Readling Lists

[Fabaderheld]

Hi,

First of all nice work! I really like the design, and clean UI.

I was wondering how the collections and reading list are populated? Couldn't figure it out myself.

Also regarding reading list, is it planned to support cbl files for reading lists?

thanks

Faba

[breenyoung]

Hey there,

Thanks for the kind words! Glad you're enjoying it! Yea I really have to get some more substantial documentation up. It's on my list to do. Going to try to get somethign more substantial up over the holiday break but here's the details to get you going!

Collections: Unordered lists of a similar theme (Example DC"s annuals one year that were 'Pulp Heroes', same theme but individual stories). Use metadata field SeriesGroup to create these

Reading Lists: Ordered lists used for multi title cross over events that spans many books (Example Crisis on Infinite Earths).
Use metadata fields AlternateSeries and AlternateNumber. Every issue should have the same value for 'AlternateSeries' while the AlternateNumber field will be an incresing number ordered in the way you would read the event.

Finally there is Story Arcs: Sequential issues within the same title that represent an arc within that title (Example: The Many Deaths of the Batman, spanning Batman vol 1 issues #433-435). For these use the same value in the metadata field StoryArc. Make sure the sequential issues all have the same value for this field.

RE: CBL lists. It's something I'm looking into as I know that facilitates making reading lists for people if they haven't tagged it at the file level.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Thanks again!

[breenyoung]

Just created this too! https://github.com/parker-server/parker/wiki#collections-reading-lists--story-arcs

[Fabaderheld]

Thanks for the extensive explanation. I tried to played around a bit but couldn't get story arcs to work. I re-scraped test files and the cbz file contains a ComicInfo.xml file with <StoryArc>Civil War</StoryArc> but cant see Civil War anywhere. Where should this show up? It's not in Collections nor Reading list and also the details page of the issue itself, there is no field Story Arc. Any Idea what I'm doing wrong?

thanks

[breenyoung]

No worries! So story arcs show up in the series that they've been linked to as story arcs are confined to a single series. So in my Wiki example (The Many Death of the Batman, issues #333-335) I tagged those 3 books with The Many Deaths of the Batman. Then on the Batman series page there is a Story Arc tab that will appear. I attached some pics.

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[Fabaderheld]

Got it thanks! Just out of curiosity how does this work with story arcs spanning multiple series, e.g. "Civil war"

Would it also make sense to have the story arcs visible on the issue page?

Thanks

Fabian

[breenyoung]

For things like Civil War which span multiple series you would use the Reading List functionality (filling out <AlternateSeries>Civil War<AlternateSeries> and <AlternateNumber>4</AlternateNumber> for example)

Putting some kind of indicator that an issue is part of a story arc on a comic detail page is something I will look into and see how it may fit! Thanks for the suggestion!

[Fabaderheld]

OK, this is was I was able to hack together

sadly now it broke the issue and it is regarded as a single issue volume facepalm

IF you still want I can open a PR for the change

[breenyoung]

Hmm I wouldnt expect story arc to be listed under a tag. Can you attach the ComicInfo.xml in question so I can take a look? Thanks!

[breenyoung]

Also here is a snippet from my ComicInfo.xml for my Batman example. I ommited some of the tags like pages for brevity. You can see my attribute near the bottom

