Manual Annuals/One-shots/Specials...

Information and Tutorials on features in Mylar and how to use it
Post Reply
User avatar
evilhero
Site Admin
Posts: 2883
Joined: Sat Apr 20, 2013 3:43 pm
Contact:

Manual Annuals/One-shots/Specials...

Post by evilhero »

This has been along awaited feature that I finally was able to implement in the last development commit (436edde0e338cf0f8716a5dbf12b01a0beb62d0f).

What this option allows for is better control over how annuals/specials and even one-shots are handled and organized. By enabling the 'annuals_on' option within the config.ini file (always shutdown Mylar when manually editing the config.ini), will distinguish how Mylar handles annuals.

When references below indicate an 'annual series', it means that an annual has it's own ComicID within Comicvine, and will have subsequent issues (and thereby IssueID's). Some annual series' have only one issue, whereas others have upwards of 20 (long-running series' obviously).

annuals_on = 1
Mylar will display annuals on the same page as the series (the comicdetails screen) at the bottom of the screen. Mylar will search, on it's own, for what it believes to be any annuals that belong to the main series and add them to the issue list accordingly. If you have annuals listed as individual series on your watchlist, you could possibly get duplicates as the individual series would have it's own directory and issue monitoring, while the series that the annual is tied to will have it's annuals located in the series directory with subsequent monitoring.(ie. /comics/Batman Annual (2011) vs /comics/Batman (2011) - this would result in duplicate comics as well as downloads, searches etc.
Image

Manually Adding
You can also add in annuals by utilizing the ComicID option at the bottom right of the screen and entering in the ComicID # from ComicVine (4050-<number>, where <number> is the volume id number). Using this option you can literally add any series you'd like, whether it's an annual, one-shots, graphic novels, or even other series. Keep in mind though that the purpose of this function is for annual usage - while the other items may add accordingly, I haven't a clue as to whether or not the searching would work as well (I haven't tested aside from being able to add at this point).
Image

Deletions
Once added, Mylar will track the series as requested and maintain the stats on the given page. If for some reason, you would like to delete the series from being a part of the bigger series you have the option to delete them from the series. Simply clicking on the 'x' beside the name will delete the given annuals from the series so they are no longer being tracked.
Keep in mind that if it's a series that was automatically selected by Mylar and added, deleting the series using this option will allow it to 'come back' on a Refresh of the series (given that annuals_on is enabled). Series that were 'manually added' via the ComicID option above won't 'come back' on a Refresh of the series.
Image

Multiple Annuals being tracked
As an aside, having more than one 'annual' series (ie. differing ComicID's) won't affect Mylar's ability to track them properly, however, the GUI atm doesn't distinguish the differences. You can see the screenshot below :

Image

As you can see, 2 different series are being tracked - the indestructible hulk annual, and the indestructible hulk special. The annual was 'auto-populated' by Mylar, the special was 'manually added' via the ComicID option. ATM, there is no way to distinguish which numbers go to which series aside from having previous knowledge - a future commit will have separate tables for each monitored series (or at the very least hovering over will display the series as to which the issue number is for).

annuals_on = 0
Mylar will NOT display annuals on the issues page, will not try to refresh the series data to include annuals. You still can however add manuals as their own series, so that they'll show up in your watchlist (the home page). Even if enabling the annuals_on option as above, you can still add in annuals as their own individual series - but there is no duplicate checking or the like, so you may get duplicate issues and/or unnecessary searching for issues already present.
Image
Post Reply