Customizing Book Collector

Here are just a few things you can do to make life more organized and simpler... your way.

Screen Layout

How about changing the way your main screen looks and flows?
That's easy as pie...

• In the menu, choose View / Screen Layout
• Now choose one from the six available layouts

The Horizontal Split is a nice one, especially if you combine it with the "Book Collector 5 Compact" template for the book details.

The Full Height Tree layout works well for most people though, which is why I have selected that one as the "default" view.

Oh, I almost forgot: you can resize the individual panels too, just drag the dividers that separate them.

Templates

Most users like to customize the look of the book details in the lower right. Here's how you do it:

• Right click the details panel and choose "Details View Template" from the popup-menu that appears. The menu will expand to show you the available layouts.
• Choose a layout and another sub-menu appears with the available styles for that layout.
• Now choose a style and the appearance of the book details will change to your selected layout and style.

Personally, I like "Book Collector 5" in "Black". But if you have a small screen or if you prefer the book details to take up less space, you may want to try the "Book Collector 5 Compact" template.

Going back to the standard look is easy as well, just choose "Book Collector 5", then "Blue".

Sorting, Columns and Folders

How about being able to list, sort, and group certain bits of information together so you could get to them instantly, just the way you like it? No problem at all. Here's what you do...

Let's start with sorting. "Out of the box", your book list is ordered alphabetically by Author, but of course Book Collector lets you sort on any field, e.g. by Title, Publication Date, Number of Pages...
How? Couldn't be easier, just click on the column header of the field that you want to sort on.

For example, if you want to sort by Title, click on the header of the Title column in the list. Instantly your list will rearrange, the A's at the top the Z's at the bottom. Want it the other way around? Just click the Title header again to reverse the order.

Book Collector even lets you sort on multiple fields, e.g. first by Author, then within each Author ordered by Title. It's a bit more complicated, but I think you will manage :-)

• Right click the column header of the list and choose Sort Order, then Choose Sort Fields.
• In the screen that opens, you can use checkboxes to choose which fields to sort on.

While we're talking about the columns in the list: of course these are configurable too. You decide which fields to show as columns. Just follow these steps:

• Right click the column header of the list and choose Columns, then Choose Columns.
• In the Column Field Selection screen, use the checkboxes to decide which fields to show as columns. Check the ones you want, uncheck the ones you don't want, it's as simple as that.
• Change the order of the columns by dragging the field names up or down.
• When you're done, click OK.

Ok, ready for the final (and most powerful) tip of today? It's about automatically grouping your books into folders. It's powerful, but still simple... like most things in Book Collector:

• In the menu, choose View / Folders, then choose of the available selections, let's choose Author as an example.
• The tree panel of the left of your screen will show Author folders.
• Now click an Author folder and watch how the list on the right shows all books by that Author.
• See how that lets you browse your book collection by Author?

You can do the same with Format folders to have your paperbacks, hardcovers and e-books separated into folders. Or use "multi-level" folders, like the Publisher / Author example selection.

Don't worry about playing around with this, changing folder setting has no effect on your data, it's just a "view" setting. And you can alway go back to a simple long list of books by choosing View / Folders / No Folders.