News: all updates for our software and apps
This is CLZ Alwin, with your CLZ News for August 2023.
This month we completed the huge project of “customizable cast/crew” for movies and “customizable creators/characters” for comics (and of course the ability to sync your customized lists). Most of the CLZ team has been working on this for over 3 months!
But with that project completed, the team is being freed up for other stuff. This is already showing in several improvements for the Connect web-based software (for printing, exporting and importing), and more updates for the Windows editions.
Here’s the full list for today’s newsletter:
- Comic Connect + CLZ Comics: Modify your Creator and Character lists
- Comic Collector: Cloud-sync your customized Creator and Character lists
- Connect/Cloud: Printing / Exporting a selection is now much easier
- Connect/Cloud: Improved Import from CSV/TXT screen
- Book/Music/Game Collector: Simplified Sort Name editing for all pick list entries
- Two Factor Authentication (2FA) now available for your CLZ Account
Comic Connect + CLZ Comics: Modify your Creator and Character lists
Big updates for both the Comic Connect web-based software and the CLZ Comics mobile app: it is now finally possible to modify the CREATORS and CHARACTERS lists of your comic entries! And of course, to sync your customized lists to and from the CLZ Cloud.
The editing is done on the new Creators and Characters tabs of the Edit Comic screen. To start editing, just flip the toggle at the top from “Core .. ” to “Custom ..”. After that, you can:
- Easily add creators or characters by searching our central lists in Core. Just type a few letters of the name and the Find in Core screen will show you the most popular persons/characters that match what you typed (the bars on the right are popularity indicator bars, based on the number of comics he/she appears in)
- Drag and drop creator/character entries to change the order (just drag the drag icon on the left)
- Remove entries (using the “x” on the right)
Creator lists and Character lists that are marked as “Custom” will automatically Sync to/from the CLZ Cloud and the Comic Connect web-based software!
For screenshots: Comic Connect / CLZ Comics 8.5
Comic Collector: Cloud-sync your customized Creator and Character lists
Of course, the Comic Collector desktop software has allowed the editing of creator and character lists for many years. But still, the above project we just completed has resulted in a big v23.7 update for Comic Collector too, that introduces the following:
- Sync your customized creators/characters to CLZ Cloud and the CLZ Comics mobile app. In the Edit Comic screen, just flip to toggle at the top from Core to Custom and from then on the customized list will sync.
- Easily add creators or characters by searching our central lists in Core. Just type a few letters of the name and the Find in Core screen will show you the most popular persons/characters that match what you typed.
- Simplified Sort Name editing for all pick list entries. No more need to set separate first and last name fields. Just edit the Sort Name field directly.
Find some Comic Collector 23.7 screenshots here
Connect/Cloud: Printing / Exporting a selection is now much easier
This update makes it a lot easier to print a selection, that is, only part of your collection. No more need to checkbox items before printing/exporting, no more need to use the special Print/Export button on the blue action bar.
Just make your selection in the main screen, then use the regular Print/Export command from the main menu and use the “Current List” option from the new “Which Items?” selector.
And, while we were adding the new “Which Items?” selector, we figured we’d take the time and improve the layout and UI of the entire screen.
Screenshots: Movie Connect / Book Connect / Music Connect / Comic Connect / Game Connect
Connect/Cloud: Improved Import from CSV/TXT screen
The next step in our quest to revamp and re-design features and screens of the Connect web-based software: improving the Import from CSV/TXT screen.
The main problem users ran into here was that the field mapping ability was not quite apparent from looking at the Import screen.
So we renamed step 3 from just “Preview” to “Map your fields to our fields”. Then we redesigned the look of the column headers to make it clearer that you have to click there to do the field mapping.
Book/Music/Game Collector: Simplified Sort Name editing for all pick list entries
Hot of the press, released just an hour ago: three updates for the Windows editions of Book Collector, Music Collector and Game Collector!
We have simplified the database structure and editing of person pick list items (but also other pick lists with sort names). In the past you had editable fields like First Name, Last Name and “The”, which worked together to generate a SortName.
Now it is much simpler and easier. The First, Last and The fields are gone and have been replaced with a simple directly editable Sort Name.
This change makes it easier to set Sort Names for your entries AND this simpler database structure better matches the database structure of CLZ Cloud and the CLZ mobile app, resulting in more accurate data syncing.
Screenshots: Book Collector / Music Collector / Game Collector
Two Factor Authentication (2FA) now available for your CLZ Account
Early this month, we introduced the new Two Factor Authentication (2FA) option for your CLZ Account. 2FA is a commonly used method for better protecting user accounts against unauthorized logins. It is called two-factor authentication, because apart from the usual “first factor” of entering a username/password, the user is also required to enter an extra security code that only he/she has access to.
The required security code is different each time you try to login and is usually sent to your phone in a text message or retrieved from a special Authenticator app. At CLZ, we have opted for the Authenticator app method.
Note: using 2FA is OPTIONAL, it is not mandatory, neither will it become mandatory in the future.
Read on for full 2FA details, setup instructions and the answers to common questions
Enjoy!
Alwin Hoogerdijk
Collectorz.com / My.CLZ.com / CLZ Help Center / CLZ Online Shop
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