poketo

poketo-node

Node library for scraping manga sites.

Provides a consistent API for scraping metadata and chapter images from 16+ manga sites. Makes it easy to build manga readers, downloaders, archival tools, and more.

For working examples, check out the Poketo manga reader, or the Poketo CLI!

People should be able to read content on the web in the way that works for them. Manga sites are often a special brand of bad. Each manga page loads a new web page, ads everywhere, yuck! Poketo opens up access to that content to make better tools on top.

🚧 This project is still v0.x.x and the API may change as more sites are added.

Install

npm install poketo --save

You can also use api.poketo.app, a hosted micro-service for this library.

Usage

import poketo from 'poketo';
 
poketo.getSeries('http://merakiscans.com/senryu-girl/').then(series => {
  console.log(series);
  //=> { id: 'meraki-scans:senryu-girl', title: 'Senryu Girl', chapters: [...], ... }
});
 
poketo.getChapter('http://merakiscans.com/senryu-girl/5/').then(chapter => {
  console.log(chapter);
  //=> { id: 'meraki-scans:senryu-girl:5', pages: [...], ... }
});

Full documentation of the API can be found below.

Supported Sites

Site	Series Info	Chapter Images
Helvetica Scans	✓	✓
Hot Chocolate Scans	✓	✓
Jaimini’s Box	✓	✓
Kirei Cake	✓	✓
MangaHere	✓	✓ (slow)
MangaUpdates	✓
Mangadex	✓	✓
MangaFox	✓	✓
Mangakakalot	✓	✓
Manganelo	✓	✓
MangaRock	✓	✓
MangaStream	✓	✓
Meraki Scans	✓	✓
Phoenix Serenade	✓	✓
Sense Scans	✓	✓
Sen Manga	✓	✓
Silent Sky Scans	✓	✓
Tuki Scans	✓	✓

If there's a site or group you'd like to see supported, make an issue!

API

Poketo exposes four methods:

poketo.getSeries(idOrUrl: string): Promise<Series>
poketo.getChapter(idOrUrl: string): Promise<Chapter>
poketo.getType(input: string): 'series' | 'chapter'
poketo.constructUrl(id: string): string

To understand what is returned for a Series or Chapter, check out the examples below.

Docs

• Get series information
• Get pages for a chapter
• Validate a URL or ID
• Convert an ID to a URL
• Difference between an ID vs. URL
• Error Handling

Get series information

Use poketo.getSeries to get the ID, title, cover image, and chapter listing for a manga series.

poketo.getSeries('http://merakiscans.com/senryu-girl').then(series => {
  console.log(series);
});
 
// {
//   id: 'meraki-scans:senryu-girl',
//   slug: 'senryu-girl',
//   url: 'http://merakiscans.com/senryu-girl',
//   title: 'Senryu Girl',
//   coverImageUrl: 'http://merakiscans.com/.../senryu_200x0.jpg',
//   chapters: [
//     {
//       id: 'meraki-scans:senryu-girl:1',
//       slug: '1',
//       chapterNumber: '1',
//       volumeNumber: '1',
//       title: '5-7-5 Girl',
//       createdAt: 1522811950
//     },
//     ...
//   ],
//   updatedAt: 1522811950,
// }

Get pages for a chapter

Use poketo.getChapter to get a page listing for a chapter. This doesn't include any information about the chapter or series, just the page list.

Depending on the site, the page list will also include image dimensions.

poketo.getChapter('http://merakiscans.com/senryu-girl/5').then(chapter => {
  console.log(chapter);
});
 
// {
//  id: 'meraki-scans:senryu-girl:5',
//  slug: '1',
//  url: 'http://merakiscans.com/senryu-girl/5',
//  pages: [
//    { id: '01', url: 'http://merakiscans.com/image01.png', width: 800, height: 1200 },
//    { id: '02', url: 'http://merakiscans.com/image02.png', width: 800, height: 1200 },
//    ...
//  ]
// }

Validate a URL or ID

If you have an arbitrary input, you can see if Poketo recognizes it by calling the poketo.getType method. It will return 'series' or 'chapter' if it's supported, or will throw a Poketo error if not.

poketo.getType('http://merakiscans.com/senryu-girl');
//=> 'series'
poketo.getType('http://merakiscans.com/senryu-girl/5');
//=> 'chapter'
poketo.getType('http://merakiscans.com/i/am/a/banana/yo');
//=> throws a `poketo.InvalidUrlError`
poketo.getType('http://google.com');
//=> throws a `poketo.UnsupportedSiteError`

Get a URL from a Poketo ID

If you've stored a Poketo ID, you can get a URL back out by using the poketo.constructUrl method. You can learn more about the difference between IDs and URLs.

poketo.constructUrl('meraki-scans:senryu-girl:5');
//=> http://merakiscans.com/senryu-girl/5
 
poketo.constructUrl('manga-stream:haikyuu:314/5286');
//=> https://readms.net/r/haikyuu/314/5286/1

What's the difference between an ID and a URL?

Poketo scrapes information from many sites. To identify which site, series (aka. manga), and chapter you're talking about, Poketo lets you provide information in two ways: a Poketo ID or a URL.

These IDs below are equivalent to the URLs on their right:

ID                                URL
mangadex:13127:311433          →  https://mangadex.org/chapter/311433/1
meraki-scans:senryu-girl:5     →  http://merakiscans.com/senryu-girl/5
manga-stream:haikyuu:314/5286  →  https://readms.net/r/haikyuu/314/5286/1

For the getSeries and getChapter methods, you can provide either a URL, or an ID, like so:

// Both lines return the same series
poketo.getSeries('http://merakiscans.com/senryu-girl/');
poketo.getSeries('meraki-scans:senryu-girl');
 
// Both lines return the same chapter
poketo.getChapter('https://mangadex.org/chapter/311433/1');
poketo.getChapter('mangadex:13127:311433');

Why use an ID?

Poketo IDs have stronger guarantees they won't change.

It's not uncommon for a site to change their domain name or URL structure. For example, MangaDex once changed URLs for manga series from https://mangadex.org/manga/1234 to https://mangadex.org/title/1234. If that happens, your URL might break. But by using an ID, Poketo will know to do the right thing. This makes IDs a more robust way to store information about a series.

Of course, there are no true guarantees with scraping. Even an ID that works one day might break the next — but it's a slightly better guarantee.

Error Handling

Scraping isn't a perfect. When using Poketo you'll inevitably run into an error, so we try to make what happened as clear as possible.

• RequestError - unable to make a request to scrape the site
• TimeoutError - tried to make a request, but the source site didn't respond in a reasonable time. Defaults to 5 seconds.
• HTTPError - tried to scrape the site, but the site returned an error (eg. 404, 500)
• LicenseError - tried to scrape the site, but the series/chapter is current blocked, licensed, or was subjected to a DCMA takedown.
• UnsupportedSiteError - the site you're trying to scrape from isn't supported. If you'd like to see it supported, make an issue!
• UnsupportedOperationError - some sites don't support reading chapters. This error is thrown if you call poketo.getChapter for these sites.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Poketo is meant to be built on top of. Feel free to propose ideas or changes that would make it work for your situation — whether it's a bug report, site request, or contributed code. Read more at CONTRIBUTING.md