2026-07-02T21:17:06+02:00 https://blog.binarynonsense.com Álvaro García 2026-07-02T00:00:00+02:00 https://blog.binarynonsense.com/2026/07/02/acbr-progress-log <p>Changelog:</p> <ul> <li>Updated Electron to a newer version. This should bring full Wayland support to the Linux builds and, hopefully, help fix the previous version not working in some systems running Wayland, especially the flatpak build, due to a combination of the version I was using, me forcing X11 due to that Electron version not fully supporting Wayland, and some changes I made to the flatpak manifest.</li> <li>Changed "Add Folders" to "Add Folder" in the conversion tools in the Linux builds as a needed compromise, due to the new Electron version not allowing multiselection in folder dialogs on that OS. Drag and dropping multiple folders into the input list still works as a way to add more that one at once.</li> <li>The Home Screen folder favorites now open when clicked in the app's custom file browser instead of using a file dialog on Linux, due to new limitations in how the new Electron version handles dialogs in that OS.</li> <li>Removed YouTube URLs support in the Media Player, at least for now, as it no longer works due to new header restrictions in the new version of Electron.</li> </ul> 2026-06-26T00:00:00+02:00 https://blog.binarynonsense.com/2026/06/26/acbr-progress-log <p>Changelog:</p> <ul> <li>Added a "File &gt; Open URL..." entry to the menu bar to open URLs. For now, it is only able to open URLs that fit the formats supported by the "Open URL" section in some of the "Websites" tools.</li> <li>Added a "Help &gt; View the Wiki" entry to the menu bar to open a tool that lets the user navigate the online Github wiki for ACBR inside the app.</li> <li>Added a background image to the Home Screen (can be disabled in the preferences).</li> <li>Replaced the search button in the "Digital Comic Museum" tool with a search in browser one, that opens the site's search page in the system's browser with the provided query, as the in-app integrated search code no longer works due to new Cloudflare security restrictions in the site.</li> <li>Restored the "Catalog" section's functionality in the "Digital Comic Museum" tool.</li> <li>Improved the page number count for some books in the "Internet Archive Books" tool, as it was sometimes giving a greater number that the real one.</li> <li>Changed the progress bar's background color in the ACBR Light theme to make it fit better with the modals' background color.</li> <li>Updated some of the core libraries to newer versions.</li> <li>Fixed the quick menu no longer working.</li> <li>Fixed CBR creation not working on the flatpak build.</li> </ul> 2026-06-14T00:00:00+02:00 https://blog.binarynonsense.com/2026/06/14/acbr-progress-log <p>Changelog:</p> <ul> <li>Refactored the Reader's code for easier maintenance and future improvements. This should have no effect in how it works compared to the previous version.</li> <li>Removed the old alternative PDF rendering lib, pdfjs, as keeping it was adding unneeded complexity to the code and increasing the program's size.</li> <li>Fixed the default filter preview image used in the Preferences showing as broken due to a path change in a recent update.</li> <li>Fixed the context menu showing the rotation entry in the Reader even in page modes that don't allow it.</li> </ul> 2026-05-31T00:00:00+02:00 https://blog.binarynonsense.com/2026/05/31/acbr-progress-log <p>Changelog:</p> <ul><li>Added a new zoom mode to the Reader, &quot;Fit to Both&quot;, to fit the page/s to the width and height of the viewable area.<br /> </li><li>Expanded the &quot;Automatic Page Turn&quot; setting in the &quot;Comic Book Reader &gt; Navigation&quot; subsection of the Preferences. Now, when selecting the &quot;On scroll boundaries&quot; option, some time values can be changed to customize its behavior. </li><li>Made scrolling the pages using the keyboard smoother on key presses, instead of instant, and more precise if you keep holding down. </li><li>Added more advanced options to the &quot;Convert Images&quot; tool. </li><li>Increased the timeout for the Project Gutenberg search tool and added a cancel button, as the website it relies on can be quite slow to respond lately. </li><li>Updated the Flatpak version&#x27;s runtime to 25.08. </li><li>Updated the image processing library, sharp, to a newer version. </li><li>Refactored all the image operations&#x27; code to avoid crashes due to glib conflicts caused by the new runtime and image library updates. </li><li>Fixed books with broken image files getting stuck trying to load the error page image due to a path change in a recent update. </li><li>Fixed the test images used by some tools showing as broken due to a path change in a recent update. </li></ul> 2026-05-08T00:00:00+02:00 https://blog.binarynonsense.com/2026/05/08/acbr-progress-log <p>Changelog:</p> <ul><li>Added a new command line flag, <a href="https://github.com/binarynonsense/comic-book-reader/wiki/Media-Player:-Launch-in-Stand-Alone-Mode" referrerpolicy="origin" rel="nofollow noopener">--player</a>, that makes ACBR launch in &quot;Media Player Mode&quot;. In this mode the media player runs as if it was a stand alone application, without the Reader&#x27;s main window or other tools.