Feature Requests

[Pigumon]

Hi, I thought we should have a nice solid place to do feature requests.

I posted this on the old blog, but...

My biggest request so far is a manual "SORT" option. Maybe that's not the best word for it..

Basically you have a big event like... Marvel's current SECRET INVASION. An excerpt being:

Secret Invasion #3
Avengers: The Initiative #14
Captain Britain and MI:13 #2
Incredible Hercules #118
Marvel Spotlight: Secret Invasion
Mighty Avengers #15
Ms. Marvel #28
New Avengers #42
Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four #2
Secret Invasion: Runaways/Young Avengers #1
Secret Invasion: Who Do you Trust? One-Shot

ETC.

These are all different titles & series, yet they all form a single storyline. Currently you'd have to put 001 in the name of the first part of the story, then continue doing that, and that's just silly.

There should be a kind of "event" category and also a "sort" subcategory. I think it would be useful for older titles like Iron Man whose actual first issue is Tales of Suspense #39. This sold be sorted as #1 and the first issue of iron man would be 61. It would work well for comics that keep restarting.

I guess TAG could be use as and event name, but the sort option is still needed, or am I missing something?

What do you think?

[Jerome]

I, too, have been wondering about the development status of ComicBookLover, as it's getting close to a year since the app has been last updated.

I agree that CBL is the best comic reader/organizer out there for Mac users, but that a lot of attention still needs to be given to the app.

I think Simon had started development on an iPhone app, so maybe that's been taking up his time.

But, don't get me wrong, I am truly grateful for what we have in CBL. It's just that I get a little nervous when an app goes for a long time without being updated, which sometimes is an indication that development has been abandoned altogether (I've seen it before). I'm sure that's not the case here, though. :)

[Pigumon]

Yeah, I haven't heard anything from Simon, I didn't realize he was working on an iPhone app. Seeing as how we have a functional desktop version right now, I can see that an iPhone app would be a priority for him. It's like the gold rush, everyone is seeing big money in the iPhone (though few are actually making it).

I really don't see how well a 4" x 3" low res comic would be a good thing... oh but you can zoom in and out and not get the whole picture as intended with multitouch!! Change is good! Worse is better!! Anyway, I'm sure plenty will pay to find out for themselves!

I just hope we see some improvements over here.

[Jerome]

Yeah, I don't see much need to actually read comics on the iPhone, but I would really like to be able to carry my list of comics, organized in a neat way, around with me.

[Pigumon]

Ho HoooO! You may have thought up the next killer app for iPhone! I would love that! A database with cover pics. niiiiiiiiice.

[James Bellanca]

Just to add to the list... Here's my Top 4 requests:

1. Metadata saved with the file, embedded in the CBZ/CBR file.
2. iPhone version - let me sync a handful of comics with the iPhone to take with me, like a "playlist"
3. Ability to delete pages from the CBZ/CBR file from within CBL.
4. Ability for CBL to directly manage my library, just like iTunes or iPhoto. I drag into CBL, it copies files into it's structure, renames, etc., and keeps the whole thing managed.

Thanks for a great product!

[James Bellanca]

I forgot to add... multi-touch gestures. Two-finger swipe to change pages, pinch to zoom, etc.

[Untiens]

Metadata:

1) Embedding the metadata in the CBZ and CBR is being done by ComicRack on Windows. Use that format and you might be able to get a standard going. Plus, you'd be sure to have portability to at least one other platform. I bet we could get RadicalCodex on board with it too, then you'd have OS X/Linux/Windows support.

2) ComicRack also has tools for automatically filling in metadata. This is absolutely needed for CBL. Manually entering 30,000 comics worth of metadata is a pain in the rear. I like CBL, but it is useless as an organization tool because I have to manually enter all this data.

File Management:

Definitely need CBL to handle sorting my files for me. I don't even want to try to come up with a scheme to organize my mess. Besides, if I have to go to that trouble, why even use CBL, my comics would be neatly organized already.

I like a lot of the other suggestions too. As for the iPhone app, I hope that is not really a focus. Comiczeal already exists and does a great job for reading comics on the iPhone. It would be much better to build a partnership with ComicZeal than to recreate the wheel. Make it possible for CBL to export to the ComicZeal format and you'd have a great combo.

[Dan]

There should be a way to combine series or volumes in Grid view so you only see one cover (with a small badge indicating the number contained). I got the idea from Multiplex--the iTunes/ComicBookLover for dvds--where you can combine dvds into box sets. I'd love to have the same feature in ComicBookLover.