New Features

Dark Mode

• See Dark Mode wiki page for details

Support for new image & archive formats

• Added support for HEIC/HEIF & AVIF images. Read support for Jpeg2000 file (It is a bit slow, so I would use it to convert to another format).
• Support for RAR5 file archives. This as been the default for WinRAR for some time, and the old format isn't even available anymore in v7+ of WinRAR.

Virtual Tags

You can now create new fields by combining existing ones using the functionality of the Caption setting found in ComicRack.ini. These virtual tags can be used for sorting, grouping, stacking, and as smart lists.

• Example: Use [{SeriesGroup} - ][{Series}] to sort/group by Series Group if it exists; otherwise, it will sort by Series.
• Set a Virtual Tag and change the List Layouts to this new tag to modify the text below the thumbnail.
• Functions to manipulate fields, such as extracting substring, replacing text, using regex, and conditional statements.

Backup Manager

• See Backup Manager wiki page for details

Open With

ComicRack can now open some files in external programs. For instance, set 7-Zip to view archives or configure your favorite reader to override ComicRack's internal viewer, using it instead when double-clicking. (the internal viewer can still be accessed via the context menu).

Important

No validation is done that the external program can open the specified file.

Merge Pages

In the pages view, selecting two pages allows you to merge them via the context menu for spreads that aren’t joined.

• To change the page order for right-to-left reading, either sort pages by descending order or set the Manga field to Yes (Right to Left).
• This change is only in the cache, and the book must be exported to save the changes.
• Reversing this is easy by using Refresh on a page (the second page will need to be changed from Deleted to Story).

New PDF Engine

The default PDF engine is now Google's PDFium, allowing you to read complex PDFs without Ghostscript (If you still want to use GhostScript, you must explicitly enable it; even if it’s installed).

Settings (in ComicRack.ini) to customize your usage:

• The PdfEngineToUse setting replaces DisableGhostscript. Valid options are Pdfium, Native (previous default), & Ghostscript.
• Since Pdfium can read complex PDFs, it will render them to a fixed size instead of extracting images like Native did.
  • You can change the rendered dimensions by editing PdfiumImageSize.

Various

• Support for .CBR & .RAR in RAR5 format.
• Tags are now saved in the ComicInfo.xml.
• The Published field didn't use Windows regional settings, so Published (Regional) was added.
• Added the Translator Tag as per the anansi-project/comicinfo.
• Added the -local command line switch, to have the program load in portable mode.
• Added the -hidden command line switch, to load the program always to the system tray and without splash screen, regardless of settings. Useful to have it start with Windows.
• New Smart List fields (will reset your database if used in an older version):
  • Is Missing, Web & also all the Virtual Tags.
• Contains Any & Contains All can now be separated by comma (,) & semicolon (;).
• You can use the Back & Forward mouse button to navigate the lists history.
• Support for reading the MetronInfo.xml metadata file, if it's the only one that exists.
• Backing up the database using SQL will now include the books stored in SQL. You can easily edit & restore to SQL or switch to using only XML.
• Force a refresh of the metadata from embedded ComicInfo.xml (or MetronInfo.xml). Open the context menu, then hold CTRL and select Refresh. Metadata remains if no XML is embedded but may be removed if fields are empty.
• There is now a DisableNTFS (in ComicRack.ini) to disable the embedding of ComicInfo.xml in an NTFS alternate stream, that isn't always compatible with other filesystems. (or "-ntfs" command line switch)
• The Preference & Info dialog is now resizable and is remembered by the Workspace system.
• You can now add icons for any fields. Just create an icon package with the name of the field (internal property) starting with an underscore _. So you could have icons for writers by creating a zip package called _Writer just like the Publishers icons.
• Changed how the first item of a stack is determined to take into consideration the sorting inside the stack. See Changes to stack sorting.
• Added feature to generate thumbnails for all covers. Under File => Generate Cover Thumbnails.
• You can now export a folder and it will export all the lists inside it as regular reading lists.
• Exporting a smart list as a reading list (single entries) will now keep the sort order of the smart list.
• Added an option in Preferences to disable opening files via drag-and-drop.
• Added a new List Order sorting option for Devices, this will use the list current Sort order. (careful with your Config.xml using this setting is not backward compatible)

Complete Changelog here.