Comic Book Collecting Software.

[JohnMayo]

Do the ComicBase have Diamond Order Codes in them? Because with my existing Excel solution, I don't have to hand enter them. I use the DCBS order form data directly.

Does any software do this? That's why I suggest you have to roll your own or let this feature go.

In comicbase, I would think you could use one of the custom fields and then build your own update to the DB based on the DCBS spreadsheet. It's just an access back end.

What would I used to determine which comics to update? Odds are that the titles will be subtly different between the DCBS spreadsheet and the ComicBase database.

I'm in the process of entering in what I have on order with DCBS into Comic Collector Pro and so far it has had most of the items in the database. Once I get all of the items entered, I'll see how it does on picking them out for a given shipping date.

[abysslord]

I'm in the process of entering in what I have on order with DCBS into Comic Collector Pro and so far it has had most of the items in the database. Once I get all of the items entered, I'll see how it does on picking them out for a given shipping date.

I just looked at Comic Collector, it seems pretty good ... I had never heard of it before. Let me get this straight on what you want to do because it sounds interesting.

You want to input all the comics you've ordered for June, let's say. So you go through and tick each comic that is shipping in June that you've ordered and they're effectively in your collection now.

So now you're just wondering if when the first week of June comes around, will it easily show you which ones shipped? or just easily allow you to tick each one that DID ship? Or maybe something else I'm not getting.

[JohnMayo]

I'm in the process of entering in what I have on order with DCBS into Comic Collector Pro and so far it has had most of the items in the database. Once I get all of the items entered, I'll see how it does on picking them out for a given shipping date.

I just looked at Comic Collector, it seems pretty good ... I had never heard of it before. Let me get this straight on what you want to do because it sounds interesting.

You want to input all the comics you've ordered for June, let's say. So you go through and tick each comic that is shipping in June that you've ordered and they're effectively in your collection now.

So now you're just wondering if when the first week of June comes around, will it easily show you which ones shipped? or just easily allow you to tick each one that DID ship? Or maybe something else I'm not getting.

I think you got it. Basically, when I fill out my April 2011 order for DCBS, I'd like to load that into Comic Collector as "On Order". Obviously there is a little work right now to put in everything I have on order. Then, each week when I get my DCBS shipment, I want to have a checklist of what should be in my shipment. I compare that checklist to what I did get, make any needed adjustments and then flip those items from "On Order" to "In Collection".

[JohnMayo]

Also, in an ideal world, I'd be able to enter in what I ordered either by pasting in a list of Diamond Order Codes or by having a checklist of what is in a specific Diamond Previews. The whole idea is to get the data into the system as early and easily as possible. I don't think it is an unreasonable piece of functionality to expect, particularly given how the comic industry is geared heavily towards pre-ordering comics.

[abysslord]

Also, in an ideal world, I'd be able to enter in what I ordered either by pasting in a list of Diamond Order Codes or by having a checklist of what is in a specific Diamond Previews. The whole idea is to get the data into the system as early and easily as possible. I don't think it is an unreasonable piece of functionality to expect, particularly given how the comic industry is geared heavily towards pre-ordering comics.

I just downloaded the trial and see exactly what you're talking about now. For me, I don't know if that's much different than just entering the comic when I get it. I mean actually, it's one less step for me because I don't have to go in and change "on order" to "in collection". BUT, I get maybe 40-50 comics a month and I don't use a preorder system like DCBS. So I can understand what you're asking for now.

I agree with you that if a system shows preorder comics, like this software does, why can't it know the preorder code and then you could somehow import a file to do everything automatically? Seems like it should be easy from the programmer's viewpoint, unless they don't keep the preorder code for those comics....but that would be easy to fix too.

I'm a programmer and would love to work on something like this, where features would be exciting to add, as opposed to boring engineer demands.

[BobBretall]

I agree with you that if a system shows preorder comics, like this software does, why can't it know the preorder code and then you could somehow import a file to do everything automatically? Seems like it should be easy from the programmer's viewpoint, unless they don't keep the preorder code for those comics....but that would be easy to fix too.

I think the cheaper software solutions are limited by how much effort goes into developing vs. how much $ they make.

ComicBase has a bar-code scanner function, you just zap the comic's bar-code & it's entered into the database for you. Works quickly for the publishers that bar-code the books (not all indie books have bar-codes).

