Fred Slota

New version, old problem. v25.6.3.4625 The text appears to flicker between "Downloading xxx/yyyy" and Downloading new comic book cover images: xxx/yyyy" while the progress bar stutters between two different progressions with the two messages. Also, this time, it looks like it downloaded pictures in two passes, 220 at first, then a scan of all issues before downloading an additional 1990. Oh, and I'm noticing the same stuttering and alternating texts while getting magazine covers.

And somehow, we're back to square one, and still running the same v25.6.3.4624. Downloaded 2,042 new cover images, the text is flickering between two messages, and the progress bar is stuttering between two different levels, one that was more visible, that gradually grew to about 10%, and a second that made brief, flickering appearances, that gradually grew to about 20%? When it switched to downloading 19 magazine covers, I think that one flickered between two levels, but one of the two managed to grow to 100%.

Making some progress... v25.6.3.4624 The progress bar progresses, but in downloading from 0 to 232 images, the progress bar smoothly progressed from 0 to 50%, then jumped straight to 100% when all done. Also, the text message kept flickering, I think alternating between two different progress messages.

These appear to have migrated from "Harley Quinn (4th Series)"

Was planning on throwing this musing in a separate thread, but since you brought it up... 9 taxonomic levels? I think there should be more. The current concept of "Title" should be a composite like "Item", and built out of several sub fields that represent several other levels. Title, Attribution, Subtitle, SubTitle2, Sequence, Sequence2 Consider the following: Avengers "Avengers (Panini)" or "Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis" or "Doctor Who (Grant Morrison's...)" "Avengers Assemble" or "Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes" "Avengers Assemble" or "Avengers Assemble: Living Legends" "Avengers" or "Avengers (Vol. 2)" or "Avengers (5th Series)" or "Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor" or "Robin II" Sequence fields would need two pieces, one the numeric and the other the Wording/style. This would allow the typical sequential interleaving of Volume vs. Series, Roman Numeral, Doctor Numbers, etc. This arrangement would allow the aggregating and sub-totaling of, say, all 9 Series/Volumes of "Avengers" as one combined entity. This arrangement would allow the same mangling of subtitles as with titles. Instead of "3 Geeks, The: The Geeksville Years", you could have "3 Geeks, The: Geeksville Years, The", for better alphabetizing in subtitles. Add a pair of "Legacy Title" and "Legacy Number" fields, and you can see a combined mega-title listing of complete issue sequence.

My first thought was to do a data rebuild (my second was to change the abbreviation spelling back). The data rebuild brought the item back, so I can delete it.

Silly me, I thought he was referring to coverprice, the comicbase field, not realizing there was such a thing as covrprice.com. The conversation makes much more sense now.

I have several custom variations. I have several items in my collection that use the custom variations. I had a need to change the spelling of the abbreviation of one of my variations. The single entry that was using that variation is no longer visible in the grid of issues in that title. However, when I export an Issue Checklist, that entry with the original spelling of the variation abbreviation still exists and is being exported. I have not done anything to reverse the process and reappear the entry; I will report again after. I just wanted to mention this scenario.

Last week, I don't think it downloaded any covers. This week, upgraded to v25.6.3.4511 and the progress bar for cover downloads was non-flickering and progressed. Thank you.

As I said at the beginning, ComicBase show both too much, and at the same time, not enough, information. When looking at a grid of entries in a Title, I can see all of the information about all oft the entries. I can scroll through, and scrutinize every entry, and find that there are 41 regular issues, and find that I own a form of 38 out of 41 issues, and then find the 3 that I'm missing, and select "Wanted" on a particular variant-printing-condition for each one. ComicBase shows too much. I don't always need to see all 132 entries, every variant, every printing, every condition. Sometimes I'm only interested in knowing information broken down to the level of the individual number. ComicBase show not enough information. Wouldn't it be nice to know that in Marvel X-Men (3rd Series), you own a form of 38 out of 41 issues, that with 3 more you would have the complete run?

