« Mahou »

Before reading this article, it's recommended to read the General Introduction.

Introduction to your «mahou» collection

With «mahou» each user can compile his personal collection of manga, hopefully as quickly and easily as possible. For this, «mahou» has a main database, that stores people, series and manga, associated to each other and with various information for each of them. If a user finds a manga in the database that he has in her/his collection, then a simple click will suffice to associate this manga to his collection. It will then show up in the user's collection view with all information from the main database and the possibility to add personal information (like rating to buying status).
Is a manga not yet in the database, the user can add it to the main database and let it be associated with her/his collection. Other users who later buy the same manga, will then be able to add this manga from the main database to their collections and thus the number of manga one has to actually add to the database will decrease with the number of «mahou» users increasing.

Adding already existing manga

If a manga already exists in the main database (shows up when browsing or searching «mahou»), adding it to your own collection is simple. When logged in and viewing a manga's detail view (where the cover and all the manga's info is visible), a "I've got this!" link shows up in the top right corner. Simply click on it and the link will change to "Remove from my collection".
Alternatively, this can be done with more than one manga at a time from a series' detail view. In the same place the "I've got this" link can be found in the manga's detail view (top right corner) a "Switch to add mode" link can be found in the series' detail view. When you click on it, next to each volume number in the manga chart a checkbox will show up. All manga that are already in your collection will already have a tick and by and by selecting and deselecting the checkboxes mangas can be added and removed from the collection. Click on "Add / Remove" and the choice will be saved.

Adding new manga (and series / people)

There are and always will be manga that are not yet in the «mahou» database and need to be added. The manga belongs to a series that may already exists and on the series might have worked people who may already be in the database. To avoid duplicate entries, it is important to check for existing series and people before adding new one. Each case of existing / nonexisting manga, series and people is handled by the «mahou» wizard which should facilitate the process guiding the user through multiple steps.
A schematic representation of the process of adding new entries to «mahou» might look like this:
This schema does not represent all aspects of the process but should give a fair idea of the structure, which will be described here shortly. There is a more specific help available directly in the wizard using the "[Show Help]" link at the bottom of each page.

1. Series

The first thing to do when adding something new is to select the series to which you want to add new manga or create a new series. If a series is selected from the database, the associations of the series with people are taken from the database and don't have to be entered. If a new series is created, the next step will consist of selecting or adding persons.
Note that it's important to keep in mind, that a series can have one title for each language supported by «mahou». A title in a specific language might not be displayed in the list but the series already be in the database (and displayed with another title). The title in the language your looking for might be added to the series (but not displayed) but might also not be and then even the automatic search for duplicate series by the wizard that kicks in when adding a new series might not be able to find the series when it is already in the database. It's important to take your time to check for the series and to keep this in mind.

2. People

If you've selected an existing series, this step will be skipped.
Persons can also be either selected from the database or newly added to it. There isn't the problem with series having different titles in different languages since all names are used with romajis but they might still be written slightly different or the first and last name confused. So again, please take your time to check if a person isn't already in the database before adding it.
You can add or select an (somewhat) unlimited number of people. By default the wizards displays one form for selecting and one for adding a person. Using the links at the bottom, it's possible to add boxes of either kind to add or select additional people.

3. Manga

Lastly, the manga that need to be added have to be selected. There are two forms that can be selected and serve two different purposes:

• Add Regular Manga
• Add Unindexed Manga

In «mahou» every manga needs to have an index or volume number. The combination of series, language and volume number then defines a manga i.e. there can only be one manga with a given combination of this three values. To incorporate also unindexed manga i.e. manga without volumes numbers. There are actually two types of manga without volumes numbers:

• Fake unindexed manga
  (Manga which don't have volume numbers but are ordered into a series. e.g. the French Tsukasa Hojo Recueil which consists of two volumes without numbers but subtitles. Those manga are unindexed but still inside the series. There is a first volume called Le Cadeau de l'Ange and the second Le Temps de Cerisiers).
• Real unindexed manga
  (Manga which are not ordered inside the series. This mainly means artbooks or special volumes like the Nana 7.8)

For this two cases you have to use the second form, "Add Unindexed Manga" as only this one allows you to add subtitles and/or manga that are not ordered inside the series.
For all other and also almost all manga the first form, "Add Regular Manga", must be used.
There is an important difference in how this two forms act. The form for Regular manga is self-aware of what already exists in the database so you can simply check what you want in your collection and «mahou» will sort out for you, what needs to be added and what already exists. The second form, "Add Unindexed Manga", can't do that unfortunately. There you have to be carful that you don't add something that already exists in the database.