<br /> </li><li>Added a new command line flag, <a href="https://github.com/binarynonsense/comic-book-reader/wiki/Command%E2%80%90Line-Tools:-Launch-Options" referrerpolicy="origin" rel="nofollow noopener">--cli</a>, that allows launching a text mode version of some of the tools (&quot;Convert Comics&quot;, &quot;Extract Comics&quot; and &quot;Create Comic&quot;) that runs directly through the command line rather than the graphical user interface. </li><li>Fixed the RSS Reader showing the short summary instead of the full content for an RSS feed item if both are available.</li></ul> <p>[Update] v3.21.1:<br /></p> <ul><li>Made feed items with both description and content data in the RSS Reader start showing only the description and a expand/collapse button to show/hide the content, so it&#x27;s easier to read and navigate them.<br /> </li><li>Added Zona Negativa&#x27;s feed to the RSS Reader&#x27;s defaults. </li><li>Fixed the changelog formatting in the check for updates modal when there is a new version. </li><li>Fixed the Media Player&#x27;s subtitle rendering so tags (italics, bold...) are shown correctly.</li></ul> <p>[Update] v3.21.2: </p> <ul><li>Fixed the &quot;Create Comic&quot; tool duplicating pages in the output file when the input list consists only of images.</li></ul> <p>[Update] v3.21.3: <br /></p> <ul><li>Added more ways to manage the &quot;Convert Comics&quot;, &quot;Extract Comics&quot; and &quot;Create Comic&quot; tools&#x27; input list. The &quot;Add Files&quot;, &quot;Add Folders&quot; and &quot;Clear List&quot; buttons are now at the top of the list and when the list grows bigger than 10 elements another set of the same buttons is placed at its bottom. Also, when right-clicking inside the list, the context menu now shows entries for those actions.<br /> </li><li>Fixed setting the &quot;Convert Comics&quot; tool&#x27;s &quot;Input Folders Contain&quot; advanced input option to &quot;The image files from a single comic book each&quot; no longer working.</li></ul> <p>[Update] v3.21.4: <br /></p> <ul><li>Fixed EPUB, MOBI and PDF files not working correctly on the Windows version of ACBR if the app is placed in a path containing spaces.<br /> </li><li>Fixed images-only MOBIs not working. </li><li>Fixed images-only EPUBs that don&#x27;t store the image paths in img tags not working, and improved the code for the already working ones. </li></ul> 2026-04-07T00:00:00+02:00 https://blog.binarynonsense.com/2026/04/07/acbr-progress-log <p>Changelog:</p> <ul> <li>Added new parameters to the custom filters in the Reader, invert and rotate hue, and a new default filter, Invert, to use as a quick Dark Mode (resetting the filters to the default ones is needed for the new one to be available if version 3.19.0 was previously used).</li> <li>Added the changelog from GitHub to the info shown in the Check for Updates modal.</li> <li>Added the current track's name to the Media Player's top bar when the advanced controls are enabled and the playlist is hidden.</li> <li>Fixed the Reader's new pages cache manager making the app crash on Windows when changing files in some circumstances.</li> <li>Fixed the Metadata Editor failing to update a ComicInfo.xml's pages list when requested and never ending the operation.</li> <li>Fixed the Metadata Editor failing to update some PDF's entries if the new value in the input field is empty.</li> </ul> <p>&lt;</p> 2026-03-30T00:00:00+02:00 https://blog.binarynonsense.com/2026/03/30/acbr-progress-log <p>Changelog:</p> <ul> <li>Improved, significantly, the average page loading time in the Reader by implementing a pages cache that is filled in the background. The cache size can be increased in the Preferences (Comic Book Reader &gt; Pages Cache), so it can fit more pages if the user doesn't mind the extra RAM usage.</li> <li>Added the option to create new page filters for the Reader (go to View &gt; Filter &gt; Manage Filters, or to the Comic Book Reader section in the Preferences), that can be customized by setting values for gamma, white level, black level, brightness, contrast, sepia and saturation.</li> <li>Added a new advanced image operation, black level / white level, to the convert, create and extract comic books tools.</li> <li>Added a button, shortcut and menu entry to take a screenshot of a video in the Media Player while it's playing.</li> <li>Added a new Preferences option to set the System Monitor size in the Appearance section.</li> <li>Rebuilt one of the libraries' Linux binary so it requires glibc 2.35 instead of 2.38 to run it, making the non-flatpak Linux versions of ACBR now, hopefully, compatible with older Linux distros like Ubuntu 22.04.</li> <li>Made some changes to the conversion tools to try to avoid potential EBUSY errors on Windows.</li> <li>Updated some of the core libraries to newer versions.</li> <li>Fixed not being able to open the metadata in the comicinfo.xml of a CBR file.