Scanlationshop 0.7.6 (Scanlation Helper)

[Stmated]

Scanlationshop is an application that I started developing after some years of working with scanlations. The goal of this application is to get rid of all situations in as many aspects of scanlation as is possible where you need to work around the available tools instead of working with tools specifically made for what we do.

A prime example of tedious tasks is translating; with its tabbing between script file and text editor. Would it not be nice to always write in the script and just write what you want and the image viewer simply follows what you type? Well, this one does. When you write a new line that says "Page 15," it will automatically change to the related image.

Please tell me how I can help you with your daily work. This is your chance to get rid of everyday hassles. I am very open to suggestions.

The project forum (where I would recommend asking about things, so as to not split it all between several different places) is at: https://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/scanlationshop. The downloads can be found at: https://sourceforge.net/projects/scanlationshop/files.

(Image of application with several features open).

Without further ado, I will go through most (or at least the most prominent) features available. I hope you will try it out and start giving me advice :)

Text editor

• 100% written from scratch, no Microsoft crap. Really fast.
• Can handle UTF8, ASCII and ANSI encodings.
• Spellchecking with Open Office 3.0 Dictionaries (English US/UK bundled). (image)
• Synonyms with Open Office 3.0 Thesaurus. (image)
• Text filters to automatically fix common typography errors.
  • Character Repetition: '???' -> '?'
  • Character Spacing: 'Hello ?' -> 'Hello?'
  • Ellipses: '......' -> '...'
  • Flanged Pronoun: 'i live In Italy' -> 'I live in italy' (only through typesetting helper)
  • Question-exclamation order: '!?' -> '?!' (can be swapped)
• Text templates to insert common texts (like script intros). (image)
• Text styles for making it visually easier to read the script.
  • Highlighting of set words. (image)
  • Painting to show where a page is. (image)
  • URL highlighting (and Control+Click to open link). (image)
• “Find & Replace” which gives easy overlook. (image)
• Compare two text scripts and get the difference result. (image)
• Can open several text editors of the same content and write at several places. (image)
• Can show markers of styles in the vertical scrollbar. (image)

Image Viewer

• 100% written from scratch, no Microsoft crap. Really fast.
• Can open files inside .ZIP and .RAR.
• Zooming (fit to width/height, et cetera).
• Can scroll image from anywhere with hotkeys.

Image Viewer (OCR)

• Uses Tesseract to get Optical Character Recognition results.
• Not bundled with application (unless you download the 'Full' version), but very easy to get and install.
• Opens by right-click-dragging a box with the Panning Tool.
• Tesseract can only search left-to-right, so implemented character rearrange. (image)
• Can use any language available for Tesseract.
• Can modify the searching method for better results. (image)
• Automatically removes furigana or other small side-text.

Image Viewer (Align Tool)

• Semi-automatic aligning.
• Left-click at one place, Right-click at another and edge can be aligned by.
• Toggle-able grid for manual overseeing.

Image Viewer (Crop Tool)

• Semi-automatic cropping.
• Can use either mouse or keyboard.
• Can autocrop to find the first edges quickly.
• Toggle-able grid for having a uniform distance between gutters and edge. (image)
• Can set to focus on one edge to zoom in on just one dimension. (image)

Image Viewer (Level Tool)

• Semi-automatic leveling.
• Can use either mouse or keyboard.
• Informative histogram that shows original and changes. (image)
• Left-click at location that should be black, and it levels to it.
• Right-click at location that should be white, and levels to it.
• Can cutoff colors like with Photoshop pencil curve.(image)
• Can change gamma to see all almost-black or almost-white. (image)

Text editor <-> Image Viewer communication

• Type “Page 15” in text, and the image changes automatically to that page.
• Open “Page 13” in the image viewer and the text will focus on that page.

