What's new in CLZ Books for iOS?
v9.0: Collection tabs, better Add Books and “ISBN not found” screens
A big update v9.0 update for your CLZ Books app today, with many new features and improvements!
Here’s the full list of What’s New:
- New collections tab-bar: easily switch between collections using tabs at the bottom
- Adding Books: quick “Confirm” pop-ups, instead of full screen Preview pages
- Add by ISBN: Better screens for dealing with “ISBN not found” situations
- Add by ISBN: Faster camera barcode scanner for scanning ISBN barcodes
- New setting “Show Read-It” for showing/hiding Read-It eye icons from list and details
v8.5.4: Added a new “Remove all unused pick list entries” option
What’s new:
- Added a new “Remove all unused pick list entries” option in the maintenance menu, to remove all unused pick list entries in one go
Changed:
- For new users: no more Demo Mode
Fixed on iOS:
- Edit screen: Picking something from a pick list: The search could mess up your choice
- The sync button could show on details view
A build full of fixes for bugs reported by you. Thanks to everyone who reported these bugs!
Fixed:
- Unreliable search results after editing or merging pick list items
- Edit Multiple: Some fields were turning orange once typed in
- Merge mode in pick lists would not remember selection when using the search in the list
- Typing a comma in price/value fields wasn’t always working
- Editing a pick list item could give a wrong “Already in List” error
- Multi-level folders: when filtering inside a folder the search text would clear after typing a space
- Multi-level folders: When you searched an item and picked one from the suggestions dropdown, it would bring you inside the folder, instead of directly to the item
- Editing an item could send you to a different folder than you were in
A lot of the questions we get about CLZ Books can usually be answered with:
“Just use Manage Pick Lists”
Renaming Locations, Merging duplicate genres, fixing author sort problems, fixing typos in author names, etc… it is all done in the Manage Pick Lists screen. An important and powerful screen, but… not so easy to find if you don’t know where to look or don’t even know what to look for.
With this update, we are trying to fix all that. We have made the screen much more accessible / discoverable AND we have made several improvements to the MPL screen itself.
This update is all about the Pre-fill screen, you know, the screen that appears when adding items and lets you pre-fill fields while adding, like Location, Owner, Purchase Date/Store/Price, etc…
This Pre-fill screen was introduced in Jan 2021, with a fixed set of fields. Then a year later, in Jan 2022, it was made completely user configurable, so that *you* could choose which fields appeared on the screen.
This screen turned out to be a popular tool, but we’ve seen one problem with it:
Sometimes, users pre-fill a field for a specific book (e.g. Purchase Price or Quantity), then forget to CLEAR it for the next books they add. Causing lots of books to be added with that same field set incorrectly.
So today, we are making another tweak to the Pre-fill screen:
- The Pre-fill screen now highlights filled fields in orange, so that they stand out more.
- Also, we added a “Clear” button, to quickly clear all Pre-fill fields.
Fixed
- iOS: iPad: Year folders: the wrong year folder could be selected sometimes.
New:
- Added in-app getting started tips for new users (tap “dismiss” to dismiss)
Fixed:
- Fixed: adding items did not work for users that were not logged in
In this update, we try to tackle a problem that we often see in our support system:
Users changing phones without updating their CLZ Cloud first. Or even worse, without even having a CLZ Account yet.
Which of course cause data loss (and a lot of sadness).
So in this version, we are trying to create more awareness of:
- The importance of creating a CLZ Account, so that you can Sync with CLZ Cloud.
- The importance of keeping your CLZ Cloud up-to-date by actually Syncing with CLZ Cloud.
New Sync button in main screen
When not in sync with CLZ Cloud, a new Sync button will appear on the main screen, above the Add button. This way you will always know if there are still items to sync up to CLZ Cloud or down from CLZ Cloud (even when you use auto-sync).
(Don’t like this button? In the Settings screen, switch OFF the setting that says “Show on-screen sync button”)
New “Sync with Cloud!” bar when not logged in
When using the app while not logged in to a CLZ Account, a new bar will appear at the bottom of the main screen that says “Sync to CLZ Cloud for an online backup”.
Hopefully that will help prevent future data loss.
(Don’t like this bar? In the Settings screen, switch OFF the setting that says “Show backup suggestion bar”)
New 5-book “Demo Mode” for new users
For new users who just downloaded the app, we introduced a new “Demo Mode” that lets you add 5 books before committing to the actual 7-day free trial subscription.
Fixed on Android:
- Edit Comic: When you’ve edited something, and you tapped “Next”, it would skip an item.
Fixed:
- When using multi-level folders, the folder panel search text would sometimes copy over to the next folder (and not be remembered when going back)
- After syncing, the main screen did not always refresh
- A crash could occur when entering Selection Mode in Card View if no cards were available
- A crash could occur when selecting folders
- When switching between collection statuses while in multi-level folders, the app could show a wrong selection of items
- The app crashed on devices with iOS13
- iPad: The folder panel search did not have an “X” to clear the search
Fixed:
- Card View: titles were sometimes displayed wrong.
- Folders: The search filter in “Create new favorite” wasn’t working correctly.
- Fixed a couple of folder labels that were displayed wrongly at the top.
- iPad: The folder panel could jump to the top if a folder was selected from the bottom.
- iPad: made the switching between folders appear more smooth.
