Import Existing ComicRack Library

Information and Tutorials on features in Mylar and how to use it
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MIghtyThor460
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Import Existing ComicRack Library

Post by MIghtyThor460 »

First, let me explain my setup. I would manually DL files from CBT/32p into a 0-Day folder on my server. From there I would use ComicRack with ComicVine plugin to scan metadata and sort into my library folders. I am hoping to use Mylar to automate the DL side of things.

I have tried to get Mylar to scan my library and add series but I haven't had any luck so far. I can manually add a series and then manually ad the series directory to have it find existing files. Am I missing something that would allow me to just auto add my current library structure or do I need to redo the whole thing?

Folder Structure: Comics\Marvel\All-New X-Men (2013)
File Naming: All-New X-Men Vol.2013 #01 (January, 2013).cbr

Thanks for any help anyone can give!
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evilhero
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Re: Import Existing ComicRack Library

Post by evilhero »

Sorry about missing this post, for some reason I just blanked over it until now :(

Your folder structure looks ok - if anything Mylar might have a problem with the publication date being included in the filename (in your example, the '(January, 2013)'.The rest of the filename ('All-New X-Men Vol.2013 #01') should be able to get scanned in as it has the series title, volume label (which really helps when importing things) and issue number.

Mylar doesn't do an 'auto-add' perse - once you hit the 'Save & Scan' button on the Import a Directory page, Mylar scans in all the directories in a recursive manner gathering all the names of the files therein. Obviously if you have 1000+ comics, it's going to take a few minutes for it to scan them in. You can browse away from the page and do other stuff if you want. When the scan is completed, there will be an option/button on that page in the right hand side labelled 'Import Results Management' (this option is also always available from the Manage tab/Advanced Options/Import Results Management). Once you're in the Import Results Management, you're able to see what Mylar was able to scan in/group titles together etc and from this screen you can initiate the mass-import or do individual importing. If mylar can auto-add it, it will do it from here. If it can't, you'll see an option appear beside the title under the Options section labelled 'Select'. Clicking on this screen, will bring up the search results that Mylar has narrowed it down to. Pick the series that the file(s) belong to, and Mylar will import the series and flip back to the Import Results Management page so you can continue doing things.

The importer still needs a lot of work to get done, it does a very basic compare and groups like titles together. It does work, but it pretty much requires that your files have to be in a certain type of format for it be read properly (basically a Series Volume Issue (Year) kinda thing).

Coming in the next little while, is the ability for it to read in the metadata if it exists within the files, as well as being able to use the parent folder for additional information if required (for people that have a folder structure like : '/Comics/Marvel/Batman/v2/001.cbr' or something where just scanning in the filename is a pretty useless endeavour.

If you still have problems with the import, flip back a message with some logs showing what's going on (if there's errors post those too please), and I'll see what I can do to help you out.

As an aside, Mylar makes use of ComicTagger, which does the same sort of stuff that ComicVine Scraper does in a broad sense - the added benefit is that Mylar will use the actual ComicVine IssueID instead of just parsing the filename (since Mylar gets all the information from ComicVine already and when it downloads the issue it knows the IssueID already). So in essence, Mylar 'could' manage your entire collection - from downloading, to tagging, to sorting/moving it all without you having to do any manual intervention (usually). Just food for thought :)
Methanoid
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Re: Import Existing ComicRack Library

Post by Methanoid »

I found this thread when searching for threads that might help with problems I have had with importing....

Importing could also do with a little love. I've installed Mylar about 5 times now over the years and each time I found it to be unituitive (not a criticism of EH, as it was based on Headphones code if I recall??) - But we are where we are. But maybe some guidance? A manual or more detailed document along lines of HTPCbeginner's guides but covering more than just installation?
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evilhero
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Re: Import Existing ComicRack Library

Post by evilhero »

Methanoid wrote:I found this thread when searching for threads that might help with problems I have had with importing....

Importing could also do with a little love. I've installed Mylar about 5 times now over the years and each time I found it to be unituitive (not a criticism of EH, as it was based on Headphones code if I recall??) - But we are where we are. But maybe some guidance? A manual or more detailed document along lines of HTPCbeginner's guides but covering more than just installation?
Yeah the importer over the years has seen a little change, but it really hasn't changed from a coding aspect that much until late last year. The detailed documentation while I admit would be nice, is a very time consuming process to accomplish. That's primarily why I decided to leave the links on the github wiki page and some other places where people have been offering instructions for installing/etc.

I mean if this were a f/t job, then yes obviously the documentation would get done in the right way - or even if there were a 'team' of people working on Mylar. But there isn't - there's just me. I have my daily duties in life - which by luck or not depending on how you look at it - which don't involve a job, so I've had the luxury and ability to work on Mylar when under normal circumstances I wouldn't have been able to. But my personal life (keep in mind I have kids lol), coupled with troubleshooting, coding, and working through other things doesn't leave one much time to sit down and document items properly. I know the last thing I want to do at 2am is to document stuff, as that's the worst time of the day to do that stuff at as it's just going to be prone to corrections/errors.

