Anibu - Anime Library Browser

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Dec 2016

FatherAnderson said:
If you added MAL integration for automatically updating lists kind of like what MALupdater (http://www.malupdater.com/) or Taiga (http://taiga.moe/) does this would be perfect.

Thanks for pointing me at those tools, I'll check them out.

My current thinking was that if I did integrate MAL, it would operate mostly passively by updating your data as you played episodes and marked shows as watched, so you would never actually see or interact with your MAL data directly. Does that sound sufficient? This integration would also rely on AniDB data containing an appropriate MAL link.

Dec 26, 2016 1:32 PM

FatherAnderson

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Feb 2010

1209

AnibuDev said:

My current thinking was that if I did integrate MAL, it would operate mostly passively by updating your data as you played episodes and marked shows as watched, so you would never actually see or interact with your MAL data directly. Does that sound sufficient? This integration would also rely on AniDB data containing an appropriate MAL link.

That sounds great. The only thing I'd want to have concerning directly interacting with MAL is optionally asking to score a show once you complete it. I don't really care for the other features of Taiga or MAL updater and I'm sure many of the other people who use it don't either.

Dec 30, 2016 9:34 PM

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Nov 2013

AnibuDev said:
Hi guys,

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate subforum for this post so feel free to move it if necessary or delete if inappropriate. Anyway, I built an anime library browser for Windows 10 that recognizes files by hashing them and querying AniDB with the hash because I was getting tired of fiddling with filename scrapers like Kodi/Plex and I didn't want to mass rename everything to adhere to a convention ( it breaks seeding amongst other things). You can see the trial version here and the full version here (I need to update the screenshots soon since more functionality has been added that's not depicted, but you get the general idea).

While part of the reason for this post is promotional, the real reason is to get the MAL community's feedback on whether you'd find MAL integration in the app useful or if you already have a workflow for maintaining your list that you're happy with. I've not used MAL myself so I'm trying to understand how one would use it when integrated into a library browser. If you're interested in trying the app, the following code can be redeemed up to 10 times:

XG4TQ-XJCMD-GMJKP-VQCT3-JP9GZ

The code can be redeemed here or in the Windows Store.

Thanks for your time!

Hello nice app it looks very good but some sugestions.

1, It is possible to somehow mark episodes and series which one i watched ? Somethink like red dot=unwatched yellow dot=partially watched green dot=watched

2, I try it on two seasons anime + Special (i named them episode 1-50) , It correctly make season one and two but weirdly episode s01e4 and special get unrecognised , so it some way to manually add them ?

3, Just nittpicking but i will like some percentual progress bar or something like 23 of 50 episodes watched

Anyway i use code but i will support you more if you add these features i really like app and i want use it as my main tracking collection manager for anime.

Dec 30, 2016 11:09 PM

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Dec 2016

1. You can mark shows as watched in the info page for the show, and then you can hide watched shows in the home screen. Differentiating between unwatched and partially watched might not be a bad idea; I currently use the Queue to keep track of what I'm currently watching and anything outside of my queue is unwatched so maybe that would also work for you?

2. If the unrecognized files came from a known release, then it's more likely that the files themselves are incomplete. I discovered a lot of files were incomplete in my collection after I got my app working, and had to force recheck the torrents to redownload the missing bits. If that doesn't fix it, it's worth checking that AniDB has entries for your files. I don't plan on adding support for explicitly tagging shows because if you truly have a release that AniDB doesn't know about, it's better to actually update AniDB using AOM or something so others know about it too.

3. I thought about that, but I haven't implemented anything because the app doesn't reliably know what episode you've watched up to, just the last episode that you launched through it, so the progress meter can be unreliable and that renders it meaningless. For example, I'll launch an episode through Anibu, but then continue watching later episodes through MPC so Anibu would be wrong about my progress all the time. That said, if you think just tracking the last launched episode would be useful to you, I can add that.

Thanks for the feedback and support :)

Dec 31, 2016 2:31 AM

#10

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Nov 2013

Hello

1, i understand you but i will want see what episodes i watched and what i dont , sometimes i stop watch series for some time and when i will come back i want know just when i left off

2, still some unrecognised files , too bad i have some obscure releases or i sometimes strip english dub for space saving (still almost 8 TB ) , will be good to force manually add episodes

3, ok

David_PattCZDec 31, 2016 2:52 AM

Dec 31, 2016 10:03 AM

#11

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Dec 2016

OK, so it sounds like 1 and 3 are solved by the same thing of tracking the last played episode. As for 2, it might be feasible to allow you to assign an AniDB file ID to unrecognized files, but you'd have to find the file you want to link with in the episode file list for a show on the AniDB website (the file ID is in the URL for the file details of a specific episode). Would you be willing to do that legwork for each unrecognized file?

Dec 31, 2016 10:18 AM

#12

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Nov 2013

i try some series i think they will be problems with and it is just around 15 episodes unrecognized to 200 recognized , so if you add support to manually unrecognized files i will be glad

edit: one little sugestion please add possibility choose alternative title for anime i really hate when i see "Star Blazers 2199" instead "space battleship yamato 2199" or original japan title

David_PattCZDec 31, 2016 7:17 PM

Jan 5, 2017 6:38 PM

#13

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Dec 2016

Noted about the alternative titles thing, although it's pretty low in priority because it doesn't really bother me :P. At the very least, the search bar will search the alternative Japanese title so you can use the name you're more familiar with when searching.

