News: all updates for our software and apps
Here it is, the CLZ News for September 2020.
It’s a sad day today. Since late June, part of the team had been working at the office again, but in the Netherlands the 2nd wave of the virus has hit us full on. So to keep the team safe and healthy, we have decided that the entire team will be working from home again, starting today 🙁
But don’t worry, we have gotten quite good at this “work from home” situation, with the team communicating over Slack all day. So it’s all business as usual. The support team is still lightning fast in answering your questions. The content team is still keeping our Core up-to-date will all new releases. And finally, the dev team is still making excellent progress on updates for our software and services.
These are the topics of today’s newsletter:
- v6.0 now live for CLZ Books, CLZ Music and CLZ Movies apps!
- Coming up: Improved PriceCharting support for all game tools
v6.0 now live for CLZ Books, CLZ Music and CLZ Movies apps!
It’s finally happening, the v6.0 releases of all CLZ mobile apps, for both iOS and Android. In September, the 6.0 versions went live for CLZ Books, CLZ Music and CLZ Movies. We are currently working on the CLZ Games 6.0 update, which is gonna be huge, with many game-specific improvements (full details in the game topic below.)
When that’s done CLZ Comics 6.0 is up, also with extra comic specific features.
What’s new in v6.0 for books, music and movies?
NEW: Edit Multiple items in one go!
Finally make changes to multiple (or all) entries in one go.
Here’s how:
- Tap and hold on an entry in the list to enter Select Mode
- Now tap more entries to select them.
- Tap the menu button on the bottom right and choose “Edit [x] Movies/Books/Albums”.
- In the screen that appears, select which fields you want to edit.
(Tips: use the search box to find fields, tap the star icons to set Favorite fields) - Tap Edit at the top right.
- Now set values, or leave fields gray to clear them.
- Tap Done at the top right to save the changes to the selected entries.
Improved Edit screens
A new look for all edit boxes and a more compact layout, making it much easier to edit your entries, without scrolling through long lists of fields.
- The cover image is now on its own tab, so the main tab starts with the most important edit fields at the top.
- Fields are now laid out side-by-side, making it easier to edit all fields without endless scrolling.
- More compact look and user interface for all text edit fields.
- More compact display and editing of multi-value pick list fields like Artists, Authors, Genres, Subjects and Tags.
- Date fields: enter year, month day manually or use calendar icon to use date setter popup.
NEW: Built-in Crop and Rotate tool for cover images
In the Edit screen the Cover is now on its own tab, with new Crop and Rotate tools for instant rotating and cropping of self-made cover photos or downloaded images.
IMPROVED: Folder Field selection screen
Yep, another update of this screen, to make it fully consistent with the Select Edit Fields screen.
It now includes a search box at the top for quickly finding the field you want, plus the ability to create your own Favorites (just tap the star icons).
For full details and screenshots:
- ~OptIn_115~
- ~OptIn_121~
- ~OptIn_117~
- ~OptIn_127~
- ~OptIn_119~
- ~OptIn_123~
Coming up: Improved PriceCharting support for all game tools
This is the biggest project that is going on now, internally called #game2020. Currently 6 CLZ team members are working on this full time. The main goal:
Take the PriceCharting features to the next level.
We started 3 months ago, with Stijn creating new CMS tools for Martin and AJ, for manually linking over 25 thousand extra Core game entries to the corresponding Price Charting game pricing entries, including lots of new PAL editions. After 3 months, this part is almost finished, just 800 games to go!
But that’s not all. We will bring many improvements to all 3 software solutions too, soon to be released for the Game Connect web-based software, the CLZ Games mobile app (in version 6.0) and the Game Collector desktop software (in version 21.0).
Here’s a sneak preview of the new features and improvements:
- We have merged the PriceCharting Value and Current Value fields, into just one field called Value. This makes it possible to manually enter the Value, or overwrite the automatically delivered PriceCharting value, keeping your Value Totals correct.
- For cases where your game entry is linked to the wrong PriceCharting entry, you can now manually override, by entering the correct PriceCharting ID.
- All Value related fields (Completeness, Box, Manual, Value, PC ID, Condition, Purchase info, etc…) are now on their own tab in the Edit Game screen, including a nice chart showing the PriceCharting values for Loose, CIB and New.
- The Completeness field now has an extra N/A option for digital games. This way can ensure your digital games are not downloading PriceCharting values.
- In the Add Games from Core screen, you can now set a global US/EU preference for getting US (=NTSC) vs EU (=PAL) values and cover images.
- Now download PriceCharting values in your own currency. Choose from 10 different currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD, NZD, CHF, NOK, SEK or DKK).
- Search results in Add Games screen now show Edition, Region and PriceCharting values.
- CLZ Games: main list entries now also show Completeness and PriceCharting values.
Sneak preview screenshot of CLZ Games edit screen:
ETA for these releases: within 2 weeks!
Stay safe!