14 posts tagged with "metron"

A user contacted me about adding Marvel Masterworks: The Uncanny X-Men series to Metron since we have recently added support for trade paperbacks/collected editions. I figured this would be useful exercise since it would show me what parts of the process could be improved to make it easier.

Currently, the process requires the editor to add all creators, characters, teams, etc. manually for the reprinted issues associate with the collection, much like a regular issue. One obvious way to simplify this is to automatically add any characters, team, story titles, etc. for the issues being reprinted. Currently, I've written an admin action to do this, but sometime in the future I need to expose this functionality so that anyone adding a Trade Paperback/Collection can save some time.

When I was creating Metron one of the choices I made was to add creators at an issue-level, and not at a story-level, since I wanted the process for adding an issue to be fairly simple. The downside to this approach is that adding information to a collection from an issue with multiple stories isn't really possible.😢

The Metron Project reached a milestone today by having 50,000 issues added to its database. I wish to give big thanks to everyone who has helped with the project. Thanks!

So, one of the new projects I've been working on in my spare time is a new comic book xml schema called MetronInfo.

Currently, most applications use ComicInfo which originated from the ComicRack application, but due to it's history this format has some limitations like:

• Poor handling of data. For example, cover date information that is split into separate integer types, instead of just using a date type.
• Limited types metadata stored. For example, when tagging a comic book archive with an application like ComicTagger it would be useful to know where the metadata information was retrieved from (i.e. Comic Vine, GCD, Metron, etc.) and the resources identification number.
• Lack of documentation. The Anansi Project is working on improving this, tho.

For now, the Anansi Project is working on documenting and extending (non-breaking changes) the ComicInfo schema, but in my opinion that time spent would be better spent on creating a new format not tied to a dead application. Due to the fairly unstructured nature of comic book archives it's trivial to tag one with the existing ComicInfo format and also a new format. That way users who use applications that only support ComicInfo.xml can still use them, but also gives them the option to use applications that could support the MetronInfo format.

My goals for MetronInfo.xml are:

• Fix some of the deficiencies of the ComicInfo format.
• Add information to make it easier for Plex-like application to identify data (series, character, etc/) when importing comics into their application.
• Document the elements clearly so their use is not ambiguous.

Currently I'm working right now on finalizing the new format, and would appreciate any help or feedback from the comic book community in this. Feel free to leave suggestions either at the Discussions Page or contact use over on Matrix.

Once the new format is finalized I plan on writing a tool that will create a MetronInfo.xml file for any existing comic book archive that was tagged with ComicTagger or Metron-Tagger, and also retrieve any missing data from the source of information (Metron or Comic Vine).

Welcome to the Metron Project! We'll be using this site to add some documentation and information about new project initiatives here. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us on Matrix.