Who likes manga?

You mean the hourglass? My first idea was to do that, but Manga is actually polling, you can do Wimp stuff at that point.

Respond to Enter/Leave and switch on the Hourglass with zero delay.

It was more intended as a quick visual confirmation that the checking is taking place. It only does this for the “beta track” checks, so it’ll simply not appear/not happen for a standard installation from !Store.

It would be great if the application fetchs the next page in background while you read one (and shows only the progress bar if there is still something to download when you go to the next page). Or a button to download all pages in cache before reading.

0.23S 2018/07/02

      Fixed small bug where trying to fetch manga info would pop up a
      status message about fetching an image, with "%d" for the chapter
      and page. This was because both of these functions used a message
      with the same tag. Oops!
      
      Manga now indicates if manga should be read right-to-left (this is
      the default) or left-to-right (for western origin manga and manhwa
      (from Korea)).
      
      Note - the index will need to rebuilt in order to note which manga
      are to be read left-to-right. This happens automatically once the
      file is older than 24 hours; you can force it by using Manga's
      icon bar menu to "View cache", and then deleting the file "mrindex",
      then quit and restart Manga...

      The beta-track version will identify itself as v0.23S as both were
      created at the same time with the same executable.

Managed to get this work in while no thunderstorms (a huge one crashed through earlier), so another Google Drive link because I’m switching everything off again:

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1pdXNjhHtD3qc6KS2tX-0hlXqrJWKAyaR

For those who prefer the “official release”, it’s on !Store. Both versions are identical save for a few minor changes in the !Run file (beta track looks for updates, Store release does not).

0.23S gives me an error window saying “Unable to connect socket (36) – cannot fetch file” whenever it tries to read from mangareader.net.

pi0, RO5.24, networking is up and running.

“Unable to connect socket (36) – cannot fetch file”

I’ll need to look into that. I got it a few times yesterday, but never when I was using the debug build to trace what was actually happening. :-/ The problem went away for the development of the read direction, so I wonder if it’s a server glitch or if they’re using some sort of CDN?

Try a little later. And, does it happen for all manga¹ or only some?

¹ A random choice, don’t expect anybody to test 5K titles! ;-)

Hmm… Isn’t errno 36 “EINPROGRESS”? It should be attempting to connect, and then waiting for select to return that the socket is connected (nonblocking). I wonder if it’s hitting the timeout? If there are no storms, I’ll have a rummage in the code this evening.

Okay, all that’s happening is the code is timing out and not giving the correct error message.

The timeouts are erratic and annoying as hell, yes. I noticed that the server identity now is “Cloudflare”, so yet again something different is happening. But how is Manga behaving differently to a browser when the stupid thing isn’t even answering the connection request?!
God I’d wish they’d stop ****ing around with things… :-/

Of course, I spent two hours trying to track down a complete system freeze (at the point of closing a file). Eventually discovered it was due to a file existing in the directory that wasn’t in the map. Of course, the filer does the logical thing and simply locks up the machine. :-/

On the bright side, I wrote some alternative code to spit the debug messages out to SerialUSB so I could trace activity on the PC to know exactly where it was crashing.

I decided that fixing it myself (formatting an SD and copying over all the good files) was going to be a PITA so I took the simple approach and finally got DiscKnight. Took an image of the SD (just in case) then ran it, fixed the problem.

Anyway – I’ve fixed the incorrect message but it basically means “nothing responded”, and no idea why. At a vague guess, maybe the CDN is doing something weird? Keep trying, it’ll get it eventually…

Try a little later. And, does it happen for all manga or only some?

All requests to mangareader.net (index file, individual manga info) fail with the same message.

The only working combination I’ve been able to get is with 0.21 mixed with the SecureG module from 0.22. That works fine but I would like to see the right-to-left or left-to-right flag, that can be very confusing!

The only working combination I’ve been able to get is with 0.21

That works reliably?

I’ll undo the nonblocking connection to HTTPS and see how that goes…

I guess I ought to be glad that Cloudflare have not done the bouncing balls “DDoS protection”, it’s some really weird JavaScript.

I’ll undo the nonblocking connection to HTTPS and see how that goes…

World of weird. That works fine. So… why does a non-blocking connect not, exactly? Oh well, I can play with it some other time. Right now we just want our manga, right? :-)

Version 0.24 now on my site (beta track) and also on !Store…

PS: I picked (at random) “Darker Than Black” for testing. Is anybody familiar with this? Specifically, is the entire thing drawn in blue ink?

That works reliably?

Yes, like a rock.

Just tried 0.24 and it works! YAY!!! Thank you!

Specifically, is the entire thing drawn in blue ink?

Humm, kinda looks that way… Looks so wierd!

You’re welcome. I can’t not have my Azumi fix. ;-)

I hear that! I’ve gotten sucked into one of those infinite rom-coms…

I hear that! I’ve gotten sucked into one of those infinite rom-coms…

Which?

Well, it’s been lightly drizzle and windy and way cooler today. So I was able to pick myself up, plonk myself in front of the computer, and get a bunch of work done on Manga to add new features…

0.25  2018/07/29

      Tweaked manga info parser to now correctly extracts the cover image
      path, so the cover images work again.
      
      Some tweaks to a few errant messages.
      
