Skip to content

Adding new manga sources

The following is guide for creating a Kotatsu parsers. Thanks for taking the time to contribute!

Prerequisites

Before you start, please note that the ability to use the following technologies is required.

Tools

Kotatsu parsers are not a part of the Android application, but you can easily develop and test it directly inside an Android application project and relocate it to the library project when done.

Before you start

First, take a look at the kotatsu-parsers project structure. Each parser is a single class that extends the MangaParser class and has a MangaSourceParser annotation. Also, pay attention to extensions in the util package. For example, extensions from the Jsoup file should be used instead of existing JSoup functions because they have better nullability support and improved error messages.

Writing your parser

So, you want to create a parser, that will provide access to manga from a website. First, you should explore a website to learn about API availability. If it does not contain any documentation about API, explore network requests: some websites use AJAX.

If the website is based on some engine it is rationally to use a common base class for this one (for example, Madara Wordpress theme and the MadaraParser class)

Parser class skeleton

The parser class must have exactly one primary constructor parameter of type MangaLoaderContext and have an MangaSourceParser annotation that provides the internal name, title, and language of a manga source.

All members of the MangaParser class are documented. Pay attention to some peculiarities:

  • Never hardcode domain. Specify the default domain in the configKeyDomain field and obtain an actual one using domain.
  • All IDs must be unique and domain-independent. Use generateUid functions with a relative URL or some internal id that is unique across the manga source.
  • The availableSortOrders set should not be empty. If your source does not support sorting, specify one most relevant value.
  • If you cannot obtain direct links to page images inside the getPages method, it is ok to use an intermediate URL as Page.url and fetch a direct link in the getPageUrl function.
  • You can use asserts to check some optional fields. For example, the Manga.author field is not required, but if your source provides this information, add assert(it != null). This will not have any effect on production but help to find issues during unit testing.
  • If your source website (or its API) uses pages for pagination instead of offset you should extend PagedMangaParser instead of MangaParser.
  • If your source website (or its API) does not provide pagination (has only one page of content) you should extend SinglePageMangaParser instead of MangaParser or PagedMangaParser.
  • Your parser may also implement the Interceptor interface for additional manipulation of all network requests and responses, including image loading.

Development process

During the development, it is recommended (but not necessary) to write it directly in the Kotatsu Android application project. You can use the core.parser.DummyParser class as a sandbox. The Dummy manga source is available in the debug Kotatsu build.

Once the parser is ready you can relocate your code into the kotatsu-parsers library project in a site package and create a Pull Request.

Testing

It is recommended that unit tests be run before submitting a PR.

  • Temporary modify the MangaSources annotation class: specify your parser(s) name(s) and change mode to EnumSource.Mode.INCLUDE
  • Run the MangaParserTest (gradlew :test --tests "org.koitharu.kotatsu.parsers.MangaParserTest")
  • Optionally, you can run the generateTestsReport gradle task to get a pretty readable html report from test results.

Help

If you need help or have some questions, ask a community in our Telegram chat or Discord server.