</li> </ul> 2026-03-17T00:00:00+01:00 https://blog.binarynonsense.com/2026/03/17/acbr-progress-log <p>Changelog:</p> <ul><li>Overhauled the audio player and made it a media player. It now also plays video files (supports web-compatible codecs and formats like MP4 and WebM) and youtube URLs and shows subtitles from SRT files. If FFmpeg is installed and in the system&#x27;s PATH, or its path is configured in the preferences, it will support many other containers and codecs (MKV, AVI, WMV, H.265...), multiple video and audio tracks and embedded subtitles. </li><li>Added a section in the Preferences, Third-Party Executables, to configure the paths for optional executables like rar or ffmpeg. </li><li>Added a new localization file, Japanese, contributed by coolvitto. </li><li>Added some improvements to the deletion and move operations to make them more resiliant against potential short external locks by OneDrive or similar external programs of the temporary files and folders created during conversions. </li><li>Set a better default temp folder for the flatpak version. </li><li>Fixed the flatpak version not finding the rar binary in the system&#x27;s PATH (if available). </li></ul> 2026-02-18T00:00:00+01:00 https://blog.binarynonsense.com/2026/02/18/acbr-progress-log <p>Changelog:</p> <ul><li>Added support for reading, converting from and extracting EPUB, FB2 and MOBI ebooks (newer formats like KF8 (AZW3) are not compatible). </li><li>Increased the performance reading and converting PDF and CBR files. Also, files of those types bigger than 2GB are now supported. </li><li>Fixed a bug introduced in the previous version that made the app not launch for new users :( I forgot to test launching the app with no config files for that release and, as no one opened an issue about it in the meantime, I didn&#x27;t notice until I did the test for this new one, sorry about that.</li></ul> <p>[Update] v3.17.1:</p> <ul><li>Fixed creating a comic book from only images not working in the previous version. </li><li>Fixed setting a non-writable folder as temp folder in the flatpak version breaking the app. </li></ul> 2026-01-19T00:00:00+01:00 https://blog.binarynonsense.com/2026/01/19/acbr-progress-log <p>Changelog:</p> <ul> <li>Increased, significantly, the speed of conversions that require image processing (scale, change image format...) in the "Convert Comic Books" tool by piping all the image processing operations for a page together, instead of doing them in stages as before, and also using worker threads to work on multiple pages at once. There are now advanced options to fine tune some parameters of this new method, which is now the default, in the tool's settings section (or to select the old method, which has the new operation piping but doesn't use worker threads, just in case it works better in some cases).</li> <li>Added the total time the conversion took to the end of the log in the "Convert Comic Books" tool.</li> <li>Added advanced image operations to crop and add borders in the "Convert Comic Books" tool.</li> <li>Added an advanced input option, "Input Folders Contain", in the "Convert Comic Books" tool to select how to treat the contents of folders in the input list: either look for comic book files inside them (as up to now) or for images (that will be treated as the contents of a single comic book). With this second option, it's now possible to batch convert folders containing images into comic book files.</li> <li>Added an advanced output option, "Keep Subfolders Structure", in the "Convert Comic Books" tool to choose to keep the subfolder structure from folders in the input list when the advanced input option "Search Input Folders Recursively" is enabled and an output folder for all files has been selected in the output options. This will replicate the folder and subfolder structure from the folders in the input list in the selected output folder and place the converted files in the corresponding place.</li> <li>Increased the default history capacity to 50 and made the "History" tool show the current number of entries vs the current capacity in the "Recent" section title.</li> <li>Added small tags to the file icons in the "Home Screen" for known extensions and other small quality of life improvements.</li> <li>Added a new section in the history file to remember files in the "Home Screen" lists but not in recent.</li> <li>Fixed toast notification's close button's color in light color mode.</li> <li>Fixed "Home Screen" breaking for rtl languages.</li> <li>Fixed book in user list in "Home Screen" not opening if it wasn't in the recent history.</li> <li>Fixed the final log being truncated in some of the tools if errors occurred.</li> </ul> 2026-01-02T00:00:00+01:00 https://blog.binarynonsense.com/2026/01/02/acbr-progress-log <p>Changelog:</p> <ul> <li>Added the option to create more lists in the Home Screen besides the Favorites and Latest ones.</li> <li>Added a representation of a book's completion percentage in the Home Screen lists. It shows as a thin line at the bottom of a book's card which gets longer the closer the last page read was compared to the total number of pages (if the page was the last one, the line will have a 100% length). It'll only appear for books in the history that have also been opened after this feature was added, as it needs some data not stored in the history by previous versions.