Dictionary
(image)

• Currently only supports the Japanese EDICT (bundled), will add other dictionaries if requested.
• Shows a green area to the right of the word if it is a common usage word.
• Automatically transliterates characters based on set language. (image)
• Press F2 on selected text to get variations (like convert kana to kanji). (image)
• Quick result viewer written from 100% scratch. Very fast.
• Select result text and right-click and there is a “Character Details” for kanji info. (image)
• Can search based on wildcards. (image)
• Can define single-character wildcard filters for ADVANCED searching. (image)
  • Can filter the results based on the kind of grammar (verb, noun, et cetera). (image)
  • List of radicals are automatically grayed out if they are no longer possible under filter settings.

Scanning

• Makes scanning a book in batch much easier. Feature is not 100% done.
• Can scan to PNG and TIFF (jpg not supported since it is not lossless).
• First scan or Control+Click “Start Scanning” will open up settings.
• Automatic naming and incrementation of page number, and manual changing of others.
• Takes over the Align/Crop/Level tools and automatically switches them, when open.
• NOT 100% WORKING. My scanner has been unavailable for 6 months, difficult to test this code to see if it works.

Photoshop Typesetting Helper

• Helper system for typesetters to quickly enter text into balloon boxes.
• Supports Photoshop CS2, CS3, CS4 and CS5.
• Own, small window that you can discretely put at the top of the window inside Photoshop.
• Automatically asks to change page if page is not open in Photoshop. (image)
• Automatically fixes common typography mistakes if not already fixed by text control. (image)
• Automatically moves to the next line when the current line is inserted.
• Automatically applies font styles to the text based on rules. (image)
• Can hover the line of text and get an overview of the script section. (image)
• There are two ways to insert the text into Photoshop:
  • Create empty textbox (or preferably with one space, because of a PS limitation), and accept it.
  • Press the hotkey for inserting the text (by default just “Insert”).

Projects

• All communication in application between controls is based on projects.
• Used for intelligent data collection and predictions on what the user wants.
• Can set color tag to any file for keeping track of states. (image)

General/Other

• A very simple web browser if need to check something up and want it next to you when working. Very, very rudimentary.
• All the windows in the application (with a few exceptions) can be docked to any side of the application, and even minimized.
• Automatic version checkup on first start, and every 7 days.
• Automatic bug reporter if an exception in the code is thrown. Data is confidential and no personal information is supplied. (image)
• Language Resource Downloader to easily download new spellchecking, thesaurus/synonyms and EDICT dictionaries. (image)
• Quick hotkeys for easily switching between the more important control.
  • Press F5 to focus the text.
  • Press F6 to focus the image.
  • Press F7 to focus the web browser.
  • Press F8 to focus the dictionary.

Future extensibility

• Most of the application is built by modules, and it is easy to write plugins that automatically load with the applications. Things that are loaded dynamically are things like: Language resources, file types, data types, text filters, text templates, text styles, image tools, et cetera. But since there is no community for the application right now, this has seen very little usage or willingness to make approachable for regular users.

I hope you find the application interesting and give it a chance, and come with advice on making things even better... :)

[saladesu]

Looks like a neat little app! Although I have not used it, from the images and the description, it sounds like something that would greatly speed up the translating/scanlating process As a translator myself, I really like the idea of not having to toggle between a window containing the text editor, another with the raw and another with a dictionary/google to check certain words and/or references to mythology or whatever.

Just wondering, any plans to make it usable for Mac users as well? It always saddens me when I see a cool app like this only to find it's not compatible with my mac

[Stmated]

No, sorry, it's not compatible with Mac as far as I know. There is something called Mono.NET that can run some .NET applications over Mac and/or Linux. One day I might actually install Mono.NET and try to run the application to see where things break, and fix it.

But as things are right now it is unlikely it will work on anything but Windows :/ Sorry :/

[cmertb]

I've always wanted to write something like this, but chose to tl more instead. I'll give this one a try.

[DevilsTune]

Looks very helpful! I do need something like this for my scanlation group. Thanks ever so much for coming up with it.

[kaizokuhime]

Looks neat! I'll try it out!
Thanks~