Usage
This page describes in detail, all the features supported by this app. This page is intended for those who are using this app for the first time or exiting users who want to explore this app further.
If you have any issues, before filing an issue against us, please take a look at our Usage FAQs wiki page. Only in case you can not find an answer in this wiki, go ahead and file an issue.
We support all versions of android OS version 2.1 and above. In case you are seeing any issues please file an issue against us at here.
When you open this app for the first time, you'll be greeted with a message like the one shown below. This just our way of reaching out for your help to keep ComicReader running! If it is possible, you are more than welcome to help us out in any way you can or you can just ignore this message.
Then the next is an actual welcome message which is mainly intended for the first time users. The screen would look like the one shown below.
Once you are past this message, you'll end up in an empty screen, like the one below. This empty screen comes when you have no favorite comics selected to be followed (which is the case when you are installing this app for the first time). Just follow the instructions in the screen to select your favorite comics.
At this point of time, take some time and get familiarized with all the options available in the Menu section. In case you don't understand an item don't worry about it for now. We'll visit all of them later.
Now, if you perform Menu -> Select Comics, you'll get a screen like the one shown below. In this image, the touch on the check box inside the red circle to mark that comic as your favorite. This comic will then appear in the main page with other favorites of yours. In case you are not sure whether you like a comic or not, you also have an option of previewing the comic by touching on the preview button inside the green circle.
After you have selected some comics, touch on the button 'Save Changes' to save your selection. At this point, your screen would look some thing like the one below. One can notice that there are 3 buttons for each comic:
- yellow marked region -- will take you the latest strip of that comic
- red marked region -- will take you to the strip that you visited during the last session (where you left the last time you had read this comic)
- white marked region -- will take you a page containing list of all your favorite strips in that comic. For those curious, the number in the parentheses tells the user, how many of the strips are still unread in that comic!
Touching on any one of the buttons mentioned in the previous section will take you to the strip viewer. (Sometimes, based on your network speed, it might take a couple of minutes to load the strip. Please be patient during this time) The screen might look something like the one shown below (with all navigation buttons highlighted). When you touch the screen, these navigation buttons will be highlighted, which will disappear after a couple of seconds, leaving the entire screen for reading the strip.
Lets visit each of the buttons on the screen starting from left.
- Left button -- will take you to the previous strip
- Empty section -- this section will show up only for those strips which have a certain image caption text in them, else it will be empty.
- Star -- used to mark this strip as favorite or not. (Later will be accessible via the 'Fav' button in the main page. Refer the above section)
- Share -- You can share this strip with your friends.
- Zoom buttons -- to zoom out/in respectively.
- Right button -- will take you to the next strip.
Yes! Pinch zoom is supported on the strip.
In case you are not a big fan of on-screen buttons, you can use swipe gestures to navigate among the strips.
- Swipe right -- takes you to the previous strip
- Swipe left -- takes you to the next strip
- Swipe up -- will take you to the next comic in your favorites list!
- Swipe down -- will take you to the previous comic in your favorites list! BUT! if you are already zoomed in, none of the above mentioned gestures will work. Instead, you will just end up moving the strip on the screen. In such cases, you have to double-tap on the screen to enter into a mode called 'Traverse Mode' (show in the image below). Once you are in this mode, you can go ahead with the normal gestures mentioned above.
There are some more options available through menu in this page. They are show in the image below. Lets go through them one-by-one.
- First -- takes you to the first strip
- Random -- takes you to a random strip
- Latest -- takes you to the latest strip
- Select Strip -- you can select to jump to a certain strip
- Save Strip -- if you really like this strip, save it onto your sdcard!
- Clear Cache -- clear internal cache used for this comic. (generally used in case of unforeseen failures as a failsafe mechanism)
Now lets visit back to the main menu items. Images showing all menu items are below.
- Select Comic -- Select your favorite comic (we have talked about this before)
- Settings -- contains some of the settings used to configure the behavior of this app
- Backup my list -- save your list of favorite comics as a backup
- Restore my list -- the opposite of above
- Sync now -- forcefully sync the new strips for all your favorite comics
- Clear All Cache -- the 'Clear Cache' equivalent mentioned in the Comic Strip Viewer menu items, but applicable for all comics
- Last Synced -- gives a diagnostic message showing the time of the last sync.
- Share App -- share this app with your friends.
- Disclaimer/About/Help -- Some more info about this app (usage/version/change-notes ...).
This page shows a bunch of cool features supported by ComicReader as shown in the image below. Lets go through them one-by-one.
- Enable Caching -- This is by far the coolest feature provided in ComicReader! This deserves a section of its own!
- Cache frequency -- number of times to sync the comics in a day
- Cache start time -- when is the first time in a day to sync the comics
- Mobile network -- sync comics even when on mobile network!?
- Cache size -- how many number of comic strips (per comic) to be synced?
- Sync type -- how to sync the strips in a comic
- Sort -- how to sort your favorite comics (and all comics in the 'Select Comics' page)
Using this feature, you can sync all the latest strips of a comic when you are in the vicinity of a wireless network. And later on access those strips offline! Best part, the sync process will be triggered at regular intervals (based on your settings mentioned above) and will notify you of any new strips published on those comic websites! Hence, we recommend that you enable this feature always (but think twice before enabling this feature while on Mobile network) for your own obvious benefits.