What's New in Book Collector 5

Book Collector version 5

Book Collector 5 for Windows was released in July 2007 and introduced many new features, enhancements of existing features and better looks.

Since its release we have continued to improve it, through several minor upgrades. Just scroll down this page to get an impression of all additions and changes.

Upgrading to v5
If you already own an earlier version of Book Collector (Standard or Pro), you can upgrade to the PRO version 5 for only US $19.95, a 50% discount. Just enter your license key in the box on the right and click Upgrade Now.
(if you came here from our upgrade notification email or from the v5 trial edition the key will be filled in automatically)

What's New in Book Collector 5:

New Screen Layout setting for main screen (new in 5.3)

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Choose from six different layout configurations of tree, list and details panel:

• Horizontal Split
• Vertical Split
• Full Width Details
• Full Height Tree
• Full Height Details
• Simple Layout (automatically hiding tree panel)

Improved CueCat Support (new in 5.2)

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• Improved CueCat handling in main screen
• Improved CueCat handling in Add Automatically screens
• CueCat can now also be used in the Edit Book screen (automatically fills barcode field then)

Searching your database (new in 5.1)

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• Completely redesigned Filter screen
• Build advanced filters using brackets, AND, OR, NOT, equal, not equal, greater than, less than, contains, starts with, ends with, wildcards
• Mix book and section fields in your filters (e.g. book.author = "stephen king" AND section.nrpages < 5)
• Use the same filters in Book and Section View, switch back and forth to see the same filter results in both views
• Save your filters and activate them directly using the Filter menu on the toolbar
• Faster Quick Search
• Faster Track View / No Folders mode

Sorting (new in 5.1)

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• Save your sort order definitions and activate them directly using the Sort Order menu on the toolbar
• Simpler Sort Field selection screen, just use checkboxes to select the fields you want.
• Sort Titles are now automatically generated from the Title when using Add Automatically
• new "Generate Sort Title" button in Edit Book and Edit Section screens
• use Tools / Options / Sort Titles to configure recognized articles (the, a, le, la, die, der, das, etc..)
• Three part person names (e.g. Barbara Taylor Bradford) are now split into First/Last Names correctly

Columns (new in 5.1)

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• Save your column definitions and activate them directly using the Columns menu on the toolbar
• Simpler Columns selection screen, just use checkboxes to select the fields you want.

Folder selection (new in 5.1)

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• Save you custom folder field combination and activate them directly from the Folder menu above the tree
• Simpler Folder field selection screen, just use checkboxes to select the fields you want.

Automatic Capitalization of Titles (new in 5.1)

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• new AutoCap button next to Title in Edit Book screen
• Titles are now automatically capitalized when using Add Automatically
• Use Tools / Options / Capitalization to configure auto-cap settings and exceptions

Full ISBN-13 support

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• Search book info sources using 13-digit ISBNs
• Scan 13-digit ISBNs with your Flic bar code scanner
• ISBN-13 and ISBN-10 numbers are automatically detected and converted as needed, e.g. for info sources that do not support 13 digit ISBNs yet

Improved Loan Management

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• Print loan lists
• Use Flic scanner in Loan Management screen to Loan or Return books
• Use the Quick Search box to search your Loan History by Title, ISBN or Loaner name
• New Email and Address fields in the Loaner item
• New date selectors in Loan Info screen

Improved network support

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• New lock file system automatically prevents concurrent editing
• When one user is already using a database in Writable mode, subsequent users will automatically open the database in Read-Only mode
• In Read-Only all editing features are hidden and disabled, allowing viewing and searching only
• Create Read-Only workstations by running a forced Read-Only installation (start the installer with the /readonly command line parameter)

Add Books Automatically

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• Improved Advanced Mode: tabs at the top have been combined, making it easier to search by Author/Title AND Barcode in one go

• Improved Wizard Mode
  • It now takes less steps to add a book
  • Screen is now resizable, for better previewing of results
• Improved layout of Preview panel (Compact Preview template)
• New "Check Connection" button
• New info source: Portuguese National Library
• Improved scripts for better data retrieval from most info sources

Details View Templates (lower right part of main screen)

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• New CSS Styles system
  • Template selection menu now allows various "styles" for each template (using a submenu)
  • New styles can be created using CSS style sheets and a simple .csi meta file
• Improved layout of Full Details Classic template
• Added several new styles for Full Details Classic template
• New Book Collector 5 template, in 3 different styles (blue, black and iTunes)

Edit Book screen enhancements:

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• Improved layout of fields within tab pages
• Screen is now resizable (and remembers its size too)
• Use the Collectorz.com barcode scanner to fill the ISBN field
• Improved Links tab page
  • Add links to websites by dragging & dropping from your browser
  • Add links to local files by dragging & dropping
  • Add e-book and audio book files to your book entries
  • Added images show up in the Details View in the main screen
  • Easier editing of links and their descriptions

• New Tags fields on Personal tab page, for LibraryThing-style tagging
• The "..." buttons next to pick list fields have been replaced by a new [Add ...] command inside the drop down list
• New entry boxes for easier adding of values to check list fields (e.g. Genre, Extras)
• Now supports the Collectorz.com barcode scanner to fill the ISBN field
• Screen Title now shows Title and Author, instead of the Title only

Printing

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• Improved layout of Full Details template
• New Label printing templates supporting 2 by 7 and 2 by 8 Avery formats:

Many toolbar icons have been improved (smoother edges)

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Export to HTML (PRO edition only)

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• New Book Collector v5 Blue and Black detail page templates
• Improved look of List and Thumbnails index pages
• Improved look of Next/Previous navigation at the top of exported pages
• New "Paged by First Letter of Author" option

New Help file (english version only for now)

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• Up to date reference of all new features
• Added task based help topics
• Full keyword index
• Context sensitive help (Help buttons) in most screens of the program