2006-11-12

Google search comics browser

Google with UnitedMedia comics Recall the Google + Dilbert hack I found and refined into an actual minimal comics browser a while ago?

Yesterday I figured it might not be too much work tweaking it ever so slightly to cater not just Dilbert strips, but all of the strips published through UnitedMedia at www.comics.com -- about 150 in all (counting the editorials too), including strips like Peanuts, Pearls Before Swine and my recent favourite Kit 'n' Carlyle, pictured on the right.

As it turned out, it wasn't; just the matter of adding a smallish configuration interface, and the code runs just as fine on either of the comics pages of the whole site. Site templates is great tech for web scrapers such as this. All it took was an additional 35 or so lines (to a script weighing in around 200 in total). Install the updated script (userscripts.org page); I opted not to change the name even though it isn't strictly a Dilbert browser any more (still is by default until you reconfigure it to something else, though), since changing script names enables people to have both versions installed at the same time which gives me more hairy bug reports than I quite care for.

The user interface stays the same; click the left third of a comic to read the previous strip, click the right for the next and click the middle portion to go to the comics.com page for the currently seen strip, for sharing with your friends or similar. (Access keys for these links remain P, N and T; Windows users combine those with Alt, Mac users Control.) While there, you will also notice a "Show this comic at Google" link right next to the comic selection box on top that didn't use to be there before.
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