June

Custom user tags + under the hood improvements for the API

Welcome to the latest monthly update. We've had a lot of new users joining Kenmei over the last month, from our friends at Edelgarde Scans and Secret Scans. That also meant a lot more feedback and some re-assessment of the upcoming feature work, which you'll find below.

I've also opened a ko-fi account, in case anybody wants to donate, as I've been paying up to a $100 per month since Kenmei started, so any bit would help lessen the burden. You can find it here → https://ko-fi.com/kenmei

Finally, a usual reminder that we've got a Discord server, so if you have any questions/suggestions/bug reports or you just want to see some behind the scenes work, do check it out here → https://discord.gg/XeTFtYW

Tag creator

The biggest piece of work that got finished was, of course, Custom Tag Creator.

You can find the new section in Settings, where you can create, edit and delete tags. You can give tags short description as well, and it will also show how many manga entries have that tag assigned.

After you are done, you can easily add any number of tags to manga entries individually or in bulk. After that, you can filter your list by any combination of your tags.

Progress Overview

As usual below is the overview of the ongoing, main priority items that I have been working on.

  1. Ability to set reading status for manga entries (Reading, On-hold, etc) → 100% Complete

  2. Ability to set tags (Manga lists will become tags instead) → 100% Complete

  3. Ability to choose title type globally (English or Romaji) → 50% Complete

  4. Filtering → 100% Complete

  5. Adding basic user settings page → 100% Complete

  6. Improving data consistency in the database → 70% Complete

With most of them being finished, below is the updated roadmap for the upcoming month and beyond:

  1. Ability to choose title type globally (English or Romaji) → 50% Complete

  2. Improving data consistency in the database → 70% Complete

  3. Dark theme → 10% Complete

  4. Cover grid mode → 10% Complete

  5. Revamped manga list UI → 50% Complete

  6. Improving mobile experience → 30% Complete

As mentioned, I am starting to finally work on the dark theme. Another cool feature I started working on is the ability to see your manga list as covers, as an alternative to a simple list. Here is the sneak peek at an early prototype:

The other big theme I am looking at is finally revamping manga list UI, something I've been working on and off for a while now. This is needed to improve the mobile experience, as currently, it's pretty annoying. A lot more users now use Kenmei on mobile, so I'd like to address it as soon as possible. This also includes other UI improvements on mobile, to make it feel more like an app (which eventually it will be). Another sneak peek:

As usual, there will be various smaller changes, including new manga sources, being added over the coming month. There is quite a bit of behind the scenes work I need to do, to help me start adding more manga sources, specifically for aggregators like MangaKakalot.

Stay tuned and I'll see you around!

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