News: all updates for our software and apps

As announced last weekend, here it is, Book Collector version 23.1 for Windows, with full support for our new CLZ Scanner barcode scanner app!

And as indicated earlier, support for the old CLZ Barry scanner app has now been removed.

What is CLZ Scanner?

The aptly-named “CLZ Scanner” is a barcode scanner app, nothing more, nothing less. It is an app that you use on your phone to scan barcodes and then instantly send those scanned barcodes to the Add Books screen of the Book Collector software running on your computer. From there, you can then easily and comfortably add the scanned books to your computer software.

CLZ Scanner replaces the old CLZ Barry app.

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Version 23.4 is here, a big update that is all about slabbed comics!

More and more Comic Collector users are using the app to catalog slabbed comics (CGC, CBCS, PGX, etc..). So let’s take our slab support to the next level!
Here’s what’s new in Comic Collector today:

• Three new slab-related fields: Label Type, Page Quality and Custom Label.
• A cool new look for your slabs in the Details Panel (“Flex” template only!)
• Four new options for the Grade field: NG, PG, CVR and ART.
• A new setting “For raw comics, show Grade as letters”

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Fixed:

• Sorting by value didn’t work for raw comics without a grade set
• Adding or Updating values for comics without grade didn’t fetch a value
• Fixed colors for generated slab label of Qualified Grade, Signature Series Restored, Signature Series Conserved

Version 8.3 is here, a big update that is all about slabbed comics!

More and more CLZ Comics users are using the app to catalog slabbed comics (CGC, CBCS, PGX, etc..). So let’s take our slab support to the next level!
Here’s what’s new in CLZ Comics 8.3:

• A cool new look for your slabs in Card View and the comic details page.
• Three new slab-related fields: Label Type, Page Quality and Custom Label.
• Four new options for the Grade field: NG, PG, CVR and ART.
• A new setting “For raw comics, show Grade as letters”

Read more

Now live in your web-based Comic Connect software, a big update that is all about slabbed comics!

More and more CLZ Comics users are using the app to catalog slabbed comics (CGC, CBCS, PGX, etc..). So let’s take our slab support to the next level!
Here’s what’s new in Comic Connect today:

• Three new slab-related fields: Label Type, Page Quality and Custom Label.
• A cool new look for your slabs in Card View and Details Panel.
• Four new options for the Grade field: NG, PG, CVR and ART.
• A new setting “For raw comics, show Grade as letters”

Read more

This is the Feb 2023 edition of the CLZ Newsletter, as always brought to you by CLZ Alwin.

This month, we were finally able to complete a project that a large part of the CLZ team had been working on for several months:
Our completely new, build from scratch, CLZ Scanner barcode scanner app!
The app itself is now available in the iOS App Store and Android Play Store and support for the CLZ Scanner app is already live in the Connect web-based software.

Sadly though, last week’s email to all Connect subscribers, happily announcing the CLZ Scanner, with instructions for “getting started”, has been the most misunderstood email I have written in many years…
That is, judging from the responses I have received. I have seen confusion, I have seen frustration, I have seen complaints, I have seen anger… one guy even threatened me of reporting my company to TrustPilot for being “harsh on seniors and people with medical issues”…
All that because we made a new and better barcode scanner app to replace CLZ Barry 🙁

I am still not entirely sure where I went wrong, but I will try to explain CLZ Scanner better in this newsletter and in future CLZ Scanner reminder emails. In any case, my apologies for all the confusion and frustration I caused!

In other news: CLZ is now on Instagram! I hired a 5-man full-time social media team to manage this new social channel, so here we go!
Just kidding of course, this is just a nice side-project for our comic content guys Taco and Justin 🙂 Let’s see where they takes us!

• New in Feb 2023::
  • Our new “CLZ Scanner” app is live!
  • CLZ Comics is now on Instagram!
• What’s cooking?
  • More slab-related fields for all comic products
  • Translations for the Connect web-based software
  • Multi-level folders for the CLZ mobile apps
  • Two-factor authentication on CLZ Accounts

Read more

This is CLZ Alwin, with the first 2023 CLZ Newsletter.
Remember that in last month’s newsletter I had no releases to report on, because of the quiet December month? Well, we’re back on track, with 6 big releases in January. Two for the Collector desktop software, 2 for the Connect web-based software and 2 for the CLZ mobile apps!

