All characters are Copyright © of their respective owners - This is freeware. No warranty either implicit or implied is included.

WinComics

Version 1.1a - Fixed problems with Calvin & Hobbes and other strips from GoComics website

WinComics is a tiny Windows application that can be added to your startup folder, to begin every day with your fresh comic strip. WinComics will start from the last viewed comic, and will try to load the current strip, based on today's date: you can navigate thru dates using the green arrows, within the maximum of 30 days of free availability - but, wait - that's online availability.

Remember that WinComics saves all comics to a local directory, so you can keep years of comics saved on your disk: WinComic will always search first in the local directory, acting as a browser for your archive, without any date limitation. Let's start creating your comic collection now!

You can use the calendar tool to quickly reach previous dates, or comics downloaded in the past: to jump back home (today's date) click the blue check mark icon. You can go directly to selected comic official website by clicking the blue balloon icon.

Frequently asked questions

Q: Where are the comic strips saved?

A: In a subfolder named "images" under WinComics installation folder.

Q: I want my favorite comics to appear on top of the list!

A: Open file WinComics.cfg (under WinComics installation folder) with a text editor (Notepad is fine), find your favorite comic and put a blank space in front of the name (between the equal sign and the name). When restarting WinComics, it will be placed at the beginning of the list.

Q: The supplied list of comics is too long!

A: Feel free to edit  file WinComics.cfg, removing unwanted entries: please remove all settings related to a comic.

Q: Is there a way to navigate more quickly between dates?

A: Using the calendar tool, you can use left and right arrow keys to run across months of comics.

Q: WinComics cannot find a strip for a certain date

A - 1: Probably it is not a daily comic: try to click on previous dates until you find a comic, WinComics will display it until a new one is published.

A - 2: While most comics are updated on a daily basis, others are not so regular: if nothing is available for current date, WinComics will try to find the closer comic available, either online or in the local collection, within a range of seven days. This is enough for weekly comics, but others may  not follow a normal calendar: therefore in some cases, WinComics cannot find a strip. Remember that free online availability is normally valid only for 30 days: after that date, if you haven's seen a strip using WinComics (that saves a copy of it on your disk), the strip cannot be reached anymore.

Q: Will WinComics run on Windows Vista?

A: Yes, WinComics runs on the entire Windows family. 

Q: Hey, is this legal or I am hacking a commercial web site?

A: WinComics does nothing illegally, does not bypass comic web site security and does not violate any rule. It loads the comic web page in the background and parses the page code to find the link to the strip, which is quickly loaded in the viewer, skipping all ads, banners and furniture of the web site. You could do exactly the same manually, by viewing the source code in your browser, finding the link, using the url to get the image and saving it locally.

Obviously, to fully enjoy each comic's experience, we invite you to visit the respective official web site, that can be accessed directly from WinComics.

Q: WinComics filled my hard disk!

A: Thanks for using WinComics so intensively! Anyway, keep an eye on the "images" folder, where comics are stored, it can grow very quickly...