News: all updates for our software and apps
Here is a progress update on our Mac development.
Currently, our focus (and therefore this news update) is on Movie Collector 8 for Mac, which is planned to be released on December 27.
As soon as Movie Collector 8 is live, we’ll start on Book Collector 8 for Mac, which we hope to release before the end of Q1 2012. Next up after that is of course Music Collector, planned for launch late Q2 2012.
Anyway, back to Movie Collector.
The release date of Movie Collector EIGHT for Mac is getting closer. Just 11 days to go now.
Which means that it is becoming a bit hectic here:
* Ronald, Patrick, Dinh and Bernard are finalizing small bits of functionality, and fixing all issues reported by our QA team (mostly cosmetic stuff now).
* The QA team (Chris, Sonny, AJ and Mark) are testing the latest internal build.
* Chris is updating the manual to reflect all the changes and new features.
* Martin, Rowdy and Robbert are working on the online movie database, bringing all TV Series entries up-to-date with the latest episode listings.
* Alwin is doing lots of “management by walking around”, making sure all of the above is happening as quick and effective as possible.
The list of “What’s new in V8?” is getting longer and longer so here goes.
More and better automatic data for movies
* Automatically download IMDb ratings.
* Movie Trailers
– Automatically download YouTube links for movie trailers.
– Play embedded YouTube movie trailers inside the Details Panel.
– Or use the Trailers templates with just large embedded YouTube trailers.
* Movie Backdrops (movie-specific background images for the details panel)
– New field Backdrop on Edit Movie / Images.
– Automatically download Backdrop images from our online movie database.
– Use the Find Backdrop screen to find more backdrops with Google Images.
* Movie Posters
– New field Movie Poster on Edit Movie / Images.
– Automatically download the movie poster when adding movies.
– Use the Find Movie Poster screen to find more movie posters online.
* New: plot summaries in other languages: French, German, Dutch and Spanish.
* New “Data Language” setting that controls the language of the Plot summary and other fields (e.g. Genre, Format, etc…): Choose from:
– English, French, German, Spanish and Dutch.
* Automatic TMDb (themoviedb.org) website links.
More and better automatic data for TV SERIES and their episodes
* New episode-level fields in Movie Collector:
– Episode Crew
– Episode Guest Cast
– Episode Website link (URL)
– Episode Image URL
– Episode IMDb Number
– Seen It, Seen When, Seen Where
* For most TV Series our online database now delivers:
– Episode Titles
– Episode First Air Dates
– Episode Plot summaries
– Episode Runtime
– Episode Writer
– Episode Director
– Episode Guest Cast
– Episode Image (as URL to image on Collectorz.com server)
* New in Add Movies Automatically screen:
– Special “TV Series Only” mode for Title searches
– In this mode, the Search Results will only list the main season entries that have all the new episode data, resulting a cleaner results list.
* Edit Movie: Episodes/Features tab:
– Disc tabs can now be renamed.
– Order of Disc tabs can now be changed by dragging and dropping the tabs.
New: Find Cover Image screen, find missing covers online using Google Images
– Find missing cover images online (using Google Images) and add them to your database with just a few clicks.
– Built-in Crop tool to remove unwanted borders.
– Get to the Find Cover Image screen :
– by clicking the new “No Cover” placeholder image in Details View
– right from Preview in the Add Movies Automatically screen, when no cover is found in the Collectorz.com online movie database.
– from the right-click menu on any movie entry in the main screen
– from the Images tab in the Edit Movie screen
New: Cover Flow view, browse your movies in a cool looking 3D image browser
– The Cover Flow is a 3rd viewing option, next to List and Images.
– Browse through your movies by cover image, in a cool looking 3D image browser.
New: Collection Statistics (pie and bar charts) integrated in main screen
– Switch the lower right part of the screen between movie details and collection statistics.
– View collection statistics based on the current Folder field (e.g. by Genre, or by Format).
– Switch between Bar Chart or Pie Chart.
– Order bars/pie parts by names or by values.
Improved Wish List functionality
– Quickly check your Wish List using tabs at the bottom of the main screen.
– Add movies to your Wish List right from the Add Movies Automatically screen.
– Right click a movie to “Move to Wish List” / “Move to Collection”.
– Edit Movie: clearer separation of Collection Status values into “Collection” and “Wish List” groups.
– Updated terminology for the Collection Status values.
– Revamped icons for all Collection Status values.
The list is not done yet, there is way more!
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