Manga

The problem

Manga lived scattered across Telegram PDFs and files on the phone, and everyone had to remember which volume they were on. Now it is a library with covers on my server, read in the browser or as an app, and each person has an account with their own progress. Adding a new one is dropping it into a folder on my laptop.

Highlights

1. 01Automatic uploads: a Python script watches a folder on my laptop, converts and uploads only what is new, resumes interrupted uploads, can be paused and notifies me on Telegram.
2. 02Lossless PDF to CBZ: when every page is a single image, it extracts the original bytes instead of re-encoding (72 of 72 volumes converted this way).
3. 03Measured optimization: I compared JPEG, WebP and AVIF at several resolutions on real pages; one series went from 13 GB to 2.7 GB (−79 %) with no visible loss on a phone.
4. 04Full redesign with the rOS identity, including the login screen the theme system does not cover, applied in a way that survives updates.
5. 05Installable app (PWA) with its own name and icon, and one account per person with their own progress.

What I learned

• → 01Measure before compressing: at 2000 px the manga screentone turned grey when zooming in; at 2400 px it held up with almost the same savings.
• → 02Customize without breaking updates: instead of editing files inside the container, a startup script re-applies the branding every time it starts.
• → 03Design for interruptions from day one: a multi-gigabyte upload over the internet will get cut, so the script had to resume without starting over.