</li> <li>Added expand and collapse buttons to the lists in the Home Screen.</li> <li>Added a button to open the integrated file browser in the Home Screen.</li> <li>Added a "Home Screen" section to the preferences.</li> <li>Improved PDF page rendering time and image quality.</li> <li>Changed some buttons in the reader's toolbar (zoom, pages direction and page mode) so that they now show the icon corresponding to the current state for the corresponding setting and clicking them opens a vertical submenu where the user can choose from all the available options.</li> <li>Fixed not showing any space between the text and the icon in the list titles in the Home Screen for rtl languages.</li> </ul> 2025-12-21T00:00:00+01:00 https://blog.binarynonsense.com/2025/12/21/acbr-progress-log <p>Changelog:</p> <ul><li>Added some small quality of life improvements to the Home Screen, like drag and drop to sort the favorites list, new options to open the containing folder of a file in one the lists or add one in the recent files list to the favorites one... </li><li>Added two new theme preferences: one that automatically sets the theme to &quot;ACBR Light&quot; or &quot;ACBR Dark&quot; based on the operative system settings and the other based on the time of day (the time at which the light and dark themes are set can be customized). </li><li>Added &#x27;Open Containing Folder&#x27; entry to the reader&#x27;s context menu. </li><li>Fixed CBZ files containing __MACOSX folders failing to load in the reader and convert in the tools as they included invalid image files. __MACOSX folders are now ignored. </li><li>Fixed invalid page images breaking the reader. When the image corresponding to a page can&#x27;t be loaded it&#x27;s now replaced by a generic &quot;file not found&quot; page. </li></ul> 2025-08-29T00:00:00+02:00 https://blog.binarynonsense.com/2025/08/29/art-breakfast-club <p> Fan art illustration I made inspired by the movie The Breakfast Club. </p> <p> <img src="http://www.binarynonsense.com/imgs/art/full/alvaro-garcia-breakfast-01-reducedforweb.jpg" class="tall-img" /> </p> <p>My art portfolio: <a href="http://www.binarynonsense.com/art/">http://www.binarynonsense.com/art/</a></p> 2025-08-05T00:00:00+02:00 https://blog.binarynonsense.com/2025/08/05/acbr-progress-log <p>Changelog:</p> <ul> <li>Added the option to show two pages at once in the reader. You can now switch between "Single Page", "Double Page" and "Double Page (Center First Page)" in the "View &gt; Layout &gt; Page Mode" entry of the menu bar, or change it using the tool bar.</li> <li>Added more scaling options to some of the tools (convert comic books, create comic book, convert images and extract comic books). Now the pages can be scaled by percentage, height or width.</li> <li>Added an automatic check for updates. Periodically, the program will look during its start process for a newer stable version of ACBR on GitHub and show a small notification if there's one (if you click it, it will open the corresponding release page in the system's browser). It can be configured, or completely disabled, on the preferences (by default it will check for updates if more than a week has passed since the last time it did).</li> <li>Added a "copy log" button to the results modal of some of the tools (create comic, convert comics, convert images and extract comics) and a list of failed files, if any, at the end of the log.</li> <li>Added a "Reset All" button to the preferences.</li> <li>Added a list of configuration files, and their paths, to the advanced section of the preferences.</li> <li>Updated some of the core libraries.</li> <li>Fixed some minor issues.</li> </ul> 2025-07-29T00:00:00+02:00 https://blog.binarynonsense.com/2025/07/29/acbr-progress-log <p>Changelog:</p> <ul><li>Redesigned the layout and added a new section to the RSS Reader tool to search for feeds. You can now search for website feeds (based on the feedsearch.dev API) and podcast feeds (based on the iTunes Search API). For the podcasts one, once you select a feed from the results it opens in the content view, like any other feed, and then you can listen to any episode listed in the feed using ACBR&#x27;s audio player by clicking on the play button. </li><li>Added a new section to the Internet Radio tool to save favorite stations and support for m3u8 streams in the Audio Player. </li><li>Added a &#x27;Scroll to Top&#x27; button to the RSS reader. </li><li>Added a &#x27;Copy Image URL&#x27; entry to the context menu that appears when right clicking an image in the RSS reader. </li><li>Added a &#x27;Save Image As...&#x27; entry to the context menu that appears when right clicking an image in the RSS reader. </li><li>Added a &quot;Clear List&quot; button to the create comic book, extract comic book, convert comic books and convert images tools. </li><li>Made all menu shortcuts customizable. </li><li>Tweaked the themes&#x27; colors. </li><li>Updated some of the core libraries. </li><li>Fixed some minor issues. </li></ul>