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<ComicInfo>
  <Title>The Many Deaths of the Batman Pt.1</Title>
  <Series>Batman</Series>
  <Number>433</Number>
  <Count>716</Count>
  <Volume>1</Volume>
  <Summary>In "The Many Deaths Of The Batman, Chapter One: Period of Mourning", a silent tale depicts the effects of a shocking act against the caped crusader. Part 1 of 3</Summary>
  <Notes>Tagged with ComicTagger 1.5.5 using info from Comic Vine on 2024-01-11 19:36:22.  [Issue ID 31165]</Notes>
  <Year>1989</Year>
  <Month>5</Month>
  <Day>1</Day>
  <Writer>John Byrne</Writer>
  <Penciller>Jim Aparo</Penciller>
  <Inker>Mike Decarlo</Inker>
  <Colorist>Adrienne Roy</Colorist>
  <Letterer>John Costanza</Letterer>
  <CoverArtist>John Byrne</CoverArtist>
  <Editor>Dennis O'Neil, Dick Giordano</Editor>
  <Publisher>DC Comics</Publisher>
  <Web>https://comicvine.gamespot.com/batman-433-the-many-deaths-of-the-batman-pt1/4000-31165/</Web>
  <PageCount>23</PageCount>
  <Characters>Alfred Pennyworth, Batman, Dick Grayson, James Gordon, Penguin, Starfire, Two-Face</Characters>
  <Teams>Gotham City Police Department, Teen Titans</Teams>
  <Locations>Arkham Asylum, Batcave, Gotham City, Gotham General Hospital, Wayne Manor</Locations>
  <ScanInformation>(digital) (Minutemen-Faessla)</ScanInformation>
  <Pages>
.. omitted for brevity
  </Pages>
  <StoryArc>The Many Deaths of the Batman</StoryArc>
</ComicInfo>

[Fabaderheld]

I just added it somewhere as POC

here is the change master...Fabaderheld:parker:master

and here is the comicinfo

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<ComicInfo xmlns:xsi="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <Title>"Mr. Parker Goes to Washington, Part One"</Title>
  <Series>The Amazing Spider-Man</Series>
  <Number>529</Number>
  <Volume>2</Volume>
  <Summary>Clothes make the man. At least that's what Tony Stark seems to think. Transformed by his experiences during “The Other” saga, Peter Parker stands poised for the next chapter of his life. And to mark the occasion, Tony has got a very special present: a new Spider-Man costume that's certain to raise eyebrows!</Summary>
  <Notes>Tagged with MetronTagger-4.6.0 using info from Metron on 2025-12-22 17:28:31. [issue_id:17082]</Notes>
  <Year>2006</Year>
  <Month>4</Month>
  <Day>1</Day>
  <Writer>J. Michael Straczynski</Writer>
  <Penciller>Ron Garney</Penciller>
  <Inker>Bill Reinhold</Inker>
  <Colorist>Matt Milla</Colorist>
  <Letterer>Cory Petit</Letterer>
  <CoverArtist>Bryan Hitch</CoverArtist>
  <Editor>Axel Alonso, Joe Quesada, Michael O'Connor, Warren Simons</Editor>
  <Publisher>Marvel</Publisher>
  <Web>https://metron.cloud/issue/the-amazing-spider-man-1999-529/</Web>
  <PageCount>23</PageCount>
  <Characters>Iron Man, Mary Jane Watson, Spider-Man</Characters>
  <MainCharacterOrTeam>Carnage</MainCharacterOrTeam>
  <Tags>CVDB106921</Tags>
  <Pages>
  </Pages>
  <Genre>Super-Hero</Genre>
  <Format>Single Issue</Format>
  <StoryArc>Civil War</StoryArc>
  <AgeRating>Everyone</AgeRating>
</ComicInfo>⏎               

[breenyoung]

Thanks for the PR, and for uploading yoru ComicInfo.xml. Couple observations:

• < StoryArc > looks fine
• For your < Format > value I dont do anything special with that particular value, I use format to determine specials, annuals, TPB, etc
• I'm not currently doing anything (yet) with the < MainCharacterOrTeam > attribute
• I completely just assumed < Web > would normally be a ComicVine link and the UI reflects this. Completely forgot about Metron. I may have to write some logic into how I display the value of that attribute. Thanks for the reminder
• The < Tags > attribute doesn't seem to be part of the ComicInfo.xml specification (https://github.com/anansi-project/comicinfo/blob/main/schema/v2.0/ComicInfo.xsd). Maybe that's better suited for < Notes > (which I dont currently do anything with yet)

[Fabaderheld]

Sorry you lost me, which Attribute are you talking about? the Story Arc?

[breenyoung]

Sorry updated my previous comment. Git was strippping anythign i put between < > so I put spaces after them

[Fabaderheld]

Ok now I get it, thanks for the update.