What's new in Book Collector? (page 4)

Fixed:

• Submit Missing ISBN: for some users the popup would look messed up with the “OK” and “Cancel” buttons out of sight
• Crashes during Check for Update process

Fixed:

• Import from other collection could cause a crash in rare cases
• Edit Book:
  • On User Defined Fields tab, “_[Add pick list item]_” didn’t work for comboboxes
  • Changing the role for a credit would mark all books dirty where that person appeared instead of just the edited book
• Manage Pick Lists: removing pick list items didn’t mark their corresponding books as modified
• Main Screen: accelerator keys in main menu (like “ALT+F” for files menu) didn’t work

Improved “Unrecognized ISBN” screen

• NEW: integrated Find Cover tool.
  Easily pick a cover images from internet search results for the ISBN.

• Two extra fields: Publisher and Year.
• Author box now has drop-down with your Author list for easy entry of existing author names.

Fixed:

• Dragging and dropping cover images did not work for HTTPS URLs.
• Person grids: problems adding authors when multiple authors exists with the same display name.

New

• Link/Update Books now also supports the “Unrecognized ISBN” screen
• Quick search now also supports Regular Expressions. Enter “matches:” followed by regular expression in the quick search box.

• In Add Books Automatically, when an ISBN is not recognized, a new “Unrecognized ISBN” screen will appear.
• In this screen, just type the Author and the Title, then click Add Book.
• This will:
  1. Instantly add the ISBN/Author/Title entry to our Core online book database.
  2. Add the book to your own database with ISBN, Author and Title filled in AND linked to the new Core entry.

In other words, this new screen not only helps you in adding unrecognized books,
but it also helps your fellow Book Collector users by adding the missing ISBN to the CLZ Core.

( BTW: this screen replaces the “Report Missing ISBN to Core” web-form. Of course, you can still provide more info for the added ISBN using the Submit to Core button in the Edit Book screen. )

Changes:

• Export to XML is now a lot more memory efficient, writing the xml directly to hard disk (can be more slow though)

Fixed:

• Sync with Cloud: First Edition and Abridged fields were cleared when syncing down from the cloud
• Add/Modify Filter: “Contains” filters were always case insensitive even when “case sensitive” was checked
• Edit Multiple: F8 didn’t clear price and dimension values

Fixed:

• Program could throw an “Handle is invalid” error after multiple edits

Fixed:

• Main Screen:
  • The folder tree was wrapping the values in the list
  • A double hint was showing for the thumbnail slider to resize thumbnails in Images View
• When working offline, closing the program could cause Access Violations
• Edit Book:
  • It was possible to sort the stories list where it shouldn’t which caused drawing issues
  • Moving story up or down could make selected story look empty
• Edit Story: some buttons were missing icons
• User Defined Fields: values of check box lists were not loaded correctly in some cases

Improvements:

• Cloud Syncing: Now does up to 5 retries when a sync action fails because of a temporary connection problem.
• Edit Book: Improved “search as you type” behaviour of search boxes for adding authors, credits and characters.
• Dark Skin: active window now has a light grey border, making it stand out more when windows overlap.

Fixed:

• Screen started to “flicker” after leaving the program inactive for a few minutes.
• Add Automatically: adding a checked result would sometimes uncheck a result from another search in the queue.
• Main Screen / Two Panel Mode: selection status text would sometimes show an invalid text when no books were showing in the list.
• Edit Multiple: F8 to clear didn’t work for memo fields like Plot and Notes.

Fixed:

• Edit Book:
  • Changing collection status sometimes would uncheck a radiobutton but not check the selected one
  • Previous/Next/Ok could mess up data when the edit screen was still loading

Fixed:

• Export to HTML: access violation could occur in some cases when using a custom index template
• Edit Screen: Checkbox List hints would sometimes not disappear
• Main Screen: changing font size could make some screen elements disappear
• Quick Filter Panel: filters weren’t applied directly at startup when panel was closed but “Keep Active” was checked

Changes

• Date Fields: Year field’s position now also depends on system’s shortdate setting
• Carbon, Cobalt, Quicksilver Templates: Subtitle now below Title instead of behind

Fixed:

• Edit Book:
  • Date fields didn’t clear their Month and Day values using next/previous when they weren’t filled in for the next/previous item
  • Delete key didn’t work in Month and Day fields to clear their values. Backspace did work normally.
  • Clicking stars to add rating didn’t set “read it” field according to setting

Changes

• Date fields now have dropdowns for Month and Day. Order of Month and Day dropdown depends on system’s shortdate setting now

Fixed:

