Manga Meeya

A while ago, I wrote a post about CDisplay, an awesome Comic Book Reading Tool. I had several problems with it (such as its non customizable shortcuts, full screen mode that didn't work with my dual screens, random crashes while opening certain archives, difficulty in dealing with archives within archives...), but I didn't think that anything better existed out there. I tried CDisplayEx, but that was way worse. I was even tempted to write my own manga viewer called "CDisplayEx+Alpha." But there's no need, because I found MangaMeeya, which is everything I ever wanted in a comic reader and more.

My favorite features about MangaMeeya are its ability to display two pages at once, its smart look ahead feature, its ability to view pages either left-to-right or right-to-left, its fit-to-page image resizing, its ability to automatically deal with compressed files, and its customizability. On top of all that, MangaMeeya is blazingly fast. In addition to comic reading, it works really well as a generic image viewer... you can even delete images using MangaMeeya and use it to organize your galleries. I really can't even imagine a better sequential image viewing tool.

I don't really know the history of MangaMeeya or where it came from. I don't even know its home page. I think that it's a Japanese commercial product, but that development has ended over some copyright dispute. At some point, some guy unofficially translated it into English. If anyone has more information about MangaMeeya, please let me know, since I would like to pay for the program.

Link to Download English MangaMeeya:  Download Here

Context Menu

Although its internal file browser is nice, you will definitely want to add MangaMeeya to your right click context menu. That'll allow you to right click on any file or folder and have it open in MangaMeeya. You can do this by going into the registry and adding new shell commands to the '*' and 'Folder' extensions. Or you can download this batch file I wrote and then run it in the directory where MangaMeeyaCE-English.exe is located. I've tested it on Windows XP SP2, Windows XP SP3, and Windows Vista. It will modify your registry, but I can't imagine how it could ruin anything. Still, I assume no responsibility if you somehow use it to wreck your system. The context item will be named CMangaMeeya, which should always put it near the top of your right click list.

CMangaMeeya.bat

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1. @echo off  
2. if not exist MangaMeeyaCE-English.exe (  
3.   echo MangaMeeyaCE-English.exe Not Found In Current Directory.  
4.   echo Please run this file in the MangaMeeya Directory!  
5.   echo.  
6.   pause  
7.   exit  
8. )  
9.   
10. echo Creating Registry file...  
11.   
12. echo Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 > mangameeya.reg  
13. echo. >> mangameeya.reg  
14. echo [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell] >> mangameeya.reg  
15. echo [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\CMangaMeeya] >> mangameeya.reg  
16. echo [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\CMangaMeeya\command] >> mangameeya.reg  
17. echo @="\"%cd:\=\\%\\MangaMeeyaCE-English.exe\" \"%%1\"" >> mangameeya.reg  
18. echo. >> mangameeya.reg  
19. echo [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell] >> mangameeya.reg  
20. echo [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\CMangaMeeya] >> mangameeya.reg  
21. echo [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\CMangaMeeya\command] >> mangameeya.reg  
22. echo @="\"%cd:\=\\%\\MangaMeeyaCE-English.exe\" \"%%1\"" >> mangameeya.reg  
23.   
24. regedit /s mangameeya.reg  
25.   
26. echo Successfully Added Manga Meeya to Context Menu as CMangaMeeya!  
27.   
28. pause  

@echo off<br />if not exist MangaMeeyaCE-English.exe (<br /> echo MangaMeeyaCE-English.exe Not Found In Current Directory.<br /> echo Please run this file in the MangaMeeya Directory!<br /> echo.<br /> pause<br /> exit<br />)<br /><br />echo Creating Registry file...<br /><br />echo Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 > mangameeya.reg<br />echo. >> mangameeya.reg<br />echo [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell] >> mangameeya.reg<br />echo [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\CMangaMeeya] >> mangameeya.reg<br />echo [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\CMangaMeeya\command] >> mangameeya.reg<br />echo @="\"%cd:\=\\%\\MangaMeeyaCE-English.exe\" \"%%1\"" >> mangameeya.reg<br />echo. >> mangameeya.reg<br />echo [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell] >> mangameeya.reg<br />echo [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\CMangaMeeya] >> mangameeya.reg<br />echo [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\CMangaMeeya\command] >> mangameeya.reg<br />echo @="\"%cd:\=\\%\\MangaMeeyaCE-English.exe\" \"%%1\"" >> mangameeya.reg<br /><br />regedit /s mangameeya.reg<br /><br />echo Successfully Added Manga Meeya to Context Menu as CMangaMeeya!<br /><br />pause

My CDisplay Clone Set Up

Since I've used CDisplay for a few years, I've gotten used to many of its key shortcuts. Since MangaMeeya is so customizable, I switched many of the key shortcuts to be more CDisplay-like. If you're in the same boat as me, feel free to use my configuration settings. Simply download my file and swap it with the file in your MangaMeeya directory.

My Configuration Settings File:  Download Here

My Frequently Used Commands:

Right Arrow: Goes to the next section or page.
Left Arrow: Goes to the previous section or page.
Ctrl+l: Foes to the next directory or compressed file. It's a lowercase 'L', not the number one.
Ctrl+Shift+l: Goes to the preview directory or compressed file. It's a lowercase 'L', not the number one.
l: Allows you to select a folder to open. It's a lowercase 'L', not the number one.
o: Allows you to select a file to open. It's a lowercase 'O', not the number zero.
`: Exits the program
Ctrl+Return: Switches between full screen mode and Windowed mode.

Well, if you read comics on your computer, I hope that you give MangaMeeya a try. It's definitely worth it.