Peter R. Bickford
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Posts posted by Peter R. Bickford
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Bill: if you're still having trouble after downloading the latest build, it's likely an issue with your database. Note any error messages, and contact support on Monday at 408-266-6883 so we can set up a remote session to help you out.
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On the localhost message: I mistakenly pushed out a test build. Please download 2755 from Registrations and retry.
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I kind of like this as a tech gimmick (it scratches the geek side of my brain), and I might take it on as a side project at some time.
That said, it's almost certainly going to be one of the slowest and most unreliable ways to look up what you're looking for. A barcode search takes a second and is bang on for all comics with one; a title search (first couple of letters of the title, a second or two to choose the title, followed by a second or two to type the issue number (or scroll) is almost certain to be several times faster and more reliable than any image-related search.
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You'll still qualify for the upgrade price if you want to switch down to the Pro, so you're definitely feel free to go that route if you feel it'll serve your needs better.
Notes worth mentiioning (they always seem to come up in tech support!)
- Your archive version won't suddenly become a pro version--you do need to download the Pro software separately (and its subscription is different than the Pro's one--it'll run a year from the date of purchase).- The Pro version has almost all the same feature as the Archive (except no e-Commerce export, a few other esoteric things), but most notably, it won't download full-size covers (just thumbnails), and the range of publishers it'll download is far less (dozens of publishers vs. over 9,000 for the Archive Edition). If that works for you, downgrading to the Pro should work fine, but note that there are some important things in the Archive that won't be there in the Pro.
Best,
-Pete
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As far as 1990s polybagged stuff, I think Overstreet got it right in saying that the bag <> the comic. (and frankly, if you leave it on the comic, you won't have the comic decades sooner than if you remove it). The plastic used for the wraps is decidedly acidic, and will break down the comic over time. As such, there's no "bonus' for having the still-bagged version (and likely a grade difference if you didn't remove the bag!)
An important wrinkle, however, is the more recent idea of "blind bag" vs. "revealed" comics -- definitely a real thing, and it' s a simple matter of probabilities. E.g. a "blind bag" version of a series has a 1:1000 chance of being the "super-duper-ultra-rare 1:1000" copy. (same for 1:25, 1:50, or 1:anything variants)." but a "revealed" copy of any of these has a 100% chance of being that item. As such, it will trade for a wildly different value. (and you'll see the bagged version listed separately). -
I don't know that there's an clear way to get a better result here than choosing the option to "only show owned + regular issues" -- unfortunately, massive numbers of variants defeat any meaningful grouping of issues (which worked great back in the days when you could say, "I have issues 1-5, 7-10" but falls apart utterly when many titles don't even have "regular" issues.
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Try the current build, 1946, and submit a single correction first (to make sure it updates your date of last submission) before using the bulk submit.
I suspect the problem came in in that a content update will also change zillions of records, which would update their "last modified" dates. So when you do a submit all (which is submitting anything whose last modified date < the date/time of last submission), you'd essentially be submitting the content update as well(!).
In build 1946, downloading a content update also set the date of last submission to be right after the content update. This prevents the former problem, but note that any changes not submitted before downloading the content update will need to be submitted manually. -
Give this a shot--I think it might help you (download under My Account > Registrations)
Build 1893 up:- Increases the width of the "Marked" field slightly. If its header is too small, please respond with screen size/font magnification settings
- Adds a "Print Divider Labels" context menu item to the grid. Allows you to print multiple divider labels for any selected titles.
- Changes the behavior of the context menu commands for right-clicking on the display title at the top of the main page so that the "Print Divider Labels", "Print Price List" and "Price Issue Checklist" commands now (explicitly) print these for the currently displayed title. This lets you take a results list, e.g. after adding a bunch of items by barcode, select all the items in the list, then print divider labels for them.
- Fixes a potential problem with web authorization tokens timing out when downloading pictures/updating databases which may have caused issues when trying to update multiple databases/get the list of pictures to download
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Check your Programs and uninstall any older versions of ComicBase which might be around, then restart. If you're stuck, please give us a call at 408-266-6883 so we can help you out.
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The whole purpose of the item description field is to tell users why a certain issue has a particular designation. I.e., "Why is it called issue #3/A as opposed to just issue #3?"
I agree with the idea that when there's an "official" visible label for a variant, we should try to follow it whenever possible. If a cover is clearly labelled as "Cover C" (or heck, usually when it's even solicited that way by the distributor), that's what ComicBase will attempt to call it* (Asterisk here for when the publisher re-uses their own variant codes for different versions[!]). Unfortunately, we can't just call it "variant cover" or "artist variant" or the like, as there are typically several, if not dozens--we need to give them unique designations and explain the designation.
For over 20 years now, our preferred system has been to assign letter codes to each item, extending it in recent years with V27... V [infinity] when publishers go crazy enough to create more than 26 variants. Naturally, we'd love it if all the other guides followed our lead, but that's not the way thing have shaken out. That said, if publishers wanted to start visibly labelling their variants, it would be a great help to prevent confusion in the industry.
