My Daily Comics Plugin

Description
This is my first MediaPortal Plugin, it’s called “My Daily Comics”. It allows you to look at your favorite daily comic strips from within MediaPortal. You can easily add your own favorite comics from different sources ( my favorite source is http://www.ucomics.com ).

The comics are retrieved from different sources from the internet. The sources are specified in the “comics.xml” file in the main directory of MediaPortal. To add your own comic, just create a new element in the “comics.xml” file or post me the link and I’ll add it in future releases.

The plugin has two different approaches to retrieve the comic strip images from the internet:

a) direct link to image file

Preferred way but not always possible. If your comic’s filename is something like “ga20070307.gif”, then this is your way to go! Just replace the date values with the corresponing placeholders (see below).

<comic>
<name>Garfield</name>
<url>http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ga/[yyyy]/ga[yy][MM][dd].gif</url>
<enabled>true</enabled>
<banner>http://images.gocomics.com/images/gc1/comicHeader/hdr_ga.png</banner>
<language>eng</language>
<type>date</type>
<urltype>image</urltype>
</comic>
b) link to html file

If your comic’s filename does not contain any date value but the html file does, then this is your way to go! Just enter the url to the html file in the <url> tag and replace the date values with the corresponding placeholders (see below). In addition, you should define some details about the filename of the image (tags <startswith> and <endswith>).

<comic>
  <name>Peanuts</name>
  <url>http://comics.com/peanuts/[yyyy]-[MM]-[dd]/</url>
  <enabled>true</enabled>
  <banner>http://assets.comics.com/dyn/str_comic/00000/0000/000/69/69.logo.large.gif</banner>
  <language>eng</language>
  <type>date</type>
  <urltype>webpage</urltype>
  <startswith>http://assets.comics.com/dyn/str_strip/</startswith>
  <endswith>.gif</endswith>
</comic>
Screenshots

MyDailyComics Setup

MyDailyComics Setup

My Daily Comics Blue3

My Daily Comics Blue3

Download

Installation

Just unzip the content of the archive to your MediaPortal folder. So far, the skins Blue3, Blue3wide and Bleazle are supported.

Changelog

  • v 0.2.0 (2009-04-15)
    • added graphical setup
    • online comics.xml file to import
    • Blue3/wide support
    • runs with MediaPortal 1.0.1
  • v0.1.2 (2007-12-18)
    • compatible with MediaPortal 0.2.3
    • fixed some small problems
    • added comics Rocky and Hälge (both swedish), thx lillis_55
    • added comic Girls with Slingshots (eng, only today’s comic available), thx DogBoy1169
    • added NICHTLUSTIG (ger), thx Anthrax
    • added Wulffmorgenthaler (danish, only today’s comic available), thx Aduck
  • v0.1.1 (2007-03-08)
    • first release

Links

Future Plans

  • add MediaPortalInstaller (MPI) functionality
  • Add hover image
  • Allow sequentially numbered comics (like Girls with Slingshots)
  • Find a solution to handle huge gaps between “daily” comics (like nicht-lustig.de)
  • Add a slideshow functionality

15 Comments »

TimmyT on March 9th 2007

15 Responses to “My Daily Comics Plugin”

  1. Garry responded on 04 Jan 2008 at 3:23 am #

    Tried this with the MP version 0.2.3 and the latest SVN (dates 04/01/2008) and it does not work can not load plugin in the config section. I am happy to try a new version.

    Rgs

    Garry

  2. admin responded on 04 Jan 2008 at 10:45 am #

    Hi Garry
    My error-handling in this plugin is far from perfect… in fact there isn’t any at all.
    Now I’ve tested the plugin with the latest SVN and it works. The problem that you encounter could be that one of the comics defined in the xml doesn’t work properly and therefore my plugin crashes (I need to fix this sometimes in the future…). What you could try is this… remove all the comics from the xml except Garfield (I’m sure this one works) and start adding them one by one… until it crashes again – then you know which comic is somehow faulty.