While I know John has all those previews order codes, I'm guessing that is not a function that would be used by very many people.

[abysslord]

While I know John has all those previews order codes, I'm guessing that is not a function that would be used by very many people.

Probably not, but as a software developer I would have to say it still may be worth it if they do in fact use preorder codes or can add them easily. While you may only be getting John to sign up this time, it will look nice in a features list for maybe enticing new users, especially big customers of DCBS. "You already fill this out to order, just hit this button and they're in your collection."

[JohnMayo]

I agree with you that if a system shows preorder comics, like this software does, why can't it know the preorder code and then you could somehow import a file to do everything automatically? Seems like it should be easy from the programmer's viewpoint, unless they don't keep the preorder code for those comics....but that would be easy to fix too.

I think the cheaper software solutions are limited by how much effort goes into developing vs. how much $ they make.

ComicBase has a bar-code scanner function, you just zap the comic's bar-code & it's entered into the database for you. Works quickly for the publishers that bar-code the books (not all indie books have bar-codes).

While I know John has all those previews order codes, I'm guessing that is not a function that would be used by very many people.

Bob, you order through DCBS and as a result, you have the Diamond Order Codes for everything you order too. And, even if you didn't, if the central database for ComicBase and/or Comic Collector Pro had that piece of data in them, they'd be able to update the central database from the shipping and cancellation data provided by Diamond both of which key off the Order Code.

Comic Collector Pro does have barcode functionality as of version 5.0. The big hold up was getting the barcode information to load into their database. Since they are loading in the barcodes, it should be fairly easy to add another column for the Order Code and load it in at the same time. Heck, for existing data, they could update their database with the Order Codes using the barcodes as the update key.

If they had the Diamond Order Code, a single screen could do the majority of what I need. It would need to allow me to enter in a bunch of Order Codes and then validate the list of items form via checkboxes and then pick from a list of actions to do with those comics such as add as "On Order", convert from "On Order" to "In Inventory" or remove due to cancellation.

This is functionality that would work for all uses of the software. If the screen described above allowed wildcards for the Order Code, users could enter APR11* and get everything from the new Previews and use it to enter in new items on order without having had to know the Order Codes.

[JohnMayo]

I think the cheaper software solutions are limited by how much effort goes into developing vs. how much $ they make.

I'm not sure but I think the company behind Comic Collector Pro is as big or possibly bigger than the one behind ComicBase. CollectorZ makes a few other collector programs for things like DVDs, books, CDs and video games so they are able to leverage their codebase far beyond just comic collectors. I think this allows them to offer a cheaper solution.

[Trev]

While I know John has all those previews order codes, I'm guessing that is not a function that would be used by very many people.

Probably not, but as a software developer I would have to say it still may be worth it if they do in fact use preorder codes or can add them easily. While you may only be getting John to sign up this time, it will look nice in a features list for maybe enticing new users, especially big customers of DCBS. "You already fill this out to order, just hit this button and they're in your collection."

Better would be for the software maker to allow some integration from the retailers, so that I could 'save' down my order in a compatible format and then import. Kind of like what banks do for Quicken or Money.

Then you can get incremental sales from the retailers providing the integration for almost 0 sales cost. You just have to expose your format to them and let them do the work to write it.

[JohnMayo]

While I know John has all those previews order codes, I'm guessing that is not a function that would be used by very many people.

Probably not, but as a software developer I would have to say it still may be worth it if they do in fact use preorder codes or can add them easily. While you may only be getting John to sign up this time, it will look nice in a features list for maybe enticing new users, especially big customers of DCBS. "You already fill this out to order, just hit this button and they're in your collection."

Better would be for the software maker to allow some integration from the retailers, so that I could 'save' down my order in a compatible format and then import. Kind of like what banks do for Quicken or Money.

Then you can get incremental sales from the retailers providing the integration for almost 0 sales cost. You just have to expose your format to them and let them do the work to write it.

Or skip all of that trouble and just use the Diamond Order Codes.

[Trev]

Probably not, but as a software developer I would have to say it still may be worth it if they do in fact use preorder codes or can add them easily. While you may only be getting John to sign up this time, it will look nice in a features list for maybe enticing new users, especially big customers of DCBS. "You already fill this out to order, just hit this button and they're in your collection."