As for listing the ComicBase variant codes in item descriptions, it's simply restating the variant code visibly--it's not doing anything new, but it does make it easier for users who are simply scanning down the item descriptions to see which issue is which and why. Effectively--just like saying "2nd printing" when an item description is 1-2--all it's really doing is explaining the item number designation. which is the purpose of the item description field in the first place, -
Make sure you close all other apps and temporarily disable any security software that might interfere with installation. You might also want to try installing Crystal Reports' lates service pack here:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/v0fbhmhiq2xwbqut9vnji/CRRuntime_64bit_13_0_38.msi?rlkey=t2fsrlk5l74ugw6dsjn27x8n8&dl=1
Please call support at 408-266-6883 if you need more help. -
Some other tips:
1. Make sure you’ve got the latest version of ComicBase from My Account > Registrations. Download the latest to update.
2. Restart your machine (important)
3. Go to your %temp% folder and delete anything it lets you delete (anything in use is fine—just skip those files)
4. Make sure ComicBase is not running, then launch ComicBase and try saving to cloud again.
-Pete -
We've extended what "List only owned or regular items" does in this regard--if checked, it'll screen out any unowned newsstand issues on all relevant reports. Get the very latest build to see it in action.
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If you copy your database to a new machine, and don't also copy over your pictures, your database will likely mistakenly think it was larger pictures still available to it on that machine. To fix this, go to File > File Tools > Manage Pictures and Movies and reset the location of your pictures--this clears any stored picture references in your database.
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To all:
- This is a user-controllable setting. If you don't want to auto-match, just uncheck it at the bottom of the Updates dialog.
How it all works/why you might (rarely) get a false match:
- When an item is unknown, it looks for either:- A single exact match of the title in another media type which is in the "official" set. If so, it changes the media type.
- A single exact match of the barcode in a known title. This is limited to working with EAN+5 barcodes, not UPC barcodes (so we don't mistakenly map newsstand items to non-newsstand entries). Newsstand items are also explicitly excluded from auto-matching. When a magazine, etc. matches to what seems like a completely wrong title, this is likely what's happening. (And it's EXTREMELY rare!). For a mismatch to occur using this, it would need to (a) be an item which is unknown, and (b) have another wrong item in our dataset using the exact same barcode (!). If this ever happens, PLEASE submit the corrected item/barcode so we flush it out.
- A single, exact match of the item and title in another title that matches identically stripped of punctuation. (e.g. "Man From U.N.C.L.E." would match "Man from UNCLE".
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Build 2685 changes up the drag and drop behavior, let me know if this helps:
1. If you drag folders of items, it attempts to auto-match the title from the folder name and put the corresponding items in each (this is an old behavior, but little-known)
2. If you drag multiple items, it does not auto-rename at all. It's assuming that the items are named properly
3. If you drag a single item--if does not auto-rename if the corresponding item is in the grid. E.g., if I drag an item marked 3 (or 3-NS) into a grid which contains an item called #3 (or #3/NS), it leaves the original item name alone--regardless of what the original file was called.
4. If you drag a single item over where it's either a direct drag from a web browser, or a file whose name does not correspond to a given item in the grid, it renames it to match your drag targeted row.
5. And finally, you can always override and do manual renaming by holding down Alt when dragging.-Pete
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Give build 2217 a shot and let me know if you find it fixes it for you.
-Pete
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I'm afraid this one's likely insoluble given the current technical display framework (Windows Forms 4.8) and your hardware setup. Briefly, Windows has always struggled mightily to handle multiple resolutions and magnifications across different screens, and Windows Forms v4.8 does... a just sorta OK in most circumstances... job of handling it. If you want to see the whole thing to to heck in a handbasket, however, drag a form across multiple monitors with different magnifications. Wild things occur, and it's not within our capabilities to satisfactorily resolve them.
I know Microsoft keeps trying different techniques for addressing this (the current one is "per monitor dpi awareness v2", but until they crack it (or ComicBase migrates to an entirely different display architecture [don't hold your breath on the latter--it would break many of the components used by ComicBase]) try to limit your use to configurations with only one DPI scaling percentage.
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I don't have a firm opinion on pseudonyms, but my first inclination is to simply standardize Mr. Garcin as a map to Pascal Garcin (we have this facility now, and currently map some thousands of creator aliases to their official names).
For more colorful aliases, I think there's some utility for using the format of "Denny O'Neil (as Jim Dennis)" or alternately "Jim Dennis (Denny O'Neil)" -- either one would appear automatically in searches (albeit not necessarily in alphabetical order). That said, I'd love to hear others' opinions on this. Feels at the moment more like an editorial decision than a programming one...
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Support updated (queries to the old support@human-computing.com now automatically forwarded to the current address). Thanks for taking the time to point this one out!
-Pete
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Couple of ideas/guesses:
1. Are you installing to the default location, or to someplace special like a network file share? If so, it won't work: The drive the database is on has to have a drive letter (e.g. C:, not a UNC share name (e.g. \\MyFiles\...2. Try deleting your database file (it _SHOULD_ be at c:\ComicBase\ComicBase Databases and try installing again.
-Pete
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I'd suggest doing an Items > Mass Change and setting your Price to the Year 4 Value (it'll automatically account for grade when doing so). You can also do a Setup > Grading, double-click to edit and grade and click "Save" -- when closing you'll be asked if you want to reprice everything according to the current grades. Click Yes.
-Pete
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It's Anl 9 under Fantastic Four (Vol. 1). We'll try to insert a cross-reference to make it easier to locate in the future.
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The grid actually does that (throw out the change and revert to the previous value), with the trigger being values over 99 million. It's possible, of course, depending on your barcode that what you scanned didn't trigger that behavior.
ComicBase 2026 shuts down after launch at "checking books table"
in Tech Support
Posted
(Build 2756 is basically just there to make sure a similarly sleep-deprived me can never hit the wrong button again and push an internal test build into the distribution chain!)