      Altered Templates to remove green slidey bar from the "busy"
      window. The SSL fetches don't return a content length in the
      header, so there's no way to know how much data is going to be
      received...
      
      Added a Settings window, with settings saved in Choices; instead
      of the -s parameter or the menu choices.
      -s is ignored. Menu choices no longer exist.
      
      Internally refactored the code to use the settings options instead
      of the two globals (autocentre and autoscale) that it used to use.

      Implemented a "What's new?" at start-up. Clicking on an entry will
      load that manga into the manga selection window, with the indicated
      chapter (if applicable) highlighted. Click "Go!" if you wish to
      begin reading.
      
      Added a "What's new?" entry to the iconbar menu, in case you don't
      want it during start-up.

      The settings window gives you the opportunity to participate in
      the beta track update checking. This is now the way to control if
      Manga looks for updates. The system variables no longer have any
      effect. Additionally, there is ONLY the ability to join the BETA
      track; checking for main updates has been obsoleted as Manga is
      now available from !Store, not my heyrick.co.uk site...

      Implemented a "Suggestions" menu entry in case you need some
      inspiration. Clicking on an entry will load that manga into the
      manga selection window. If the manga interests you, click "Go!" to
      begin reading. [it's mostly recycling the What's new? behaviour]

      Noticed that the older Ctrl-keypresses were still supported. As
      these were deprecated in v0.17 (February), they have now been
      removed.

If you’re on the Beta Track, it’ll notify you of an update. Otherwise, pop over to http://heyrick.ddns.net/manga/ and get v0.25 (top of the list) from there.

Which?

Usotsuki Lily

My house is having power issues :-( the circuit that powers all my computers has a short. I will download and try !manga0.25 when power is restored to my room.

Hmm. Bought some cheap DVDs (The East, Cypher, ATM, Dark Country, etc), wanted to see how they rated on IMDb to decide which to pick.

I keep getting lots of:

D’oh!
We’re sorry, something went wrong.
Please try again…wait…wait…yep, try reload/refresh now.
But if you are seeing this again, please report it here.
Please explain which page you were at and where on it that you clicked

The flaw in the plan is that the report link does the same thing.

I think I’ll watch Dark Country. It’s in 3D with the two colour glasses. That ought to be fun with a lowish resolution 7" screen. ;-)
And when it’s done, I can pretend to be Dr. Lawrence Jacoby (a reference that way predates millennials!).

Dr. Lawrence Jacoby (a reference that way predates millennials!).

I thought TP had some new lease of life in recent years. Discussions to Aldy

Goes by the name of Dr. Amp nowadays. We just moved to a cooler flat (yay!) unfortunately forgot to contact our internet provider in time, guess I’ll have to pick up a real book to satisfy any Manga needs for the coming weeks. Luckily I have plenty of paid work to do working on my own book project about a time traveling ballet dancer (sigh!).

had some new lease of life in recent years.

Yeah, it took a long time coming. Makes one wonder if there’s hope for a second season of Firefly…

Goes by the name of Dr. Amp nowadays.

No surprise people here caught the reference. We remember when there was no public internet and you had to dial into bulletin boards (private) or use JANET (educational); and when 2400 baud was epic-fast and most serial hardware flaked out much above 19200 baud… ;-)

It’s in 3D with the two colour glasses. That ought to be fun with a lowish resolution 7" screen. ;-)

The effects were actually okay once you got over the obvious colour disturbances and the fact that the red lens makes things ever so slightly fuzzy. As I’m left eye dominant, it was obvious to me. The 3D effects were okay, the plot…less so. :-/

Anyway, there’s a reason for this message. Welcome Manga v0.26!

0.26  2018/07/31

      What's new? and Suggestions listings now terminate the title with an
      ellipsis if the title is longer than the space allocated (which is
      now a little bit bigger than before).
      
      What's new? list will add an ellipsis if an entry has multiple new
      chapters.

      The suggestions list will now say how many chapters are available
      with each manga. Yes, Naruto is 700 and Bleach isn't far behind; but
      just wait until you see how many chapters One Piece has.
      If you pick these, you're in it for the long haul...
      
      History editor implemented. You can sort all of the entries either
      alphabetically, or by most recent (at the top). You can also delete
      the entry that you click over, and optionally remove associated files
      from the cache (this is recommended to avoid orphaning the files).
      
      Additional interactive help added.

Updates in the usual ways.

Oops… Forgot to update the version ID, so it thought it was v0.25.
Versions available as of now are fixed. ;-)

Power is finally restored to my room!

0.26 works great for me! Love the “What’s New”,“Suggestions” and “Settings” windows.

0.26 works great for me! Love the “What’s New”,“Suggestions” and “Settings” windows.

Good to hear. :-)

How would you like a big search window to help with discovering new manga?

0.27  2018/08/02

      Recycled that list-of-manga window yet again. This time for a fully
      blown search by title (or partial title) or by genre. You can use
      this to search for new manga to read.
      
      Protip: Leave the search phrase empty and use the genre choices to
      discover new manga. It's easy to search for tragic psychological
      horrors or gender-bender mecha (actually, I lie, nobody has written
      anything that fits the latter...yet?).

      If you don't happen to know your "Shônen" from your "Josei", the
      interactive help is for you.

Updates, you know where…

0.27 works great here! Search led me to “Hero Co. Ltd.” Which seems interesting…