[W] Taiga
Since late August, I decided to use a 3rd party application to keep track of the shows that I’m watching and those that are in my backlog. I happen to see Taiga mentioned in on of the IRC channels I hang around so I gave it a try.
The program is easy enough to use. However, it does require a MyAnimeList or Hummingbird account to fully utilize the programs features. I tried running it without an account but the program would not keep track of shows and episode count that I entered in the currently watching list.
Pros:
- Keeps track of shows you are watching, complete, dropped, on hold, and plan to watch
- Provides a seasonal chart of shows currently airing and past shows
- Light weight program
- Runs in the background
Cons:
- Requires a MyAnimeList or Hummingbird account to use all of its features
- You have to wait for an update near the end of the currently airing season before you can see the info for shows airing next season
There are a few other minor things that could be considered a con but I will write them off as minor bugs and fansubber shenanigans (I’m looking at you Horriblesubs and your shortening/localizing titles).
One of the minor bugs that shows up is the progress bar showing an unwatched episode present on my harddrive even though I’m up to date on the show. Example in the above image: Cross Ange says I have episode 2 (the gray bar) even though episode 1 just aired the other day.
The ? in the episode count is not the program’s fault but rather MAL’s since Taiga pulls that information straight from MAL and they do not have a clue (or maybe it was not announced) how many episodes will be aired.
Above: Complete, On hold, Dropped, and Plan to watch tabs
Adding episode numbers manually is not hard but I did not want to bother with it
I’m glad my non-anime shows/movies/gw2 recordings do not show up on this history tab. ::cough cough::
I don’t care much for the statics page but it’s neat to see. I don’t bother to rate the shows I watch so it’s pointless for me.
The seasons page gives you a listing of what is currently out there
You can display it in either detailed or image only view.
As mentioned earlier, Taiga relies on either MyAnimeList or Hummingbird. It can’t use both. Originally I was going to use Hummingbird but I discovered that it pulls the seasons data from MAL and decided to go with that.
Apparently it can detect streaming video as well but I have no intention of trying it out.
You can spam the IRC chanel with what you are watching if you felt so inclined.
Now Playing page give some information on the current show you are watching. You can also pull up the information by double clicking on the show’s title in the Anime List page.
The taskbar message balloon pops up as soon as you start the show but it will not show up if you are in full screen.
One of the bugs/quirks of this program is that sometimes it does not recognize the video file even though I clearly have it on my currently watching list.
Even though it has a few minor bugs and I’m not using Taiga to its fullest extent, it gets the job done with what I wanted. I plan to keep using this and hopefully remember to make a progress report next year.