The latest update is also live with the two features requested by David_PattCZ:

v1.2.2.0:
-Added support for manually recognizing unrecognized files by assigning them specific AniDB file IDs.
-Adding tracking for the last played episode; shown in the anime info page.
-Added file info tooltips to episodes.
-Added grouping by season.
-Improved navigation behavior when using the content nav pane.
-UI refinements with series grouping and nested scrolling.
-Fix incorrect version number display in Settings page.
-Fix a hang when AniDB doesn't respond to queries.
-Fix duplicate similar anime entries.
-Fix anime info not appearing to refresh when force refreshing in the anime info page.
-Made the app more resilient to corrupt saved state.

I've got the basic MAL integration working in a separate branch, but I'm going to wait and see the stability of the current build before merging that into the mainline because I want to focus on stabilizing the app without adding yet more features. The official MAL API is incredibly limited and seems to only allow push operations (i.e. Anibu can update states, but can't read existing state), but so far that's been enough for what I was intending to do anyway so I guess we'll see how folks like it :)

AnibuDevJan 6, 2017 9:57 AM

Jan 6, 2017 5:05 AM

#14

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Nov 2013

hi thanks for the update but manual add work weird , i add http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=ep&eid=159972 so i add id 159972 but i get this instead http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=ep&eid=14951 no idea why , similar thing in other files it add totally different anime

EDIT : ok my bad you must select specific group file and take id from there

David_PattCZJan 6, 2017 6:43 AM

Jan 6, 2017 10:04 AM

#15

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Dec 2016

Yea, I wasn't sure how to word it more clearly, but I'm glad you figured it out. AniDB is a file-based database so everything starts with recognizing individual files, and from there you have episodes, which group together individual files; and lastly animes, which group together episodes.

Feb 4, 2017 12:34 AM

#16

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Dec 2016

How has stability been for people?

Feb 4, 2017 2:55 AM

#17

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Nov 2013

stability look very good , everything improved from last time, thanks for your work

Feb 8, 2017 9:00 AM

#18

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Dec 2016

The latest version is up on the store and includes the basic MAL integration discussed before :)

v1.2.7.0:
-Basic MyAnimeList (MAL) support! After logging in with your MAL credentials in the Settings page, Anibu will automatically:
-Mark a show complete in MAL when marked Watched in Anibu.
-Watching an episode will mark the show as Watching in MAL, or enable Rewatching if the show is marked Watched.
-Watching the final episode will mark the show Complete or disable Rewatching in MAL.
If Anibu displays a "Show in MAL" button in the info page for an anime, it means Anibu was able to find a MAL ID associated with the show in the AniDB data, and will be able to update your MAL information.
-Add a "Show in Crunchyroll" button for shows that have Crunchyroll data in AniDB.
-Added the ability view episodes as a list or a grid.
-Search results are now sorted by relevance and then by the current "Sort By" setting. This won't really affect single word searches, but should improve result displays for multi-word searches.
-Fixed title search not treating separate words as separate search tokens.
-Possible fix for another startup crash.

Let me know any feedback you guys have.

Feb 9, 2017 3:46 AM

#19

MALClient dev

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Oct 2015

203

I'm developing MALClient UWP app and I think that it would be good to cross link our apps so that users can quickly switch between them, what do you think? :)

(App in question: https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9nblggh5f3bl)

I made Windows 10 and Android MALClient apps! Source!

Feb 10, 2017 10:27 AM

#20

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Dec 2016

I'm down, how do we make this happen?

Feb 11, 2017 10:36 AM

#21

MALClient dev

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Oct 2015

203

Well, you can already launch mine using this protocol thingy: https://github.com/Drutol/MALClient#protocol

You'll have to define your own protocol so I can launch your app. I have only MAL values available (Ids, titles etc.) so keep that in mind.

I made Windows 10 and Android MALClient apps! Source!

Feb 11, 2017 11:28 PM

#22

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Dec 2016

What sort of interactions are you envisioning our users doing when switching between apps? I get on my end, I can have a setting to allows users to set if they prefer the "Show in MAL" button to launch your app or the website, but Anibu is meant for managing your local anime collection so I'm not sure what you plan on doing in your app to link into Anibu? Do you need my protocol to allow querying if something is in the user's local collection?

Feb 11, 2017 11:40 PM

#23

MALClient dev

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Oct 2015

203

Yeah I was thinking about using App Services (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/launch-resume/how-to-create-and-consume-an-app-service) to check whether there are episodes for certain anime available in Anibu and then launch with proper arguments, it could save a user a few clicks ^^ I could even add such buttons to forum episode discussion threads.

I made Windows 10 and Android MALClient apps! Source!

Feb 12, 2017 10:43 AM

#24

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Dec 2016

Episodes are internally tracked by AniDB lookup information (either file size + hash or file ID) so I don't think you will be able to query Anibu for specific episode information (there's also the fact that users are free to have multiple releases of a single show meaning there will be duplicates of episodes).

Anibu does know of a MAL ID for a show, if one is available, so it would be possible to query the app service for the existence of a show and then launch Anibu directly to that show's info page. How does that sound?

Feb 12, 2017 10:46 AM

#25