- iPad: breadcrumb wasn’t always displayed correctly when backing out of a folder.
A huge update for your CLZ Books mobile app today, which introduces a powerful feature for browsing and filtering your book collection: using multiple levels of folders.
Previously, it was only possible to use one level, so either Author folders OR Publisher folders OR Subject folders OR Location folders, etc… But starting with this version, you can combine folder options, so for instance, use Publisher folders, then within each publisher folder have Author folders.
Here it is, the big 8.0 release of your CLZ Books app, in which we add SEVEN new data fields.
All fields were added based on feedback from you all, the users of the app.
Four of these fields were already available in the Book Collector desktop software and can now finally be synced through the CLZ Cloud to the CLZ Books mobile app (Cover Artist, Foreword Author, Ghostwriter and Box Set).
The other three fields are completely new to all 3 of our book cataloging solutions (Signed By, Dust Jacket and Number Line).
BTW: similar updates have also been released for the Book Collector desktop software and the Book Connect web-based software, so all 7 fields now nicely sync between all of them.
Changed:
- Improved messaging for subscription status
v7.4.3: Fixed barcode scanner / Collection Status colors in Card View
Fixed and improved:
- ISBN Barcode scanning on iPhone 14 Pro is now FIXED (by using macro lens)
- ISBN Barcode scanning on iPhone 13 Pro now also uses macro lens
- Collection Status colors now also visible in Card View
Another big update for your CLZ Books app, in which we introduce a new view for your book collection. But there’s more:
- New “Card View”
- Selecting books now also possible in Card View and Images View
- Floating “Add Books” button (the big blue “+”) now auto-hides
Initially, when we created the mobile apps, we deliberately decided to leave out the back cover images, for performance, storage and bandwidth reasons. But with today’s fast internet speeds and fast devices with large storage.. it is time to change our minds!
Read more
In this update, no new features, just a nice improvement that makes existing functionality a bit better.
All actions in the app that can take a bit longer are now showing a nice progress bar!
This gives you some idea how long the action will take.
Also, the new Cancel button lets you stop actions, e.g. if you see it will take too long to do at this time.
The new progress bars are now shown when:
- Adding multiple books
- Editing multiple books
- Removing multiple books
- Updating from Core
Improvements:
- New: Sort by Date Modified
- New: Sort by Date Added (previously called “Order of Entry”)
- New: use Added Year as your folder field
- Improved display of sort values in bottom right corner of list cells
One of the most popular features we added to the CLZ Books app in the past few years is the Pre-fill screen. You know, the screen that pops up when adding new books from Core and lets you “pre-fill” some fields for the new additions, right there and then. Without having to go back and edit the entries afterwards. A big time-saver for most users.
The set of fields that is available on the Pre-fill screen has always been fixed, limited to Location, Owner, Purchase Date/Store/Price, Quantity and Tags.
However, after the release of this feature, we instantly started getting requests for more fields to be added to the Pre-fill screen. Which makes sense, I mean, if you always fill in a field that is not on the Pre-fill screen, you would have to “edit after adding” anyway, rendering the entire Pre-fill screen useless…
So today we are taking the Pre-fill feature to the next level by making the screen completely user-configurable. That is, to allow you to choose your own Pre-fill fields!
And while we were at it, we made some other related improvements. Here’s what’s new in version 7.1:
- User-configurable Pre-fill screen: choose your own fields
- Pre-fill: new for Purchase Date and Reading Date: Use “Today”
- The Pre-fill screen is now also used to set field defaults
A huge 7.0 update for your CLZ Books app is now available, with new features and lots of improvements to existing functionality. All in one go and all based on your feedback!
New in version 7 today:
- Use barcode scanner to search your own database
- New Collection Status: Sold
- New Collection Status icons and colors
- Improved Add Books screen: enlarge thumbs, new beeps, num pad for ISBN entry
- New setting to enable/disable downloading of genres/subjects
- New Favorites section in Manage Pick List screen
- Other small tweaks
Now available in the App Store, version 6.6 for CLZ Books. In this update, we finally bring the Submit to Core feature to the mobile app, so that you can help improve the Core online book database, by submitting your corrections.
Also new in this update: Select Mode is now easier to activate and the Action menu has a new look.
Enjoy!
It’s been a while since the last CLZ Books update, as our entire mobile team has been working on a big update of our CLZ Music app (the one for CDs and vinyl records).
But we’re back at it for the other CLZ mobile apps, with 3 new features in one go!
- a new “Duplicate Book” tool, for making a full copy an existing book in your database.
- a new “Clear Cloud” button in the Sync screen, for resetting your CLZ Cloud
- a new “Shake to Shuffle” feature, for selecting a random book
New:
- Image View: Sadly not everyone likes the new flexible “full cover wall” layout. So we have now made it optional. Tap the button to the left of the size slider to switch between the new “Flex Layout” and old “Grid layout”.
Fixed:
- Template: Now only shows the publication year at the top (instead of the full publication date which has been moved to the Details section)
- iOS10: iPad: Images view would crash the app
- iOS10: iPad: After tapping an album and tapping back, the list could disappear
Some users were experiencing a crash during the optimizing database screen. This has now been fixed in version 6.4.2 and version 6.4.3
Fixed:
- Crash during optimizing of database