Automated comic scripts

[Paperwolf12]

HOKAY. I'm at the end of my ropes here. I've searched up and down the internet for a nice, clean, simple automated comic script that displays pages by date, previous and next buttons, you know, the usual.

I used to use Walrus, but for some reason it broke on me somewhere and it just absolutely refuses to work. I don't know why, everything seems to be in order, and as much as I'd love it to work, I've given up and I'm trying to find something else.

I'm looking for a script that doesn't rely on MySql. Every script I've tried with MySql just hasn't gone right, and I honestly feel I don't know enough about databases to be messing with anything that uses them.

SO from what I've found, ATP Autosite, Walrus, and Quact (which I hear had a commenting system) are the only scripts that don't use MySql. Unfortunately Quact and ATP aren't quite...downloadable anywhere at the moment. So I'm at a loss.

Does anyone know of any other scripts that aren't database-based? Any help would be much appreciated.

[Xepher]

Wow, David hasn't updated the ATP site in quite a while now. He used to be a regular on these forums even, so it's sad to see ATP's not even available anymore.

As to your problem though... it sounds like Walrus is what you wanted/liked. Why not try and get help to make that actually work? I know plenty of comics use it, so it's a fairly useful script. Seems to me that'd make more sense than trying to find some new system that may or may not have problems of its own. From what I've seen, Walrus is pretty simple, so it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what's not working for you. Maybe let us know what the problem is, and we can try and solve it.

That, and I don't actually know of other scripts that don't use MySQL.

[Paperwolf12]

Heh alright, if you're willing to help then I'll certainly try. Here's what I have in the config/walrus file (apologies for the huge post, I don't rightly know how to make it a scrollable window):

Both the config and the comic page http://inaccurate-perdition.xepher.net/comic.php are uploaded, along with the archive.php the walrus_calendar.php. No image displays, and the formats are correct as far as I know. Clicking First brings me to a 404. For the $comic_url I've tried just comics/ with no avail. Any ideas? I'm probably missing something obvious.

[Xepher]

There wasn't really a need to post the entire config file. Just tell me where it was installed, and then I can look at it directly... that's usually easier. No big deal though.

The key is the actual output of the page when I go view it. It's mostly (if not entirely) the short tags problems as mentioned most recently here.

[Paperwolf12]

Alright, I've created the .htaccess file and tossed in this line: php_value short_open_tag 1

Now I'm getting this: Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in /home/inaccurate-perdition/public_html/walrus.php on line 170

Did I mess up something? Thanks for your patience.

[Xepher]

Only two small problems. Your "comic_url" was set to "home/inaccurate-perdition/public_html/comics/" rather than just "comics/" like it should be. It wants a RELATIVE url for that part. I changed that, and it works. But the part of the script that checks for updates to the script is broken, because Walrus has changed their website and the version file it looks for there is missing. You can set "powered_by_walrus" to "no" and it stops that check (and the error output because of it.) I made these changes to your config already, and it seems to work. Lemme know if you've got more problems.

[Tornleaf]

Sweet! I would have never figured that out. Thank you so much for the help!

[fesworks]

Heh alright, if you're willing to help then I'll certainly try. Here's what I have in the config/walrus file (apologies for the huge post, I don't rightly know how to make it a scrollable window):

Both the config and the comic page http://inaccurate-perdition.xepher.net/comic.php are uploaded, along with the archive.php the walrus_calendar.php. No image displays, and the formats are correct as far as I know. Clicking First brings me to a 404. For the $comic_url I've tried just comics/ with no avail. Any ideas? I'm probably missing something obvious.

ep.. wha.. Whoa! You're updating again??? I had the link in my "Hiatus" bookmark folder and had no idea you started Looks like I'll have catch up again

[sagebrush]

My Crowfeathers site uses php with a text file [someone else wrote it for me], so such things are possible.  However, it has, herm... broken down for unknown reasons...  So I am moving to SomeryC.  I think the guy that runs Sage Comics uses or once used Walrus... I think...  <.<;  I don't think that many people still use it.  It's pretty old, no?

[Xepher]

Well, they keep claiming Walrus 3 is coming any day now. http://www.walrusphp.com/

[Databits]

Writing something like that seems rather trivial for anyone with experience with PHP or well... any web scripting language. It seems odd that nobody out there has designed some sort of a web comic software with it's data access routines as different plugins for multiple storage methods. It really wouldn't be all THAT hard to implement something that uses either a database or file system for it's data storage (the wonders of proper OOP design).

How long has this Walrus 3 thing been in the works anyhow?

The problem with a lot of those packages and why they don't work right is generally more at fault of PHP/MySQL and/or lack of knowledge about them. There's a lot of people who plain flat out can't write code for squat and use things like deprecated functions which end up breaking in the later releases of PHP or MySQL when that it's no longer available (that or use some hacky-ass wacky method to do something that's actually not meant to work the way they use it, which also ends up breaking when things are fixed).

All in all... a little off topic but, Xepher how's that Arctica coming along? 

[Xepher]

Heh... Yeah, I really do WANT to work on it, but it's still on the backburner for the foreseeable future. I did get some good inspiration the other day for the algorithmic bits though. I was reading some of the design docs for Btrfs (a filesystem) and there's a lot of overlap with the sort of data structures I'm needing. Heck, even the (i)node term is practically the same. But then this new job started, and it's gonna be a while before I'm comfortable and in a regular routine there. After that though, then I'm gonna try and start doing some of the projects I've had in mind... that includes Artica.

As an aside, I had a much cooler idea for a name for it as well, but now I've forgotten it. Dang it!

[Databits]

Might I suggest working on a design document for the project first, even if you're not going to get into the actual project just yet. It's a good idea to set up a roadmap before you start on large projects of any sort, helps keep ideas there and some structure on what to add when, or how things need to be implemented.

I also would probably suggest looking into PostgreSQL rather than MySQL for your particular idea. Mainly because MySQL is still lacking a lot of things that could probably make your idea much easier (though I suppose the longer you wait the better the chances a new version of MySQL that has the features you need will come out).

[Xepher]

I do plan to at least do some design doc before really starting. In fact, I'll be doing some prototyping as well. I intend to be as "professional" as I can about it, because it's something I really want to be able to scale.

As for postgres, I'll check it out, though I'm not sure that a database is gonna be much more than (relatively) dumb backend storage, as it would in most any regular forum/gallery software. I'm always on a look out for easier ways to do things, so I'll read up on it and see if inspiration strikes.

[Azraelle]

The comic PHP script system that I use is called btPHP, and is available at www.enisoc.com.  Never had any problems with it, and I really don't know enough about PHP to create anything from scratch.