Getting Started

When you want to read a webcomic, serial story, or other serialized work online, Serialist can help. Just find the serial you're interested in from our list of serials, and follow the "start reading this serial" link. (If you don't see the serial you want to read, you can add it.)

Now, as you read the serial, you can navigate among its pages by using our bookmarklets. Normally, you'll just hit the "Next" bookmarklet, which will take you to the next page of the serial. Serialist will remember the last page of the serial you read.

When you come back later, just visit your user page, and we'll give you a list of all the serials you read, with links to the last page you read and the first new page if any.

Joining Serialist

To get the most out of Serialist, you'll need an account. If you don't have an account yet, join us! It's quick: You just need to choose a username and password.

Navigating with Serialist bookmarks

To use Serialist to keep track of your place within a serial, you'll need to use the Serialist 'Next' Bookmark. This bookmark works like the 'next' link on most serials, taking you to the next page in the serial, but it also tells Serialist what page you're on. Then, when you come back later, we can tell you if there are any pages you haven't read yet and take you back to where you left off.

Add this link to your bookmarks: Next

Most users find it most convenient to add the Serialist bookmark to their browser's bookmark toolbar. You can usually do that by dragging the link to your bookmark toolbar. If you don't see your bookmarks toolbar or you need other help, please see your browser's documentation. For your convenience, we've provided links to documentation for several common browsers below.

• Mozilla Firefox
• Google Chrome
• Apple Safari
• Opera
• Microsoft Internet Explorer
• If your browser isn't listed, we're betting you know what you're doing and can handle this without our help. If you are using another browser and you don't know what you're doing, let us know.

Some users prefer to put the Serialist link into their bookmarks list. In this case, to advance your Serialist mark, you'll need to go to your Serialist next bookmark.

Some users come up with their own creative ways to use Serialist. If you think of a really good one, please let us know.

How can I find serials I might want to read?

We have a list of the serials we track. If you're looking for more information about serials, you can randomly click on various serials in our list with amusing names, or you can head off to somewhere like Comixpedia which has a bunch of useful information about comics, or the Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards. In the future we may add some features to suggest serials you might want to read.

Once you've found a serial you want to read, you can start tracking it with Serialist by looking for its name in our list of serials, and then following the "start reading this serial" link. (If you don't see the serial you want to read, you can add it.)

I already read a bunch of serials. How do I use Serialist to track them?

You can always add serials individually as outlined above, but if you read a lot of serials you might prefer to use our import tool.

We can import marks from any HTML file, including bookmarks exported as HTML from any browser or bookmarking service. If you have a specific page of a serial bookmarked, we will set a mark in the serial at that point; otherwise, we'll guess which serial you wanted and offer to set a mark at the beginning or end. If you have bookmarks in serials we don't know about, we'll offer to help you add them.

Editing serials

How to add a serial

Often, Serialist will already know about the serials you want to read and keep track of; please check the "All Serials" list to see if the serial you want is already listed.

If you want to track a serial we don't know about, you can add that serial to Serialist and we will start tracking it right away. You can find that form by following the "New Serial" link on any page.

In the most common case, we just need to know the name of the serial and the addresses of the first two pages of the serial. From that, we can usually find all the pages in the serial and track when new pages show up.

Occasionally we'll need a bit more information to find the right list of pages for a serial. Read on for details.

What to do if you find a serial that isn't working, in order, etc.?

If Serialist finds some of the pages of the serial, but then stops before the end, we probably can't find the right link to the next page. In this case, add a "then keep going until this page" and give the address of the last page Serialist did find, and then add a "then use this page" for the page Serialist should have found. Hit Save, and the next time Serialist checks that serial we should find the pages after that point.

If Serialist skips some pages, you can use the same approach to tell it the last page it got right and where to go after that.

Of course, if we couldn't find the correct next page, you might have trouble finding it as well; for instance, the "next" link might not work, or might lead to the wrong page. You might have to go to the archive page for that serial and find the next page that way.

Serialist will not normally follow links which lead off of the domain it started on. If the pages of the serial live on two different domain names, you can tell Serialist about the second domain by adding it to the "Extra allowed prefix" field.

If Serialist finds a page that shouldn't appear in the serial, such as a site homepage which duplicates the last page, or an archive linking to all the pages, you can tell Serialist to ignore that page. Check the checkbox next to that page and choose "Save" again. The next time we scan that serial, we will ignore that page entirely.

If none of the above techniques work, you may have found a serial that we just can't handle yet. Please let us know, especially if you have any suggestions on how we can do better.

