Linking your comics for Connect

Before uploading your comics to Connect from the Windows or Mac software, you need to "link your comics". Let me explain what linking is exactly, and why you need to do it.

Comic Collector Connect and Linking

Comic Collector is built around the Collectorz.com central online comics database. For the online user databases in Connect, all factual comic details (like publisher, creators, characters, plot summary, etc...) and cover images are used and shown directly from that central, shared database.

This factual comic data is not stored per user. Instead, it is stored only once, in the central database, then linked to for every Connect user that owns that comic.
This factual data is not uploaded to Connect when you sync your data from Comic Collector. It only uploads your personal data fields like Collection Status, Purchase information, Notes, Rating, etc...), plus the link to the corresponding entry in the central database (basically just the CLZ Comic ID of the central entry).

So in order to see full comic details and cover images in Connect, it is essential that your local comic entries are linked to the corresponding entries our central database.
Without linking, your comic entries will show up as simple Series / Issue number entries, with just your personal data. No cover image, no creators or character, no plot summary.

How to link your comics

First, if you have been using the Add Comics Automatically screen to catalog your comics, selecting and downloading the data from our online comic database, then most of your comics will already be linked.
You will only need to link the comics that you added manually.

The fastest and easiest way to link your comics is to use the Link Comics screen in your Comic Collector program for Windows or Mac. It has been designed to let you link many comics quickly. Read the Sync with Connect topic for more information.

Alternatively, you can link while in the Connect online software, by clicking the little link icon. However in Connect, linking can only be done one-by-one.

The advantages of the Linking and Data Sharing system

This system of linking and sharing central data has many advantages:

1. Automatic Updates: When our content managers update the comic information in our central database (e.g. to add a better cover image, to improve the credits list, or to fix a typo), you will immediately see those changes in your online collection.
   No need to "Update Comics Automatically". You online collection always automatically shows the latest and greatest version of the data and cover art.
   
   
2. It's FAST: Sharing the factual comic data means that its retrieval can be optimized (e.g. by caching), resulting in a smooth experience when browsing your online comic collection. Also, uploads from your desktop software are lightning fast, because only your personal data and a simple ID value needs to be uploaded.
   
   
3. It's efficient: Shared factual comic data is only stored once, which means our servers are not clogged by duplicate copies of data and images (that are all the same for every user anyway). This made it possible for our systems to make daily backups of your collection data.

What if a comic is not in the Collectorz.com central online comic database?

Hopefully this won't happen too often, but here's what you can do to handle this situation and to help us improve our central online comic database:

• First, you can upload and keep un-linked comics in your Connect collection. Unlinked items will show up online with just a title and basic information. Plus your personal data of course. And if your local entry had a cover image, it will even be uploaded to Connect automatically.
  TIP: For comics not available in our central database, make sure to include the barcode in your unlinked entry, so that our Content Team can spot popular "un-linked" barcodes and add them to the central database. As soon as they do, your entry will automagically be transformed into a full entry with all comic information.
• Also, if you *do* have full information for that comic, maybe even scanned the cover image, then please Submit it to us for inclusion in our database. You can do this from the Windows edition of Comic Collector using Edit / Submit to Collectorz.com.