Customizing Comic 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 Full Height Details is a nice one, especially if you combine it with the "Comic Collector 4 CC" template for the comic 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 comic 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 comic details will change to your selected layout and style.

Personally, I like "Comic Collector 4" in "Black". But if you have a small screen or if you prefer the comic details to take up less space, you may want to try the "Comic Collector 4 Compact" template.

Going back to the standard look is easy as well, just choose "Comic Collector 4", 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 comic list is ordered alphabetically by Series, but of course Comic Collector lets you sort on any field, e.g. by Publisher, Issue Number, Publication Date, Title...
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 Publisher, click on the header of the Publisher column in the list. Instantly your list will rearrange, alphabetically, on Publisher name. Want it the other way around? Just click the header again to reverse the order.

Comic Collector even lets you sort on multiple fields, e.g. first by Series, then within each series ordered by Issue Number. 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 comics into folders or even "multi-level" folders. It's powerful, but still simple... like most things in Comic Collector:

• In the menu, choose View / Folders, then choose of the available selections, let's choose Publisher / Series as an example.
• The tree panel of the left of your screen will show Publisher folders.
• Now click a Publisher folder and watch how the list on the right shows all Series by that Publisher.
• Click one of the Series to see all the Issues in that Series.

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 list of series by choosing View / Folders / Series.