    Greetings,
    TimmyT

  3. André responded on 09 Feb 2008 at 7:30 pm #

    thank you.
    here’s my suggestion:

    1.- please add Nemi:

    Nemi
    http://www.bt.no/template/ver1-0/gfx/cartoons/nemi/ddMMyy.gif
    http://multimedia.api.no/www.ba.no/archive/00114/NEMI_114500n.jpg
    1
    nor

    2: please autoindex Comic ID while parsing XML file, instead of having it entered into the file. Doing so would make it easier to change the order of comics.

  4. admin responded on 11 Feb 2008 at 10:05 am #

    Hi André
    Thanks for your suggestions. I will add the Nemi comic in the next release. The autoindex is indeed a nice feature. If I find the time, I will include it in the next release.
    Cheers,
    TimmyT

  5. Jim responded on 14 Feb 2008 at 7:51 pm #

    How about functionalitly for .cbr comic files?

  6. pjentti responded on 28 May 2008 at 10:03 pm #

    Looks COOL but is there comig version for MP 1.0 RC1?

  7. Marion responded on 07 Jun 2008 at 2:53 pm #

    Due Cuori e una Gatta
    http://www.shockdom.com/duecuorieunagatta/archives/date/yyyy/MM/dd
    http://www.shockdom.com/duecuorieunagatta/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/san_valentino_2008.jpg
    1
    ita
    http://www.shockdom.com/duecuorieunagatta/wp-content/uploads/
    _due_cuori_una_gatta.jpg

  8. TimmyT responded on 10 Jun 2008 at 8:51 am #

    Hi pjentti

    I actually haven’t had the time to test if this plugin works with version 1.0 RC1. I’m pretty busy right now, but I hope I’ll find the time in the next couple of days…

    Cheers,
    TimmyT

  9. catavolt responded on 13 Nov 2008 at 1:11 pm #

    Hi,

    wird dieses Plugin noch weiter entwickelt? Habe bemerkt, dass einige Comics nicht mehr angezeigt werden. Ein Update der Liste wäre wünschenswert.
    Übrigens funktioniert es immer noch sehr gut unter MP 1.0 RC3 und letzte SVNs.

    Grüsse!
    catavolt (MP Designer)

  10. TimmyT responded on 13 Nov 2008 at 2:19 pm #

    Hi catavolt,

    Leider hatte ich in den vergangenen Monaten nicht die Zeit gefunden, mich weiter um das Plugin zu kümmern… aber sobald die Lage ein wenig ruhiger wird werde ich die Liste von Comics überarbeiten. Danke für den Hinweis, dass unter RC3 noch alles läuft, das hatte ich noch nicht getestet. Stecke noch bei RC2 fest…

    Gruss TimmyT

  11. Zerb responded on 24 Feb 2009 at 10:05 am #

    Hallo,
    bin noch recht neu bei MediaPortal und deshalb erst kürzlich auf dieses GENIALE Plugin gestoßen.
    Ich verwende Version 1.0 und es läuft.
    Da ich nur ein sehr langsames Internet habe würde ich die Clips jedoch gerne auf derFestplatte speichern.
    Die einzelnen Bilder (hier Garfield) werden temporär im Ordner C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\All Users\Anwendungsdaten\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\thumbs gespeichert. Gibt es eine Möglichkeit diese dauerhaft zu speichern und bereits gelesene nicht erneut laden zu müssen?

    Gruß Zerb

  12. TimmyT responded on 25 Feb 2009 at 4:11 pm #

    Hallo Zerb

    Gehe ich richtig in der Annahme, dass du und MaddinM (vom MediaPortal Forum) ein- und derselbe sind? Wenn ja, dann hast du meine Antwort ja schon gelesen. Wenn nein, schau doch mal meinen post unter http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/plugins-47/my-daily-comics-plugin-20389/index4.html#post383638 an.

    Gruss TimmyT

  13. timmyt development » My Daily Comics v0.2.0 released responded on 16 Apr 2009 at 7:15 am #

    [...] more details, check out the detail page or the thread in the MediaPortal forum. You’ll find the download link there as [...]

  14. conny responded on 22 Sep 2009 at 2:32 pm #

    Could you please add support for .CBR files (scanned comics)

  15. convatec 22771 responded on 10 Mar 2011 at 11:52 pm #

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