How to add new comics

General Settings

Name

The comic's name. A directory with this name will be created within the library directory. Each strip will be stored in a file containing this name. The comic name must be unique.

Title

ACMEreader shows the titles of all comics on the left side.

Homepage

The URL to the comic's internet page. When you click on the home icon in the bottom line this URL will be opened.

Holidays

Use this field to specify when a comic strip isn't available. The field contains a comma separated list of date intervals. Here are some examples

Date shift

Many comics on the net are reruns (or "classics"). If a comic was first published 4 years ago, you can use the date shift fields to specify under which date a strip will be stored. In most cases the weekdays will be preserved. For example if today is Sunday, 8. April 2007 today's strip will be a sunday strip. In this case type "-208" in the "weeks" field (4 * 52 weeks). If the weekdays aren't preserved type "-4" in the "years" field.

Save duplicate strips

Deselect this checkbox if duplicate strips shouldn't be stored. ACMEreader can only identify exact copies as duplicates.

This option is particularly useful for comics with source type "relative index".

Source

The comic's source type tells AcmreReader how to download comic strips. The list contains many different types. Each type has it's own input fields. If you want to add a new comic look for the types "by date", "index" and "relative index".

Source "by date"

Select this source type if the comic strips URL contains date information.

URL pattern

This field contains the URL to the comic strip. It's actually a URL pattern. Everything between "{" and "}" will be replaced. These are possible replacements:

{<date pattern>}

Possible date patterns are documented in the SimpleDateFormat's Javadoc.

Example: "http://comic.site.com/{yyyy}/the-comic-{MM-dd}.jpg" results in "http://comic.site.com/2007/the-comic-04-08.jpg" (today is 8. April 2007).

{weekstart: <weekday> <date pattern>}

Calculates the start of the week date and formats this date with the given date pattern. A week starts at the given weekday (monday mo, tuesday tu, wednesday we, thursday th, friday fr, saturday sa, sunday su).

Example: The same or preceding sunday for 25. February 2006 is 19. Feburary 2006. "{weekstart: su MMdd}" results in "0219" (today is 25. February 2006).

{oneof: <space separated token list>}

Generates multiple results. Example: "http://url.{oneof: gif jpg}" results in "http://url.gif" and "http://url.jpg". ACMEreader will try to fetch the first URL. If this fails ACMEreader takes the next alternative, and so on.

Referer

Fill in a referer URL if one is needed.

Source "relative index"

Select this source type if the comic strips URL contains an index number (e.g. http://comicsite.com/comic/strip-1.jpg). The latest strip has always the same index number (say 1). The latest but one strip has the next index number (say 2), ...

Index

The start, end and delta of the index numbers. Example: start=1, end=20, delta=1.

URL pattern

This field contains the URL to the comic strip image or the comic strip html page. It's actually a URL pattern. Everything between "{" and "}" will be replaced. These are possible replacements (additional to the "URL pattern" in source type "by date"):

{%d}

The index number. Example: "http://comic.site.com/comic/strip-{%d}.jpg" results in "http://comic.site.com/comic/strip-1.jpg" (index start is 1).

{%02d}, {%03d}, etc.

Same as {%d} but with leading zeros: 02d: 01, 02, ...; 03d: 001, 002, ...

Picture pattern

Use this field if URL pattern points to a html page (and not to a strip file). The field contains a regular expression (see Class Pattern Javadoc). The regular expression must have one capturing group. The group's content is the URL part pointing to the strip image.

Picture prefix

The field's content will be put before the capturing group's content to form the absoute URL to the comic strip.

Example: If URL pattern points to a html page, picture pattern is "src="/(images/dynamic/news/images/.+?)" and picture prefix is "http://www.comicsite.com/". If ACMEreader finds in the html page's content the string "src="/images/dynamic/news/images/this-is/thestrip.jpg" the capturing's content will be "images/dynamic/news/images/this-is/thestrip.jpg". ACMEreader will then try to download the image "http://www.comicsite.com/images/dynamic/news/images/this-isthestrip.jpg".