming will depend on the format.

[Alansmithee]

Hello Conor, I was checking in again to see what the progress was. I also wanted to let you know that I think you might be able to get the Database from the comic peeps themselves, Like DC/Marvel and some of the indies. My Friends at Aspen Comics use a database to keep track of their books and I can get you their info if you want to give it a test run.

Waiting Patiently'ish for Comic-Bookpedia.
Steve

[Conor]

Hi Steve,

Thank you for the information. We are excited about the possibilities for the next version and are actually now running it on our own machines. Still figuring out some technical details and then it will be on to the beta testing and time to actually start getting input on how to improve the whole comic aspect. Thank you for being so patient while all this work is going on.

[jaireaux]

Just wanted to throw in my support for this thread. I would prefer (and pay for) a separate app for comics, but a plug-in for BookPedia would be a welcome addition.