A true double page and single page mode

[Dramsss]

@Teasday

EDIT : People made me understand that this represents too much work, so here is my new suggestion :

In double-page mode the algorithm detects if the page is a double spread or a single page by checking it's width. If the page is taking all the space by herself it's a double page, if not it's a single. Problem is, on big screens the double pages are considered single : https://imgur.com/a/oOdNKrw

Can you please make it so the width of the screen is taken into account? I have kept my original post below if it interests you.






I'm a bit surprised to see that no one has made this obvious suggestion yet so here I go.

Mangas are originally supposed to be read in the double-page mode. That's how they are read in a manga, that's also how editors read mangaka's new chapters and one-shots to correctly evaluate them. Good mangakas also plan their panel layout around this constraint in order to have the best effect on the readers. Here are two basic examples :

https://www.manga-audition.com/japanesemanga101_013/
https://www.manga-audition.com/japanesemanga101_003/

Of course it's fine if people prefer single page or long strip! I read with single page mode on mobile for example. But I want to emphasize how important a good double-page mode is when reading manga.
And comes the problem, there is currently no possibility for the uploader to specify which page is double or single.

So in practice the double-page mode simply show 2 pages every time unless the page is very large, at that point he identifies it to be a double spread.
This sucks for multiple reasons :

[ol] Many groups put their own group page at the beginning of the chapter, sometimes after the cover, sometimes before. Some even have 2 pages in order to show a little message to the readers. This is obviously fine but it does make the page order hard to trace : if the uploader could say that the cover or his messages count as double-page, it would then be possible to stay in double-page mode instead of switching mutiple times to single page.[/ol]
[ol]Another problem is that on large computer screens the algorithm thinks it's a single-page, which gives results like this : https://imgur.com/a/oOdNKrw[/ol]
[ol]Finally, the absence of distinction between single and double-spread is also a pain for those who prefer single-page and long strip mode. Some uploaders decide to divide double-page spread in two seprate pages, making them unreadable unless you are in double-page mode : https://mangadex.org/chapter/1189997/26[/ol]

To sum up, the impossibility for uploaders to specify which pages are double and which aren't sucks for everyone. Please change it.

 

[BzzBzz]

Doesn't worth the time for minor inconvenience that's easily fixed with single click. IMO.

 

[Dramsss]

Having to click after you only see half the double-page can ruin a great action or horror double-page spread.

Plus, improving the reading experience for literally everyone is far more important than merging the "Shoujo Ai" and the "Yuri" tag. IMO
(I'm not against the merge, it's just the suggestion that is the most talked about right now)

 

[JJTheWeeb]

@Dramsss some groups just upload the spread as one image. consistency could help, but adding this in now would cause more trouble than its worth, since people will need to start going back and labelling the few pages that use this, not only that, but that's a tag you have to add to each page, and how would they go about it?

A method to make this work would be adding a string to the page name that specifies if it's a double or single (could just be empty for this), but that's gonna be a little annoying. not only that, but you would probably need to specify left and right sides of the double pages, for the consecutive double page spreads (One-punch man did that once).

Seems like a lot of work and only worth it if it can be easily implemented into their v5 or whatever that was. otherwise, people are already reading on a screen, so things are just not gonna work:
I personally use fit to width, which means that most pages have the bottom cut off because landscape view. I already lose some of the impact of this.

the main issue is retroactive changes that will need to be done. Plus, some people already combine the double page spread as a single image, so distinction is hard (def doable, but would've been better implemented at the start, because of the work that will need to be done to fix all the existing chapters)

EDIT: after checking some things, i also saw that you'd need to switch from left-to-right to right-to-left if you're like me and like clicking on the right side to turn pages, so more settings to mess with on specific triggers, not always a great thing. Also that page i checked had a white line in the middle, because the image posted had that, so more things that are on the uploader to fix

 

[blackyawgdom]

literal zero need for this.

 

[Dramsss]

@blackyawgdom I respectfully dissagree, in fact I find it more necessary than most suggestions I see in this forum.

@JJTheWeeb I don't see how it would be that much troublesome to do. No one has to tag every page of every manga in Mangadex, that would take years. Keep the former system for pages that do not have a string at the end of the page's name (I'm taking your own example here, there may be other good ways to do it). But if the page's name specify if it's a simple or double then you apply it. Let's try to change things from now on first.

I don't think that specifying the right and left page of a double page spread is necessary either. To take the Azumi example I used in my post (https://mangadex.org/chapter/1189997/26) you already have that problem now. You can only read the double-page if you pick the correct reading order, and that's fine. It's fine to force people to read right-to-left or vice-versa. That's what happens irl haha. And OPM is only several double-spread next to each other, it's nothing particular. In fact there are two double-pages spread one after the other in my own example.

There are no new problems, the problems you talk about do not exist or already exist now and we don't care. So if things improve without new problems, why should we stop?
You using the width to read even if you can't see the bottom of the page is why I'm suggesting to mark pages this way. It's messing your reading experience because as you say, you can't read the bottom. It's a bad compromise.