Better would be for the software maker to allow some integration from the retailers, so that I could 'save' down my order in a compatible format and then import. Kind of like what banks do for Quicken or Money.

Then you can get incremental sales from the retailers providing the integration for almost 0 sales cost. You just have to expose your format to them and let them do the work to write it.

Or skip all of that trouble and just use the Diamond Order Codes.

and then what happens when diamond goes out of business or some other distributor pops up? What about haven?

I think Title/Year/Issue is a better identifier and transcends the diamond era.

Isn't all you care about that your inventory is tracked from order through delivery? why would you care what was used if you had that functionality?

[JohnMayo]

Better would be for the software maker to allow some integration from the retailers, so that I could 'save' down my order in a compatible format and then import. Kind of like what banks do for Quicken or Money.

Then you can get incremental sales from the retailers providing the integration for almost 0 sales cost. You just have to expose your format to them and let them do the work to write it.

Or skip all of that trouble and just use the Diamond Order Codes.

and then what happens when diamond goes out of business or some other distributor pops up? What about haven?

I think Title/Year/Issue is a better identifier and transcends the diamond era.

Isn't all you care about that your inventory is tracked from order through delivery? why would you care what was used if you had that functionality?

Given the exclusive deals Diamond has with publishers, it is virtually impossible for another distributor to "pop up". Including the Haven order code would be fine by me too. I think that the chances of anybody using it are exceedingly low given. The difference with Diamond is that a huge percentage of the comic books here in the USA go through that single distributor. And I'm not suggesting the Diamond Order code be the only way to be able to select comics, just a highly useful one.

I find it confusing that you are arguing against using a distributor level data element in favor of having each retailer custom code an integration process. Using the Diamond Order code would be much more universal than software with an API that each retailer could write code against since virtually none of them ever would. Such custom code would only be beneficial to the customers at that retailer using that comic book tracking software. I don't see the business case for any retailer to spend the money on that kind of custom code.

The Diamond Order code methodology would be useful for any user of the comic book tracking software buying any of the comics offered through Diamond. And I'm willing to bet that for most comic book fans, the majority of their collection was distributed through Diamond. Within that, the majority was probably distributed exclusively through Diamond. That having been said, no doubt there are plenty of people out there more interested in the more obscure indy comics or foreign comics who would find the Diamond Order code of little or no use.

The Title/Year/Issue combination is insufficient to identify a comic book. At the very least, Publisher and Variant are needed. Each of these data elements would be subject to the possibility of misspellings and inconsistencies from month to month. Like barcodes, the nine character Diamond Order code has no such problem with that. While the Publisher/Title/LaunchYear/Issue/Variant combination might be more useful for pre-Diamond era comics, I don't know how many people are somehow able to pre-ordering comics that old.

The whole point of this discussion is how to track pre-ordered comics, specifically those sold through Diamond. No claim was made that this would be any sort of universal solution.

I wouldn't care how the functionality is provided. I was just pointing out the simplest way for it to be provided.

[comicm]

While I know John has all those previews order codes, I'm guessing that is not a function that would be used by very many people.

Probably not, but as a software developer I would have to say it still may be worth it if they do in fact use preorder codes or can add them easily. While you may only be getting John to sign up this time, it will look nice in a features list for maybe enticing new users, especially big customers of DCBS. "You already fill this out to order, just hit this button and they're in your collection."

Maybe they will get a few more but it probably does not justify the development costs, unit test, regression test and integration test. Comic sales are in the crapper and getting worse and I would imagine the need for comic book software would be the same. Also there is so may products to choose from and I bet they don't make a whole lot of money. There money comes from renewals and not having a support staff unless something big does come up.

I can see why John wants this because of what he does and what he tracks but the large majority does not need this. I for one have this capability with two tools. I log onto DCBS and I can track all of that information unshipped and ordered and then can hope over to my trusty ComicBase and see the rest. I know it would be nice to have a single point but a couple of clicks and I have that information. Comic Book updates appear in ComicBase weekly with the covers and I am ready to scan them in when they are received.

[Paul Nolan]

I used bought Comicbase up to version 12. To upgrade now it would cost me a further $150, which is insane money.

I am actually tempted to run Collectorz alongside Comic Book Realm at the moment as Collectorz has a half price sale on this week.