News: all updates for our software and apps
This year, the CLZ Team hit the ground running. Many updates were released, in quick succession. If you are following our Collectorz.com Facebook page you’ve probably seen the news go by as we launched, but here’s your action-packed monthly summary:
- Connect web-based editions:
- New Add screens for Book-, Game-, and Comic Connect
- Faster collection browsing (also in the free CLZ Cloud viewer!)
- Book Connect Add screen: Single Search Box for Author/Title searches
- Coming up: new Edit screens / details panel in main screen
- Windows editions:
- Various tweaks and fixes for the V18 versions
- Book Collector Add Screen: Single Search Box for Author/Title searches
- Fixed: various layout problems on “125% DPI/Font Size” systems
- Mobile apps:
- iOS: Automatic CLZ Cloud Syncing
- Android: Improved search: Search-As-You-Type / more search fields
- Coming up: More sorting options
Connect web-based editions:
New Add screens for Book-, Game-, and Comic Connect
As you know, we are re-designing the Add screen for all Connect editions. The Add Movies screen was launched in December, this month we finished the new Add screens for books, games and comics. The new Add Albums screen for Music Connect is coming up next week.
Great looking, easy-to-use, super-fast, it doesn’t get much better than this. Make sure to check out the screen shots here: Add Movies / Add Books / Add Games / Add Comics
Faster collection browsing (also in the free CLZ Cloud viewer!)
Both the Connect web-applications and the free CLZ Cloud viewers have been updated for faster performance. The folder panel now uses “lazy-loading” which makes it load (a lot) faster. Then, when selecting a folder, only the list panel is re-loaded, where previously the entire page was refreshed.
The above changes will make browsing your CLZ Cloud or Connect app a lot snappier (especially noticeable for large book, music and comic collections) and will prevent server performance problems (two birds with one stone!).
Book Connect Add screen: Single Search Box for Author/Title searches
Our web-team has been working on this for a long time: a new search engine for Author/Title searches in our Core online book database. The new search is much faster and returns more focussed, less fuzzy results.
On top of that, it now works with a “Single Search Box”, no more separate Author and Title boxes. Just enter (part of) the author’s name and (part of) the title and you will get the best matching results.
AND: You can now filter down to the book edition you’re looking for by adding the publisher and/or publication year to your search!
Check out some screen shots here.
Coming up: new Edit screens / details panel in main screen / more fields
We’ve got 3 people working on Connect full-time, so you can expect lots of improvements and new features there.
Some things we’re working on / planning to work on:
- Re-designed Edit screen: better layout, easier editing of picklist fields.
- Details panel integrated in main screen
- Loan Manager for all apps (now only available in Book Connect)
- More fields: more “Core” fields available for editing (and syncing!)
- Better Link with Core screen: quicker linking, in batch
Windows editions:
Various tweaks and fixes for the V18 versions.
The version 18 releases included major changes to the Edit screens, which have caused interesting feedback from our users, some friendly, some… eh… not so friendly 🙂 Of course, we have listened to your feedback and 5 maintenance builds are now live, with many tweaks and fixes.
Thank you all for your feedback!
Book Collector Add Screen: Single Search Box for Author/Title searches
See above for the similar Connect update. Faster and better Author/Title searches in the Add Books screen, using a Single Search box. Check out some screen shots here.
Fixed: various layout problems on “125% DPI/Font Size” systems
This has been a long-standing problem: on Windows systems with the DPI or Font Size set to 125% or 150%, many screens had strange font size and layout problems, particularly visible in the Edit screens, but also affecting other screens.
This has been a particularly tricky problem to fix, but Ronald and AJ jumped into the magical world of Windows display settings and, after a week of cursing and yelling, they have finally been able to fix it. Now live for all Windows editions.
Mobile apps:
iOS: Automatic CLZ Cloud Syncing
Already live for Windows and Android in December, but now for iOS too:
Add or edit items and your changes will auto-upload to the CLZ Cloud instantly.
Made changes on the desktop or Connect side? Just start the app and changes will download automatically.
Android: Improved search: Search-As-You-Type / more search fields
Two big improvements for searching your database:
- Search-As-You-Type suggestions: just start typing the first few letters of the title you are looking for. While typing, a drop-down list will appear, showing the first five matching entries. Tap one to instantly bring up its detail page.
- More search fields: the search feature now searches a lot more fields. Check out the links below for details for your app.
Screen shots and details: CLZ Movies / CLZ Books / CLZ Music / CLZ Comics / CLZ Games
Coming up for the iOS apps within a few weeks!
Coming up: More sorting options
Next up for the mobile apps: better sorting features. More fields selectable to sort on, with the list entries automatically adjusting to show your sort field.