🔖Chapters v2

Deep-dive into the new chapters functionality, from selecting existing chapters to setting chapters manually

New Unread Logic

Since day 1, the unread status, that little blue ping you see next to the titles, has been very simple -> comparing the URL between the current and latest chapters, and if not equal, set it as unread.

That was not ideal, as we have sites that rotate URLs weekly or even daily. Or scanlators re-uploading the same chapter, either to their sites or MangaDex. In all those cases, you would get a false-positive on the chapter being unread - just because the URL changed.

With Chapters v2, the unread will be smart enough to recognise if your last read chapter is actually higher than the latest available!

Here are some examples:

Last Chapter Read	Latest Chapter	Unread Status
Ch. 10	Ch. 5	Read
Vol. 1 Ch. 1	Vol. 2 Ch. 1	Unread
Vol. 1 Ch. 5	Vol. 1 Ch. 5	Read
Ch. 7	Vol. 2 Ch. 2	Read
Chapter Title	Different Chapter Title	Unread

So to recap -> URLs won't affect the unread anymore, but volume, chapter number or chapter title is used to decide whatever you are ahead or behind the latest chapter.

Unified Chapter Progress across Sources

Another big improvement, which has been requested quite awhile ago, is the ability to keep unified last read chapter information across sources, making it easier to swap between them, without updating the chapter every time yourself.

You can suggest a feature just like this over at https://kenmei.hellonext.co/

This has also been added as part of this project, so switching sources is even simpler now (Check videos below for an example).

There is one improvement left to be done -> Currently, while chapter count will be retained when switching sources, you will lose the URL, until you re-select the chapter you want. I plan to automatically detect the correct chapter URL between sources, so it correctly gets picked when switching sources

Last Read Chapter from Available Chapters

Onto the meat of the update -> Ability to select your last read chapter from those available from the site you are tracking. Kenmei will proactively monitor all chapters that exist on the supported site and let you pick from one of those, as can be seen below:

Moreover, if a site deletes a chapter you've picked -> you won't lose your progress, instead, fall back onto the Manual Chapter mode (more on that later). From there, you can just switch to a new source or pick another chapter or continue tracking as it is.

Last Read Chapter Manually

So you've got a series you want to track, but none of the sources has any chapters available? It's now not a problem -> You can manually set your last read volume and/or chapter:

Set chapters manually, for any tracked series

This opens a lot of possibilities, including the ability to override unread status (just set a chapter to be higher than last available, if you want to) or provide a more detailed last read, than what you think a site provides (maybe you know the volume, while the source tracked does not know about it)

Simplified Add Manga Dialog

Another noticeable change is the simplified Add Manga Dialog -> making it possible to add a series in two clicks. If you want to change any settings, including picking a chapter, you can do it by expanding additional options:

You might also spot that it's not possible to add series by URL anymore -> While it was convenient for some, it had a lot of overhead for myself, such as adding duplicate series from MangaHub, trying to add weird URLs and so on.

So if you can't find a series you are looking for, you will be able to suggest one, which will go through manual review and be added only if it's a valid series. This will allow me to finally clean the database of duplicates and have much better data going forward.

Long term, I expect this functionality to be less and less relevant -> after I add alternative titles for all series and start to automatically add series from supported sites, there should be very few cases, where series are missing from Kenmei database. But it'll still take a bit of time to get there

Future

This has been one of the most crucial features, since the very start. Due to various reasons, I just couldn't have added it earlier, but I am glad it is finally here. With this, Kenmei is almost feature-complete, in the scope of its Alpha stage.

There is a lot of functionality I can build on top of this, but one I am most excited about short-term -> Is moving away from the last read / last available chapter combo, and instead revolve UI around the last read / next available chapter, so you can more easily continue reading from where you last stopped.