And we have some interesting projects going on that will result in even bigger releases soon (check under What’s cooking below):

• Released in Jan 2023:
  • Book Collector 23.0 / CLZ Books 8.0 / Book Connect: 7 new data fields!
  • Comic Collector 23.3: Improved Pull List and new “Discover” mode!
  • CLZ Comics 8.2 / Comic Connnect: New report after Updating Key Info
• What’s cooking?
  • More slab-related fields for all comic products
  • New “CLZ Scanner” app, to replace CLZ Barry
  • Translations for the Connect web-based software
  • Multi-level folders for the CLZ mobile apps
  • Two-factor authentication on CLZ Accounts

Read more

Introduced in November 2021, the Update Key Info tool is one the biggest and most popular features of the Comic Connect software. It automatically gives you crucial information about your collection, that is, which of your comics are major keys, which ones are minor keys. Of course, it also tells you why, for example: first appearances of characters, deaths, cameo appearances, first team appearances, origins, iconic cover art, etc…

However, since we introduced this feature, one of the most requested improvements has become:

“After updating my key info, I would like to see WHICH comics were updated and WHAT has changed.”

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Introduced in November 2021, the Update Key Info tool is one the biggest and most popular features of the CLZ Comics app. It automatically gives you crucial information about your collection, that is, which of your comics are major keys, which ones are minor keys. Of course, it also tells you why, for example: first appearances of characters, deaths, cameo appearances, first team appearances, origins, iconic cover art, etc…

However, since we introduced this feature, one of the most requested improvements has become:

“After updating my key info, I would like to see WHICH comics were updated and WHAT has changed.”

Read more

Here it is, the promised big v23.0 release of your Book Collector desktop software, in which we added 3 completely new data fields and 4 new cloud-sync fields.
All fields were added based on feedback from you all, the users of the app.

Three completely new fields (Signed By, Dust Jacket and Number Line) were added to all of our book database solutions (mobile, web and desktop).

Also, you can now finally sync these existing Book Collector fields through the CLZ Cloud to the CLZ Books mobile app (Cover Artist, Foreword Author, Ghostwriter and Box Set).

BTW: similar updates have also been released for the CLZ Books mobile apps and Book Connect web-based software so all 7 fields now nicely sync between all of them.

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Here it is, a big release of your Book Connect web-based software, in which we add SEVEN new data fields.
All fields were added based on feedback from you all, the users of the app.

Four of these fields were already available in the Book Collector desktop software and can now finally be synced through the CLZ Cloud to the CLZ Books mobile app (Cover Artist, Foreword Author, Ghostwriter and Box Set).
The other three fields are completely new to all 3 of our book cataloging solutions (Signed By, Dust Jacket and Number Line).

BTW: similar updates have also been released for the CLZ Books mobile apps and the Book Collector desktop software, so all 7 fields now nicely sync between all of them.

Read more

Here it is, the big 8.0 release of your CLZ Books app, in which we add SEVEN new data fields.
All fields were added based on feedback from you all, the users of the app.

Four of these fields were already available in the Book Collector desktop software and can now finally be synced through the CLZ Cloud to the CLZ Books mobile app (Cover Artist, Foreword Author, Ghostwriter and Box Set).
The other three fields are completely new to all 3 of our book cataloging solutions (Signed By, Dust Jacket and Number Line).

BTW: similar updates have also been released for the Book Collector desktop software and the Book Connect web-based software, so all 7 fields now nicely sync between all of them.

Read more

Fixed:

• The Add Comics screen didn’t immediately search the series that was selected in the main screen
• The Add TPB Contents screen (opened from the edit screen) wasn’t working correctly

Woohoo, just barely into 2023 and we’re up to version 23.3 already!
Based on lots of feedback from members of the CLZ Comics group on Facebook, we decided to completely re-design and rewrite the Pull List feature.

This re-designed Pull List tool was already released for the CLZ Comics mobile app and for the Comic Connect web-based software a couple of months ago. Today, the new design has come to your Comic Collector desktop software, expanding it into a fully flexible way to browse recent and upcoming comic releases.

Here’s an overview of all the improvements:

• Much faster Pull List tab
• View releases per week
• List releases in series folders or as one “flat list”
• New “My Series” tab: view releases for your existing series
• New “Discover” tab: browse ALL recent and upcoming releases!
• Easier adding of series to your Pull List
• Easily open the full issue list for any series

Read more

It’s Dec 30, so this is CLZ Alwin with the final CLZ Newsletter for 2022. But first: A happy 2023 from the entire CLZ Team: Martin, Rowdy, Sven, Stijn, AJ, Pim, Joe, Bernard, Justin, Taco, Sytske and me, Alwin!

