📋 Schemas¶
Comicbox supports reading and writing several comic book metadata schemas.
Filename Schema¶
Comicbox includes a pretty good comic archive filename parser. It can extract a number of common fields from comic archive filenames.
The filename parser is available as a separate library: comicfn2dict
| Location | Name |
|---|---|
| Archive | The archive filename |
| Import/Export | comicbox-filename.txt |
ComicInfo Schema v2.1 Draft (Comic Rack)¶
This schema used by the defunct Comic Rack reader is the de facto standard for comic book metadata on the internet. The Anansi Project now maintains the ComicInfo Schema and has compatibly and conservatively extended it.
ComicInfo StoryArcs¶
Comicbox also supports an unofficial, undocumented Mylar extension to ComicInfo.xml that encodes multiple Story Arcs and Story Arc Numbers as CSV values.
| Location | Name |
|---|---|
| Archive | comicinfo.xml |
| Import/Export | comicinfo.xml |
MetronInfo Schema v1.1¶
The MetronInfo Schema is a new XML schema for comic book metadata, which hopes to improve some of the deficiencies that exist with the ComicInfo.xml schema.
| Location | Name |
|---|---|
| Archive | metroninfo.xml |
| Import/Export | metroninfo.xml |
Metron MangaVolume¶
The MangaVolume tag is a string, and comicbox stores it as one in manga_volume. A value that reads as a single number or a “first-last” range, like “1-3”, also fills in volume.number and volume.number_to. MangaVolume is only written from manga_volume, never rebuilt from the volume numbers.
Metron CommunityRating¶
The v1.1 CommunityRating tag maps to the comicbox community_rating object: AverageRating to community_rating.average_rating (which ComicInfo CommunityRating and ComicBookInfo rating also map to) and RatingCount to community_rating.rating_count (which no other format carries).
Metron AlternativeNumber¶
The v1.1 AlternativeNumber tag records a legacy or alternate numbering of the same issue. It maps to the comicbox alternative_issue object, which is parsed into name, number and suffix parts just like issue.
Metron Reprints and AlternativeNames¶
A Reprint names another edition of this issue’s content and maps to reprints. Series/AlternativeNames are other names the same series goes by — translations, romanizations, variant spellings — and map to series.alternative_names. A reprint’s name is stored as the file wrote it; the series, volume and issue read out of that name are a convenience.
A Reprint’s id attribute is the reprinted issue’s id. An AlternativeName’s id is a series id, and comicbox records id_type: series on it, because an alternative name is a name rather than a series and implies no type of its own.
ComicBookInfo Schema v1.0 (Comic Book Lover)¶
The schema used by the defunct Comic Book Lover app. It supports a few useful tags that ComicInfo.xml does not, but it probably only survives because Comictagger supports writing it.
I have interpreted the ComicBookInfo example json into a ComicBookInfo JSON Schema.
| Location | Name |
|---|---|
| Archive | Zip & Rar Comments |
| Import/Export | comic-book-info.json |
ComicBookInfo Role primary attribute¶
The per-credit primary flag is kept, on the role it describes: credits.<person>.roles.<role>.primary.
PDF XMP Schema¶
The PDF metadata standard. Written directly to the pdf itself or exported as an xml file.
Adobe PDF Namespace Adobe PDF Standard § 14.3.3 Document Information Dictionary
PDF metadata is only read or written from and to PDF files.
| Location | Name |
|---|---|
| Archive | PDF internal |
| Import/Export | pdf-metadata.xml |
Embedding other Metadata Formats in PDF¶
Comicbox will read and write all the comic metadata file formats it supports for other kinds of comic archives to PDF embedded files. Comicbox used to optionally nest this data in the PDF keywords field. Reading other comic metadata from the PDF keywords fields is still supported. Otherwise the keywords fields is transformed to and from the “Tags” field.
CoMet Schema v1.1 (Comic Viewer)¶
An old and extremely rare comic metadata standard from the defunct Comic Viewer comic book reader.
I have interpreted the CoMet Specification into a CoMet XSD.
| Location | Name |
|---|---|
| Archive | comet.xml |
| Import/Export | comet.xml |
Comicbox 3.0 Schema¶
The comicbox internal data structure which acts as a superset of the above schemas to allow interpolating.
Comicbox 2.0 is superseded and is not read. Its schema is kept for reference only; a 2.0 document loads with its renamed and removed fields ignored.
Comicbox JSON Format¶
| Location | Name |
|---|---|
| Archive | comicbox.json |
| Import/Export | comicbox.json |
Comicbox YAML Format¶
YAML is a superset of JSON, so the JSON schema applies here.
| Location | Name |
|---|---|
| Archive | comicbox.yaml |
| Import/Export | comicbox.yaml |
Comicbox CLI Format¶
The Comicbox CLI uses “flow style” YAML, which is an all on one line format to enter metadata on the command line.
Specifying metadata on the command line like this is additive.
| Location | Name |
|---|---|
| Comicbox CLI | -m –metadata |
| Archive | comicbox-cli.yaml |
| Import/Export | comicbox-cli.yaml |