 

[bigtiddyoneesan]

@Dramsss
Not sure if it was mentioned, but 'Shift' + 'Arrow Key' readjusts pages in double page mode (turns only one page instead of two).

 

[Dramsss]

@bigtiddyoneesan did not know that, it's a cool shortcut but doesn't solve the problem.

 

[bigtiddyoneesan]

@Dramsss
The only way it wouldn't solve the problem would be if the uploader merges only some double-spreads into one page whilst leaving others dependent on double page mode (which I don't think I've ever seen before).

As long as you ensure that the double pages are properly lined up (using Shift + Arrow Key) from the first few pages of the chapter, you'll be set to go for the rest of the chapter, and not have to worry about double-spreads looking scuffed.

I'd say it's a pretty good alternative to adding new data for every page.

 

[Dramsss]

@bigtiddyoneesan please reread my post, this doesn't solve anything.

Even if you correctly line up the pages at the beginning (it's not evident between the messages or the uploader's group and the chapter cover), the current algorithm only identifies a page as a double spread because of it's size compared to the screen you are reading on.

Which means that if you are reading on a big screen you have those kind of problems : https://imgur.com/a/oOdNKrw

When stuff like that happens the reader is forced to go back to single page, which means they are missing a few things + sometimes the double-spread are separated in two distinct pages (https://mangadex.org/chapter/1189997/26). Of course once you have those things happen you can use your shortcut, but it can ruin moments for you. Would you find it cool if you had only half of this image and needed to click manually to see it whole? What about Ace's death?

 

[bigtiddyoneesan]

@Dramsss
Ok, I see what you mean. I just tried it with one of your examples. For me, going through in double page mode recognizes the wider pages (like page 8) as double-spreads and only shows those pages when they come up accordingly (meaning it doesn't result in this). It still shows all 'single-sized' pages as they should be shown in double page mode.

So instead of adding double/single identifiers to every page, wouldn't another solution be readjusting what counts as single/double based on monitor width alone?

 

[Dramsss]

@bigtiddyoneesan

Yes it would work, I wanted to take the opportunity by suggesting a bigger change that everyone could enjoy.

But if that's too much work your fix is far enough. Should I change the thread title?

 

[bigtiddyoneesan]

@Dramsss
Thread titles can only be changed by staff. You can edit in some sort of 'adjust single/double page requirements to screen size' addendum to your original post to make the other option easier to see, I guess.

Also, it may be a while (or even never!) until a dev replies, so hold strong (or just ping Teasday if you have balls of steel).

 

[Teasday]

_{@Dramsss posted:}

I'm a bit surprised to see that no one has made this obvious suggestion yet so here I go.

No need to be surprised, it's been suggested over and over and I obviously had it in mind back when I was writing the reader to begin with.

Can you please make it so the width of the screen is taken into account?

It is taken into account, that is the problem. I thought I was being smart about it but it turns out that it's better to just assume all images that are wider than they are taller should be treated as "double pages", rather than base it on that plus the screen width.

To sum up, the impossibility for uploaders to specify which pages are double and which aren't sucks for everyone. Please change it.

You're massively overestimating uploaders' interest to do this (especially since the majority of people read on single page or long strip anyway), not to mention we already have thousands upon thousands of chapters for which this process would have to manually applied to.

We're not going to add a field where uploaders can specify whether any given page is supposed to be on the left, right or both. Most people wouldn't care, and that applies to both uploaders and readers. We MAY at some point be adding a field that determines whether the first (non-wide?) page should be offset by one or not, but that won't really work properly until the reader can know beforehand whether any given image is wide or not before loading it. We'll fix that problem too when we come to it.

tl;dr - We've naturally been well aware of the issue for ages. The underlying problem is more or less fixable, but it's not a priority at the moment.

 

[Plykiya]

> thousands upon thousands of chapters

over 1 million chapters.

 

[Dramsss]

@Teasday Thanks for the answer, I didn't see that suggestion in the "Planned or Rejected" that's why I was surprised.

I didn't know that most people read on single page or long strip either, I guess that's because of the mobile readers. I don't understand why there should be a field asking if the page is supposed to be on the left or right. To me that doesn't matter, you only have one sense for reading manga irl too afterall. I was asking about a field for the uploader so that he/she could specify whether a page is a single page or a double.

It would solve the problem where a double page and another single appear together. Why not let the uploaders do the work for you?

I've seen from the answers that interest in this kind of things is low haha, I'm already happy that you're currently working so the reader can recognize a double page without taking the screen width into account.

Thanks for your time!

 

[Teasday]

_{@Dramsss posted:}

I don't understand why there should be a field asking if the page is supposed to be on the left or right. To me that doesn't matter, you only have one sense for reading manga irl too afterall. I was asking about a field for the uploader so that he/she could specify whether a page is a single page or a double.

That's even more pointless, we can find that out programmatically by checking the image's dimensions.

It would solve the problem where a double page and another single appear together.

That's related to the screen width check that I mentioned where I was trying to be smart. A landscape image isn't considered a "double" if its actual width is less than half the available container's width. I made that exception for small landscape-shaped credits pages, but yeah, on massive monitors and very small double page images like in your example that backfires. Good thing that's a very rare combination.