Jimic

Jimic is a minimalistic eComic viewer for Java platforms supporting JDK 1.1 and AWT. It allows to read eComics stored in CBZ format with images encoded in JFIF/JPEG or GIF format. To read comics or images in other formats, they first have to be converted (for example using Jomic).

Features and limitations

Jimic is designed to be simple and small:

• Maximum screen real estate due lack of menus, toolbars and anything else not related to showing images.
• No write access needed. Images are read directly from the eComic ZIP archive, and extracted to memory.
• Tiny application size.
• Runs with JDK 1.1 and AWT (as released way back in 1997).

Because of its simplicity, a few things you might have been used to from other eComic viewers are missing. The limitations are by design, and not considered bugs.

• No scrollbar to move within the image (because it would waste screen space).
• No online help; you have to learn the keyboard definition by heart (it's simple though because there isn't much you can do with Jimic anyway).
• No two page mode.
• No caching and precaching.
• Read only one comic at a time.
• No different view modes like "scale to fit" (because handheld displays are usually to small for that anyway).

And there are a couple of issues that ought to be addressed eventually:

• Scrolling should only be allowed within the image range.
• Image names should be sorted naturally instead of alphabetically (23 comes before 123).

Requirements

Jimic is a Java application running as of JDK 1.1 (released in 1997) or any later version.

For Mac OS Classic (version 8 or later), Java has been made available under the name MRJ (Mac OS Runtime for Java), and should still be downloadable from ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/Java/.

Installation and startup

To install Jimic, unpack Jimic.zip and simply copy the Jimic.jar to any place you like.

To start Jimic from the console, type:

    java -jar /install/path/Jimic.jar

Optionally you can specify a file name of a comic to open, for example:

    java -jar /install/path/Jimic.jar /comics/blah.cbz

On many platforms you can also start Jimic from the desktop by just double-clicking the Jimic.jar.

Usage

Jimic opens an empty window. Press one of the following keys:

• O - Open a dialog to select a comic to read.
• A - Show dialog with information about the application such as version number and copyright.
• Page up, page down, Space - Go to previous/next image.
• Cursor keys - scroll image.
• G or L - Open a dialog to select the numer of an image to show.
• Q or Esc - Quit the application.

Additionally you can use the mouse:

• Click left - Go to next image.
• Drag with left button pressed - Scroll image.

License

Jimic is copyright 2006 Thomas Aglassinger.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

Source code

The source code in included in the Jimic.zip in the directory source. There is also a git repository at https://github.com/roskakori/jimic.

To compile the application, use the included build.xml for ant, and run:

    ant

    ant -projecthelp

To build the Jimic application for Mac OS Classic, use JBindery, which is included in the MRJ SDK, available from ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/Development_Kits/.