Updating Comics

^{not yet available in Mac edition, coming soon!}

Updating a comic book. What's that anyway? When you update a comic book, you get extra/new data from our online comic database for a comic book that was already in your personal comic database. So, when you're updating a comic book, you're doing this because you expect extra/new data. And it's possible you get some new/extra data because we work every single day on the comic database: adding covers, credits, characters, genres, publishers, plots, etc.

Perhaps you haven't started the Comic Collector software for weeks and you find out there are updates available for certain, let's say, Amazing Spider-Man issues you own.

• Select one of your cataloged Amazing Spider-Man issues in List View or Images View and double-click the issue.
• This results in opening the Edit Comic Screen.
• On the right of the Edit Comic Screen you spot the 'Update' button.
• Clicking this results in updating the Spider-Man issue with new data. Perhaps this will result in some extra characters and a plot. It depends on what was added to the online comic database lately.

Important note: our update function never overwrites the data that was stored in your personal database file. Why? We respect your own standards. You can use the software and fields for whatever you want. We never wanna destroy your manual inserted personal preferences. When updating we only add, if available, new/extra comic data.

Besides using the 'Update' button in the Edit Comic Screen you can also use the right-click menu in both the List View mode en the Images View mode. This also allows you to update multiple issues in your list using the standard Windows Ctrl selection option. When a bunch of issues are selected you can choose Update Comic(s) Automatically in the right-click menu. This will result in a trigger that shows you what Comic Collector is updating at that very moment.

Perhaps the update pop-up tells you: 'Issue(s) up to date. Nothing updated.' after updating a issue (or multiple issues). This is not a error. This simply means there was no new/extra data available from the online comic database.

Linking and unlinking comics

When you are updating a comic you are 'comparing' a comic in your personal comic database to a comic in our online comic database. You are checking if the data for a certain comic is equal in your personal database compared to the data of the same comic in our online database. And if the data is not the same, you'll automatically download the new/extra data from our online database when updating the comic.

To compare your personal comic with our online comic you need to link your comic to the correct comic in our online database. Why is this so important? Well,...
If a comic is not linked you can not update the comic.

Linking a comic to a online comic works via a unique number: the Collectorz Comic ID. Every single comic in our online database got a unique Collectorz Comic ID. When you download a comic you automatically also download this unique ID. So, the comic in your personal database is already linked to the correct comic in our online database. But when you manually add a comic to your personal database (for whatever reason) your comic is not linked to anything in our online database. Now, when you later decide to link this comic to the correct comic in our online database this is possible.

The Collectorz Comic ID is available as a data field called 'ClzComicID'. You can add this field as a column in the List View mode. In this column you'll see the unique ID number of your comic. Now, when your comic is not linked, there is no unique ID number and you'll see a '0' in the 'ClzComicID' column. You can link a not linked '0' issue by right-clicking the issue and select 'Link Comic'.
You can also automatically detect your unlinked issues. Just go to Tools | Link Comics and you'll automatically see all the unlinked comics in your personal database in a list, ready to link to the correct comics in our online database.

Anyway, manually or automatically detecting unlinked issues, you'll end up in the
Link Comics Screen.

In the Link Comics Screen you see your personal unlinked comic(s) on top and our online comic(s) at the bottom. Selecting one of your comics and clicking on 'Search' results in the best search results (matches). Sometimes multiple search results pop up. Now, when you're not sure which comic is the correct one, you can use the preview panel on the right. When you detect the correct comic you can click the 'Link' button. And that's it!
When you don't want to link your comic you can click 'Skip'. When you got a bunch of comics to link to the online database you can first Search and select the correct online comics. Clicking on 'Link All' results in linking the comics in one-go.
When you don't like the search results and can't find the correct comic you can right-click your personal unlinked issue and select 'Edit Search Criteria'. After editing you can click 'Search' again.
It's also possible you can't link your personal comic to the correct online comic, simply because we don't have the comic listed in our online comic database. If this is the case, please submit your comic to our database so that we can insert your comic in our online comic database. Submit comics via Edit | Submit to Collectorz.com Comic Database... After we processed your submission you are able to link your comic anyway.

There's also a 'Unlink Comic' option. Right-click a comic and select 'Unlink', or open the Edit Comic Screen and click the button 'Clear Clz ID' (on the right).

Back to updating

You just linked a comic, but you don't see any new/extra data although you are sure some new data was available? Don't worry. We're talking about two things here:

• Step 1: Linking the comic.
• Step 2: Updating the comic.

So, after linking all your unlinked comics you are finally able to update every single comic in your personal database.

You can spot online comic database updates on this website: Comic Collector Connect: Daily Updates. You can also check the Daily Updates tab in the Add Comics Automatically Screen in the software. Here you can click 'refresh' to see the latest updates for new and older comics.

Tip: Do not update every comic in your personal database every single day without checking the Daily Updates. You'll soon find out it doesn't make sense, because most of the time there are no updates available.