• Edit Book:
  • some fields didn’t keep their focus when using next/previous
  • Audio book length was limited to 999 minutes
• Edit Multiple: F8 in date fields didn’t clear them
• Main Screen:
  • horizontal scrollbar was sometimes showing in folder tree when it shouldn’t
  • Cards View: scrolling using the mouse wheel wasn’t working properly
  • layout wasn’t always restored properly when quick filter panel was showing
• Quick Filter Panel: collection status filter wasn’t showing in filter description at bottom of the screen

Fixed:

• Main screen: right click popup menu to customize toolbar didn’t show.
• Edit Book: “List index out of bounds” error when deleting a local link could occur.
• Main screen:
  • Right click popup menu to customize toolbar didn’t show.
  • Sometimes the screen layout wasn’t restored properly after start of program.
• Filter panel: closing the filter panel didn’t reset the Collection Status filter.
• Lookup Grid: filtering the dropdown then using the arrow keys to select name didn’t update the dropdown’s text.

Quick Filter panel tweaks

• Quick Filter panel is now opened/closed using a new button on the toolbar (to the left of the folders button).
  No more automatic sliding when moving the mouse.

• Smoother filter sliders (Ratings, Year, Running Time)

Fixed:

• Edit Multiple Books:
  • Number of Pages field was always cleared.
  • “Cannot focus a disabled or invisible window” when clearing a check list with F8.
• Edit Book:
  • Number of Pages field was limited to 999.
  • Author grid didn’t restore column widths properly.
• Opening then closing the Quick Filter panel could change the width of the other panels.
• Minimizing a full screen program, then restoring would not restore to full screen.
• Weird problems while resizing program windows.
• Main Screen: Cover flow had a white background with Light and Sytem Skin (now black again).
• Switching to or starting in System skin didn’t always refresh Details Panel.

NEW: Choose between Light, Dark or System skins

Yes, We’re getting rid of the gray!

Book Collector now comes with a skin system, which affects the look of all screens in the program,
main screen, edit screens, add auto-screen, sync screen etc.. even the settings screens.

We have designed two different skins for you to choose from: Light and Dark.
The third option “System” is basically the old pre-v16.3 look.

Read more

Fixed:

• Main Screen:
  • Cards View: selection wasn’t always restored properly
  • Scrolling the Details View with the mouse wheel would scroll the list when the scroll bar reached the top
• Quick search:
  • pasting text into quick search box didn’t show the clear button
  • Escape button will now clear quick search
• Sync with Cloud: cancelling sync didn’t always work

New view for the main screen: Card View

Next to List View, Images View and Cover Flow, we have added a Card View, a multi-column view with little info cards for each book, showing the main book details and a small cover thumbnail.

Fixed:

• Add Automatically: right click menu didn’t popup when there were no results showing
• Content View: Folder grouping on a field with inheritance didn’t take the inherited book values into account

Fixed:

• Loading of backup.xml is now more robust

Fixed:

• Improved Webcam functionality for Webcam Barcode scanning:
  • Sometimes starting the webcam feature would hang the program
  • Some webcams didn’t show any video
  • A JPEG error could be thrown for some webcams
• Add Automatically: when you didn’t want to move a book from your wish list into your collection, it wasn’t possible.

Find Image Online tool now uses Bing Image Search

The Find Image Online tool previously used Google Images to find images.

However, it turns out that on December 1, Google terminated the free Google Image Search API
that we were using, causing our Find Image Online functionality to stop working.

Google provides a new paid version of the Search API, but it is limited to max 10K searches per day.
With the amount of customers we have, we need at least 20K daily searches (600K per month!) 🙁

The solution: Switch to BING!

Microsoft also offers a paid Bing Image Search API and this one has no limits.
Or, to be more precise, they let us pay more for higher limits.
Read more

Fixed:

• Access Violation when starting the program after a fresh installation.
• Access Violation when closing the program.

Fixed:

• Delete Orphan Images tools didn’t account for images linked in the Links / Local Files tab.

Webcam barcode scanning

Use your webcam as a barcode scanner, to add or find books by ISBN.

• Scan barcodes with your webcam
  Just use the live camera view to point your webcam at a barcode
  and let our software detect the barcode that is in view.
• Use the webcam scanner to add books by barcode
  Pop-up the scan window and scan ISBN barcodes,
  either using Direct Search or scanning into the Queue.
• Or use it in the main screen to find books by barcode
  Scan an ISBN barcode while in the main screen,
  to quickly search your local database by barcode.
• Works best with auto-focus or manual-focus webcams
  Fixed focus cameras will not work well (or at all).

Read more