Information for serial authors and hosting services

How Serialist works—the short version

On each page, Serialist tries to find a link which will take it to the next page in the serial. Serialist can find this link in several ways:

• Based on the pages Serialist has seen so far, it knows what links it has seen leading from one page to the next, and it will look for the same kind of link on the current page. For example, if you always use a particular image for the next button, or you always use the phrase "Next Page", we will keep following the links that look like that.

• If Serialist can't find a link that looks like other "next" links it has seen before, it will try all the links on the page and look for pages which link back to the current page using the same kind of "previous" link seen before.

• If neither of these work, Serialist will stop unless the serial description explicitly tells it "then use this page".

I want to add my site to Serialist

Great! Please join us and then follow our instructions for adding a serial.

I want to add all the sites I host to Serialist

Awesome! Please contact us and we can discuss how to do that.

What can I do if my serial doesn't crawl correctly?

We're very proud of Serialist, but it isn't perfect. We have some tips on editing our description of a serial, but as the author of a serial you can also add some information to your site to make it easier for us to find all of the pages of your serial. Either of the following will let us find all of the pages:

• On each of your pages, in the <head>, add <link rel="next" href="ADDRESS_OF_NEXT_PAGE">.

• Check that each page links to the next one with a link that is basically the same HTML every time (other than the address of the next page).

We continue to find new heuristics that help Serialist automatically understand the structure of more serials. If you have any suggestions, please tell us.

Does Serialist copy my content?

Nope! We provide links to your content, and we help your readers keep coming back to your site right where they left off.

Does Serialist link to or embed my images?

Nope! We never link to or reference your images or other media directly; we only link to the pages of your serial.

How do I offer Serialist to my readers? (And why would I want to?)

Serialist can help your readers keep track of your serial more easily. Serialist will remember where they left off so they can continue later, and will tell them when you post a new page.

If this sounds like something your readers might want, and you'd like to integrate Serialist with your site, please contact us.

I have more questions or concerns...

Please contact us. We'd love to hear from you!

Privacy and security

Do you share information about me?

We are committed to preserving your privacy. We do not share any information about you individually. We currently also do not share aggregate information about our users, though we may do so in the future. In the future we may allow you to share information about yourself through our site, at your option; at present the information you provide is kept private.

If you would like more details on the steps we take to preserve your privacy, or you have specific concerns, please contact us.

How do I know you won't lose all my marks or other information?

We do hourly encrypted backups of our entire database to several physical locations, on two continents.

If you want, you can also back up your own bookmarks using our export tool.

Do you use cookies?

No, we don't use cookies. If you want a delicious delicacy, we like these:

• Fairlight Bakery's "Vanilla Frosted"
• Spokandy's "Murphy"

About Serialist

Who are we?

We are Josh Triplett and Jamey Sharp, a couple of computer geeks who work on crazy projects together.

Why did we create Serialist?

We like to read comics and stories online, but we had trouble keeping track of all of them. As a couple of computer geeks, we decided to solve this problem, so we created Serialist.

Can I see how Serialist works?

Sure! Serialist is Free and Open Source Software, released under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3.

Serialist is written mostly in the Haskell programming language, and you can get a copy of the source code using git:

git clone git://serialist.net/git/serialist

Ohloh provides some interesting statistics on Serialist's development.

If I want to send you a suitcase full of unmarked bills, where should I send it?

Drop us a line at help@serialist.net and we can work something out. :-)

Advanced tools

For every serial you want to read, Serialist can mark your place in that serial. Serialist can also help you navigate the pages in a serial, taking you from your current page to the next, previous, first, or most recent page.

To use Serialist to navigate a serial and to mark your place, we provide bookmarklets that you can add to your web browser. For most common web browsers, you can just drag these links to your bookmark toolbar, or right-click on them and choose to add a bookmark. Once you've added them, simply click them while on any page of the serial.

You don't need to use all of these bookmarklets; in fact, you only need two to take advantage of Serialist. The first will take you to the next page of the serial, and mark your place at the new page. The second will take you back to your mark from any page of the serial.

• Next
• Go to mark

If you would prefer to read through a serial without automatically moving your mark, you can use the following bookmarklets instead:

• Previous
• Next
• Mark your place
• Go to mark

There are a few other places Serialist can take you:

• First
• Last
• Random

We also offer a bookmarklet for adding a serial we don't already track.

1. Go to the first page of the serial.

2. Use this bookmarklet to register a new serial:

   • New serial

3. Click the link to the next page, which will instead take you to the "New Serial" form at Serialist.

4. Adjust the Serial name (filled in from the first page's title) to taste.

5. Click Save.