December has been a quiet month, with no releases at all! Most of the CLZ team has been taking vacation days this month (just 5 of us working today 🙂 ). On top of that, our focus has been on several BIG projects that should result in releases early 2023.

So this is the perfect opportunity to make this newsletter into a “What’s coming in 2023” overview:

• New “CLZ Scanner” app, to replace CLZ Barry
• Translations for the Connect web-based software
• Big updates for all book products with new fields
• Multi-level folders for the CLZ mobile apps
• Two-factor authentication on CLZ Accounts
• More slab fields for comic products

And much more of course, the above is just what’s at the top of our list now.

Read more

We’re closing in on the end of the year, so it is time for the

CLZ Comics Wrap-up 2022!

CLZ Justin has been gathering some stats and has created some nice top 10 lists for you.
These are the most popular 2022 comics and series based on your usage of the CLZ software:

Enjoy!

Read more

This is Alwin, with the CLZ News for November 2022.
After months of working on comic related updates only (for our CovrPrice partnership), the CLZ team has finally been freed up to work on our other products again, phew!!
Which instantly resulted in two big 23.0 updates for the Windows editions of Movie and Game Collector (and in the meantime, both have already been updated to v23.1 too!).

Of course, the work on our comic tools has not stopped, with important updates for Comic Collector, Comic Connect and CLZ Comics.

All releases this month:

• Movie Collector 23.0: Report screen after Update IMDb Ratings
• Game Collector 23.0: New: Updated Values report and more value data from PriceCharting
• Movie / Game Collector 23.1.1: trailer videos now appear as clickable thumbnails
• Game / Comic Connect: Improved “Update Values” Report
• Comic Collector 23.2: Re-Link Core Variant
• CLZ Comics 8.1.3: Improved Update Values report screen
• What’s cooking: new “CLZ Scanner” app / translations for Connect

Read more

Another update for your Game Collector software, that could make using the software quite a bit faster and more responsive!

In this update, we are changing the way Youtube trailer videos are shown in the details panel. Instead of an embedded YouTube player (which can be very slow to load), the trailers are displayed as a list of video thumbnails and title. Just click to open the video on the Youtube site.

This new setup has the following advantages:

• Browsing through your games is a lot faster now.
  
  No more annoying “hangs” while the Youtube video loads.
• It resolves the problem of many videos not being “allowed” to be embedded nowadays.
• Clicking a trailer will now always open it in your default browser!
  
  (previously it always opened in Internet Explorer)

Read more

Another update for your Movie Collector software, that could make using the software quite a bit faster and more responsive!

In this update, we are changing the way Youtube trailer videos are shown in the details panel. Instead of an embedded YouTube player (which can be very slow to load), the trailers are displayed as a list of video thumbnails and title. Just click to open the video on the Youtube site.

This new setup has the following advantages:

• Browsing through your movies is a lot faster now.
  
  No more annoying “hangs” while the Youtube video loads.
• It resolves the problem of many videos not being “allowed” to be embedded nowadays.
• Clicking a trailer will now always open it in your default browser!
  
  (previously it always opened in Internet Explorer)

Read more

New:

• Menu now shows last “PriceCharting Values update” date
• Menu now shows last “Sync with CLZ Cloud” date
• Improved messaging for subscription status

Fixed:

• After searching in your own collection by scanning a barcode, the result will now show instantly
• Add Game: when scanning a barcode and then add manually, the barcode is now filled in

New:

• Menu now shows last “IMDb ratings/votes update” date
• Menu now shows last “Sync with CLZ Cloud” date
• Improved messaging for subscription status

Fixed:

• After searching in your own collection by scanning a barcode, the result will now show instantly
• Add Movie: when scanning a barcode and then add manually, the barcode is now filled in

New:

• Menu now shows last “Sync with CLZ Cloud” date
• Improved messaging for subscription status

Fixed:

• After searching in your own collection by scanning a barcode, the result will now show instantly
• Add Album: when scanning a barcode or adding by Cat. No., and then add manually, the barcode or Cat. No. is now filled in
• Details page of album wasn’t always updating correctly when editing “in template”

New:

• Menu now shows last “Sync with CLZ Cloud” date
• Menu now shows last “CovrPrice values update” date
• Improved messaging for subscription status

New:

• Folders: You can now group on Original Publication Year
• Menu now shows last “Sync with CLZ Cloud” date
• Improved messaging for subscription status

Fixed:

• Sorting on issue number wasn’t always working
• Details page of book wasn’t always updating correctly when editing “in template”
• After searching in your own collection by scanning an ISBN, the result will now show instantly

Changed:

• Improved messaging for subscription status