You could change the filters and the scopes, to look at any slice and at any level of detail. You could select a line and move the filter to deeper levels, expanding lower levels as you go. For example, in the above, you could select the line #2 - 1 copy across 1 of 4 entries (25%), 1 of 3 variants (33%), 1 of 2 printing (50%) And now you're in a grid focused on Marvel, X-Men (3rd Series), #12 and you are looking at lines like: #2 - 1 copy across 1 of 2 entries (50%), 1 of 1 variant (100%), 1 of 2 printings (50%) #2/NS - 0 copies across 0 of 1 entries (0%), 0 if 1 variants (0%), 0 of 1 printing (0%) #2/A - 0 copies across 0 of 1 entries (0%), 0 if 1 variants (0%), 0 of 1 printing (0%)

I envision a presentation that fully uses this hierarchy. From the top end, you could narrow or filter down the higher levels. And from the bottom end, you could roll up and consolidate the lower levels. Start with a Master Grid - all ComicBook items (in batches, there's what, over a million entries), and showing columns for all the Levels. For each level from the top down, you can select one, some or all. Publisher, you're presented with a list of the Publishers. Title, you're presented with a list of all Titles from the currently selected Publisher(s). Type, you're presented with a list... And for each level from the bottom up, you can select how many levels to consolidate. Show down to Entries, and the Master Grid would look similar to now, with all of the current fields available, and quantity being "n copies of this form of P-T-Anl #1/A-2-VG". Show down to Condition, and it aggregates with one line now showing "n copies of this P-T-Anl #1/A-2 VG across 3 entries" Show down to Print and it aggregates with one line now showing "n copies of this P-T Anl #1/A-2, across 3 Grades and 7 entries". Picture this, you've got the left side filtered to Marvel, X-Men (3rd Series), and the right side set to consolidate to Number. Your grid would have 50 entries, with information in columns like: #1 - 4 copies across 2 of 9 entries (22%), 2 of 8 variants (25%), 1 of 2 printing (50%) #2 - 1 copy across 1 of 4 entries (25%), 1 of 3 variants (33%), 1 of 2 printing (50%) ... #41 - 1 copy across 1 of 3 entries (33%), 1 of 3 variants (33%), 1 of 1 printing (100%) Bk #1 - etc. Bk #2 - etc. ... Bk #8 - etc. GS #1 - etc. And, you would have overall statistics telling you something like: In X-Men (3rd Series): You own 38 of 41 (92.7%) regular issues, across 112 of 132 entries (xxx%), xxx of xxx variants (xx%), xx of xx printings (xx%). You won 35 of 41 (85.4%) regular issue, first variation, any print, any grade copies. You own 28 of 41 (68.3%) regular issue, first variation, first print, any grade copies. You own 27 of 41 (65.9%) regular issue, first variation, first print, NM or better copies. You own 4 of 8 (50.0%) Books, across 5 of 13 entries (xx%), xxx of xxx variants (xx%), xx of xx printings (xx%) etc.

(Note: this is mostly described from the point of view of ComicBooks; the concepts are parallel with, but not identical to, Books and Magazines) ComicBase show both too much, and at the same time, not enough, information. How many levels are there to the ComicBase data structure? What is the range of data presentation depth? ComicBase pretends to have 9 taxonomic levels of classification. Functionally it has closer to 5. And really, it only cares about and provide a full presentation of 2 in the interface, 3 or 4 in reports. By my reckoning, the taxonomic levels CB has are: Media, Publisher, Title, Type, Number, Variant, Print, Condition, Entry, and Copy. Let's ignore Media. Publisher. Data Entry and Presentation treats this as an unfiltered, unlisted Title field. There is a Publisher table, but Data Entry does not select from the list. There are reports that aggregate by Publisher. Title is the primary-focused top-level layer. Type, Number, Variant, Print. Data entry, these fields are treated separately. Type and Variation are controlled lists, with user customization of the lists available. However, basically every presentation, function and report treat these four fields as a single, combined Item #, as in Anl #1/A-2. Condition. You can make separate entries Item by Condition, differentiating between owning both Anl #1/A-2 NM and Anl #1/A-2 VG. Entry. You can make duplicate entries for multiple instances of a item of condition, so maybe two entries for Anl #1/A-2 VG. I believe this is ultimately an individual user distinction, maybe for tracking different explanations for the same condition. I picture someone using the Notes or Custom Fields to record "Torn cover", vs "crayon marks" vs. "Signed by Joe Smith" vs. "Signed by Mike Jones". Copy. After all that descriptive information differentiating one Entry from another, you can then have one last level of I have 2 copies of Anl #1/A-2 NM "Signed by Joe Smith".

IMHO, if an indicia can be interpreted as (Title) (Type) (Number), then that's how it should be entered and not as a regular issue #Number of title "(Title) (Type)". Less preferable but with precedent would be (Type) #Number of "(Title) (Type)" Ultimately, (Type) should be used as a Type, and not disappear into the Title. Similarly, an indicia like (Title) (Year) (Type) 1 should probably be entered as (Type) #Year of title "(Title)", and probably not Type #1 of title "(Title) (Year)"

Not sure how they would have gotten into my system. I don't own any DF variants, nor Conserva-Cat. So, I can safely NM them...