That being said the recent dev commit that added meta-tagging within Mylar has been a long time coming. It's rough still yes, but it's a step in the right direction at least in regards to helping users import there items. I do plan on giving love to the importer, as with all things. I do plan on adding some other items within the importer hopefully in the next little while - such as being able to view the items within a 'series' that's to be imported, being able to selectively remove items from this import list in case something's wrong, changing the layout so that there's a history-type of page showing all the previous imports and then the main import page just containing the imports that have either failed or are still to be imported. Images of the series during import also, some colour coding of what's been imported vs. not for easier viewing, total sizes, etc...lots can be done and still needs to be done, and will eventually get done ;)
Methanoid
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Re: Import Existing ComicRack Library

Post by Methanoid »

Would it be "helpful" to let you know where there are typos on the interface? Dont want to seem ungrateful but I'm a little OCD about those things
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evilhero
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Re: Import Existing ComicRack Library

Post by evilhero »

It's all helpful - you have to remember that this is still just a hobby for me, and alot of the times I'm doing this stuff on very little sleep ;)

It's probably easier if you just start a new thread in here/github with the typos and I can fix them that way. I'm not sure if doing a pull request would be beneficial as typos are so small to actually fix it's easier just to edit the file and make the changes manually in most cases - as long as it's isn't like a hundred lol!
Methanoid
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Re: Import Existing ComicRack Library

Post by Methanoid »

evilhero wrote:It's all helpful - you have to remember that this is still just a hobby for me, and alot of the times I'm doing this stuff on very little sleep ;)

It's probably easier if you just start a new thread in here/github with the typos and I can fix them that way. I'm not sure if doing a pull request would be beneficial as typos are so small to actually fix it's easier just to edit the file and make the changes manually in most cases - as long as it's isn't like a hundred lol!
Hi

Back again, re-installed Windows after some time using unRAID for my server and again have issues with importing comics into Mylar... I'm on the stable release. Should I be on Dev to get something that works?

It keeps saying this but not actually importing anything OR allowing me to...

Number of valid files to process: 2585 / 7899
Files with ComicID's present: 2616
Files that were parsed: 7755
Files that couldn't be parsed: 0


EDIT: BAh, I disabled Auto Add and it identified MORE files and actually found my comics... That's intuitive!?!?!?!
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evilhero
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Re: Import Existing ComicRack Library

Post by evilhero »

[*]
Methanoid wrote: Hi

Back again, re-installed Windows after some time using unRAID for my server and again have issues with importing comics into Mylar... I'm on the stable release. Should I be on Dev to get something that works?

It keeps saying this but not actually importing anything OR allowing me to...

Number of valid files to process: 2585 / 7899
Files with ComicID's present: 2616
Files that were parsed: 7755
Files that couldn't be parsed: 0


EDIT: BAh, I disabled Auto Add and it identified MORE files and actually found my comics... That's intuitive!?!?!?!
It's saying that it was able to parse a bunch of files, but you have to wait for the scanner to actually complete (meaning it would say in the status that the scan is completed, and/or the Import Results Management button will appear in the lower right hand side).

I'm also pretty positive that the 'auto-add' option does absolutely nothing of merit in regards to the scanning (The variable gets stored, but it never gets used since the import process got reworked several times over the past year), so disabling it or enabling it wouldn't' affect the amount of comics scanned in - maybe you just needed to wait for the process to finish and thereby it was able to 'find' more comics?
CuddleBear
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Re: Import Existing ComicRack Library

Post by CuddleBear »

could i get some clearup on how the issue id and volume ids from comicvine can be imported with mylar?
the comicvine scraper already gets these entries in CR but CR does not save these in the xml file at all. could i say export those to the filename?
like volume for the folder and issue for the file?
or does mylar look for those custom fields in the xml file and i would need to figure out how to export those to that?
if so, could you point me in the right direction on how to do that?
already have all tagged perfectly fine in CR and i just want to be able to import everything easily im mylar so i can go over what i have and what im missing in my collection.

used CR and the scraper for ages but im quite new to mylar and im loving it!
just want everything to be smooth.
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evilhero
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Re: Import Existing ComicRack Library

Post by evilhero »

CuddleBear wrote:could i get some clearup on how the issue id and volume ids from comicvine can be imported with mylar?
the comicvine scraper already gets these entries in CR but CR does not save these in the xml file at all. could i say export those to the filename?
like volume for the folder and issue for the file?
or does mylar look for those custom fields in the xml file and i would need to figure out how to export those to that?
if so, could you point me in the right direction on how to do that?
already have all tagged perfectly fine in CR and i just want to be able to import everything easily im mylar so i can go over what i have and what im missing in my collection.

used CR and the scraper for ages but im quite new to mylar and im loving it!
just want everything to be smooth.
Actually CV Scraper saves the IssueID within the cbz file under the Notes tag. When you do a 'Scan Comic Library' option from the Manage tab within Mylar, make sure you enable the 'Use existing metadata' option to force Mylar to use the metatags available within the cbz file instead of relying on just how the file is named. Once Mylar has the issueID, it also has the additional information - and reverse looksup the IssueID to pull down the series by ComicID and then it figures out the volume label if it applies.

If happen to use the 'cvinfo' files - Mylar will also scan for them during this phase. If it finds any, any files located within the directory that has the given cvinfo file will be automatically assigned to be part of the series for the purpose of the scan/import. So if you're filenames are abit off, as long as you have the cvinfo file you can literally point Mylar to specific ComicID's and have it import that way.

Just keep in mind, that Mylar does not support TPB, GN's or Comps due to the nature of the naming conventions for issues. It might be able to add the series depending on how CV has it named, but checking for existing files and/or searching is going to cause problems and it will fail at some point during one of those phases.

If you're doing the import and you happen to come across any issues, just either start a fresh post on here in the Problems/Bugs section or start an issue on github. Either way, I can help out more (also full debug logs, saves time).
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