Great Manga Application Onidzuka is a program I wrote to help with
translating manga. It allows you to mark up areas (text bubbles
usually) on an image (scan of a manga page) and attach translations to
the bubbles. (You need to do the translation yourself.) GMAO will
then take care of laying out the text in the bubbles. It also does
nice stuff like export pages with javascript pop-ups when you mouse
over the bubbles you've defined, or export the image with the text
from the language you wrote, or generate character lists, and so on.
More information about GMAO is below.
GMAOServer
The server portion for Great Manga Application Onidzuka. It is
distributed along with GMAO in the .jar (along with source and stuff)
but you can also launch
GMAOServer via Java Web Start.
For the most part, as of 2015-05-10, I don't use this anymore. By placing the files that GMAO needs on Dropbox, I've found that working on multiple machines is a lot easier. This doesn't work as well for collaborating with multiple translators, but since that never really happened, it doesn't seem to be much of a loss.
Test GMAO out
Java Web Start version GMAO. Let's you
download GMAO locally, easily install and run it. Let me know if you
use the Java Web Start version, if you want additional features, etc.
There is also a Mac OSX Packaged version of GMAO available. This is the most current version of GMAO, I use OSX at home and my workflow process automatically uploads the latest versions to this location. Well, when I tell it to anyway.
If you are not on OSX, and the Web Start verison doesn't work for you (which is likely, since I haven't touched that code in a long time) then you can try to run GMAO from a combined JAR. Download GMAOGUI.jar and double click it. It should run.
If you want to set up GMAO to use on your own project, check out the new GMAO QuickStart Guide.
There is also a short tutorial on how to use
GMAO. It deals with how to use GMAO for a group translation
project that uses a central annotation server.
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please post a
message on the GMAO Forum.
Great Teacher Onizuka Translation Project
I wrote GMAO so that I could translate the
Great Teacher Onizuka Manga that I own.
My Great Teacher Onidzuka translations have moved:
http://GreatTeacherOnidzuka.com/.
GMAO is a java application that I working on for annotating images
with text. Specifically, the application that I have in mind is for
the translation of Japanese Manga. Using GMAO, a user is able to
define regions (Rectangles, Ovals, or Polygons) and attach annotations
to those regions. Each annotation can have a user defined set of
custom fields (although, currently this is hard-coded into the
program - at a future date I plan to make these definable in the
properties file for the application) and a text note attached to the
annotation. The language can be any language that the user can enter
using their local Java. Right now I enter English translations into
GMAO, and the original Japanese text.
GMAO is a client-server architecture. I run a server on my machine
that hosts the manga that I have used GMAO to translate. When you use
GMAO on your machine, you can choose to connect to the server to send
your updates to the server (this is on by default.) This means that
you can add information from where you live! It also will allow
multiple translators to more easily work on the same project.
To display multi-byte fonts, your Java must be set up correctly.
There are instructions on how to add fonts to you JVM on Sun's web
site. I've also written some stuff up on how
to set up GMAO. I have not checked this lately to see if this is
still necessary under Java Web Start. I will try to do this soon.
You really, really really should just use the Java Web Start version
to run GMAO.
GMAO uses an XML file to store the annotations and translations. This
is a flexible, standard format that other applications should be able
to use. The DTD (Document Type Definition) is specific to Manga
translation though.
Images can be loaded either locally, or over the web. The xml file
only contains the image file name, and relies on the settings in GMAO
to be correct to get full image location.
I am still working on GMAO. It is currently in first release.
GMAO Download
Using the JavaWebstart GMAO link you
can install and run GMAO locally. It will download a few Java jars
(GMAO.jar, jfreechart-0.9.3.jar, jcommon-0.7.0.jar) and start GMAO via
Java Web Start. The java code is included in GMAO.jar - find where it
is located on your machine, unpack it and you have the code.
Alternatively, download GMAO.jar right
here unpack it, and go nuts with the code.
Please send all questions and comments to
[email protected]. I'm really
interested in hearing if people are interested in this project or
not.
Other Manga-related software projects
There are a few other manga-related software projects out there that I
am aware of. I think it is amazing that there are a few people
interested in this type of thing, so I'm putting some links to some
other projects that you might be interested in checking out.
Smith & Tinker's Balloonist is a program that is designed for comic creation and could be used for fan translation. It is very nice looking, and looks to have much better features that GMAO. It is commercially available.
MrDummy's collaborative manga translation site. It is a website that allows translators to mark bubbles on scans, and add translations. The translation then shows up in a pop-up when a mouse goes over the bubble.
Overlay
written by a Russian, it overlays text from separate files onto the
images. I don't know how he makes the overay files. Spiritual
brother to GMAO I think!
JavaNotes is a
program designed to "Shorten the gap between translators and
editors". It lets you add translations for bubble, but uses
call-outs, and does not try to do the editing itself. But still,
very similar! Looks like this link is dead though.
There is also a Mac OSX Packaged version of GMAO available. 
Launch GMAO with Java Web Start! (Java Web Start
must be installed. Instructions for installation are here.)
Java Web Start version GMAO. Let's you
download GMAO locally, easily install and run it. Let me know if you
use the Java Web Start version, if you want additional features, etc.
