Who's using ComicBase?

[Captain Comics]

I need your help again, Legionnaires!

I'm going to review ComicBase for the Scripps column, and I want to make sure I'm using it to its full capacity. As I type this I'm copying the art/movies to my hard drive, which will take some time, apparently. Then I'll have to spend a week or so doing data entry and learning its capacities and limits.

So while I'm busy doing that, I want to know how well its working for those of you using it. What are you using the custom fields for? Are you pleased with its functions? What version do you have?

And, of course, I want to hear from those of you who are using something else Tell me about those programs, too, and why you think they're superior to ComicBase.

[Captain Comics]

Mark S. Ogilvie said:

I use an excell spreadsheet, though I have thought of writing my own program. I'm curious about something to, the Dragon speech software I use can enter into Spreadsheet, can it enter into comic base?

Mark

I imagine so. There's an "import data" function that works with most major software.

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

I will avoid repeating myself of what I like and don't like about ComicBase when you asked about this over on Facebook, unless you want me to.

Instead I will just comment on what I use the custom boxes/fields for,
I use one set of Custom Boxes to indicate if I have the book signed. I then use 1 Custom Field to indicate who it was signed by. I use another custom field to denote the Box Number of each comic book I have. I don't know what I would use the other custom fields or boxes for and even if I did it would eb a huge pain in the butt to go back and re-edit every comic...

I sprung for the Archive Edition a year and half ago.

I did think of something else that bothers me: Is that when you try to do a search by creator, there are quite a few creators who are given different spellings of their name, or outright misspelled versions. I wish there was, I guess, someone at Human Computing who could clean that up. A daunting task indeed.

[suedenim]

I use ComicBase ("Professional" edition), and it was invaluable for getting my collection catalogued for the first time.

The bar code scanning functionality was particularly great for that endeavor, and for adding my newer comics as well. I use the scanner sold by ComicBase, but apparently others may work too.

For custom fields, my most-indispensible one is "Box," to identify the number of the box in which an issue resides. Extremely useful, since I don't especially need to worry about alphabetization, sorting by company, etc. I do, to some extent, but if I want to make space by, say, moving a bunch of Green Lantern comics to a box containing mostly Thor, it's no big deal. And "Box" doesn't necessarily mean box - I also have used "Shelves" (for trades) or "For Sale."

I do use a few other custom fields intermittently. A checkbox for "Dumpable" - i.e., stuff that I could part with fairly easily. Another checkbox is "Unread," to identify comics I own, but never actually got around to reading, but mean to.