Activities/Read SD Comics: Difference between revisions

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Why create an Activity that does the same thing as View Slides but with fewer features? The answer is simple: Read SD Comics does not read image archives in the Journal. Instead, the comic files are kept on an SD card or other external storage, and the Journal only stores a link to the comic file plus metadata like the page you left off on, title, description, etc.

If you own an XO laptop you should be able to see the advantage of this approach.

If you own an XO laptop you should be able to see the advantage of this approach. Every XO laptop has a place to insert an SD card. The slot is designed to make the card difficult to remove, so it is essentially internal storage. You can get a cheap SD card (or a micro SD with an adapter) and easily add up to 8 gigabytes of storage to your XO.

~~The interface to Read~~ SD ~~Comics is similar~~ to the ~~core Read activity~~, ~~which should not~~ be ~~surprising as~~ the ~~toolbar code was adapted from Read's toolbar~~. You can ~~use the up and down arrows or the game controller to move from page to page~~.

Unfortunately, the SD card isn't good for much because Sugar works with the Journal and the Journal uses internal storage only. Since internal storage has to hold the operating system, etc. you have only about 500 megabytes to hold your stuff. A long comic book can easily be over 60 megabytes you just can't store much of a collection in the Journal. You can, however, store lots of them on an SD card.

==~~= Slide Collections~~ on the Internet ===

The Journal Activity makes the SD card ''look'' like part of the Journal, but it is not. The files are listed in the reverse order of when they were created, not by when you last read them. You cannot rename the files. You can launch View Slides to read them, but when you are done you will get a "Keep Error" and the page you left off on will not be saved.

When you use Read SD Comics the experience is much better. If you start from the Activity ring you will be prompted to select a CBZ or Zip file using a standard file selection component. When you make your selection you'll see a preview of the first page of the comic. Click on the "Read Comic" button at the bottom of the screen, and the path to the file you selected will be stored in the Journal and your comic will be loaded for reading.

At this point you can treat the comic as if it actually is in the Journal rather than merely linked to it. You'll have all the advantages of a Journal entry without filling up the all too limited space the Journal on the XO provides.

The interface to Read SD Comics is similar to the core Read activity. You can use the up and down arrows or the game controller to move from page to page. Use plus and minus keys to zoom and unzoom the page.

The Activity should work on all versions of Sugar from .82 on up. On older versions of Sugar you'll see an old style toolbar instead of the one shown in the screen shots, but the available functions will be the same.

== Comic Books on the Internet ==

Some books at Project Gutenberg are already in a suitable format. Try downloading this file from [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21078 Project Gutenberg]. Look for the file format "Raw page images".

If you want to read some free comic books the Internet Archive has a bunch of them. Use [http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=comics%20cbr this query] to see a list of them. They are in the .cbr format, and will need to be converted to the .cbz (Zip) format to be used with ~~View Slides~~. The program Comix under Linux can do this conversion for you if you have the unrar utility installed, or you can simply unrar the .cbr file to get the images, then package the images in a zip file:

If you want to read some free comic books the Internet Archive has a bunch of them. Use [http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=comics%20cbr this query] to see a list of them. They are mostly in the .cbr format, and those will need to be converted to the .cbz (Zip) format to be used with this Activity. The program Comix under Linux can do this conversion for you if you have the unrar utility installed, or you can simply unrar the .cbr file to get the images, then package the images in a zip file:

unrar e LoneRangerDell100.cbr

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== Source ==

* http://git.sugarlabs.org/projects/~~viewslides~~

* http://git.sugarlabs.org/projects/read-sd-comics

* [http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/~~4039~~ Sugar Activity Library page]

* [http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4340/ Sugar Activity Library page]

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 Why create an Activity that does the same thing as View Slides but with fewer features?  The answer is simple: Read SD Comics does not read image archives in the Journal.  Instead, the comic files are kept on an SD card or other external storage, and the Journal only stores a link to the comic file plus metadata like the page you left off on, title, description, etc.
-If you own an XO laptop you should be able to see the advantage of this approach.
+If you own an XO laptop you should be able to see the advantage of this approach.  Every XO laptop has a place to insert an SD card.  The slot is designed to make the card difficult to remove, so it is essentially internal storage.  You can get a cheap SD card (or a micro SD with an adapter) and easily add up to 8 gigabytes of storage to your XO.
-The interface to Read SD Comics is similar to the core Read activity, which should not be surprising as the toolbar code was adapted from Read's toolbar. You can use the up and down arrows or the game controller to move from page to page.
+Unfortunately, the SD card isn't good for much because Sugar works with the Journal and the Journal uses internal storage only.  Since internal storage has to hold the operating system, etc. you have only about 500 megabytes to hold your stuff.  A long comic book can easily be over 60 megabytes you just can't store much of a collection in the Journal.  You can, however, store lots of them on an SD card.
-=== Slide Collections on the Internet ===
+The Journal Activity makes the SD card ''look'' like part of the Journal, but it is not.  The files are listed in the reverse order of when they were created, not by when you last read them.  You cannot rename the files.  You can launch View Slides to read them, but when you are done you will get a "Keep Error" and the page you left off on will not be saved.
+When you use Read SD Comics the experience is much better.  If you start from the Activity ring you will be prompted to select a CBZ or Zip file using a standard file selection component.  When you make your selection you'll see a preview of the first page of the comic.  Click on the "Read Comic" button at the bottom of the screen, and the path to the file you selected will be stored in the Journal and your comic will be loaded for reading.
+At this point you can treat the comic as if it actually is in the Journal rather than merely linked to it.  You'll have all the advantages of a Journal entry without filling up the all too limited space the Journal on the XO provides.
+The interface to Read SD Comics is similar to the core Read activity. You can use the up and down arrows or the game controller to move from page to page.  Use plus and minus keys to zoom and unzoom the page.
+The Activity should work on all versions of Sugar from .82 on up.  On older versions of Sugar you'll see an old style toolbar instead of the one shown in the screen shots, but the available functions will be the same.
+== Comic Books on the Internet ==
 Some books at Project Gutenberg are already in a suitable format.  Try downloading this file from [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21078 Project Gutenberg].  Look for the file format "Raw page images".
-If you want to read some free comic books the Internet Archive has a bunch of them.  Use [http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=comics%20cbr this query] to see a list of them.  They are in the .cbr format, and will need to be converted to the .cbz (Zip) format to be used with View Slides.  The program Comix under Linux can do this conversion for you if you have the unrar utility installed, or you can simply unrar the .cbr file to get the images, then package the images in a zip file:
+If you want to read some free comic books the Internet Archive has a bunch of them.  Use [http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=comics%20cbr this query] to see a list of them.  They are mostly in the .cbr format, and those will need to be converted to the .cbz (Zip) format to be used with this Activity.  The program Comix under Linux can do this conversion for you if you have the unrar utility installed, or you can simply unrar the .cbr file to get the images, then package the images in a zip file:
   unrar e LoneRangerDell100.cbr
@@ Line 29: / Line 39: @@
 == Source ==
-* http://git.sugarlabs.org/projects/viewslides
+* http://git.sugarlabs.org/projects/read-sd-comics
-* [http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4039 Sugar Activity Library page]
+* [http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4340/ Sugar Activity Library page]