What's new?

Over the last week Joël from team Connect worked on splitting the settings into more logical places, and added new tooltips to explain what all the buttons do. The full what’s new:

Added tooltips

Hovering your mouse over the various buttons will now show tooltips to explain what the buttons do! Hover your mouse over the buttons to see what they do.

Split the settings

All settings used to be together in one screen, but they weren’t easy to find so we decided to split the settings up into their own logical pages. You can now find them by opening the menu (top left), and look for:

• Field Defaults: to set up default field values for new items
• CLZ Cloud Sharing: to set up all your CLZ Cloud sharing options
• Settings: with just the behaviour and display settings

A cool user interface update for your Book Connect software today, in which we makes it easier to select books and easier to perform batch actions on the selected books.

Select using checkboxes

To select books, just click the checkboxes on the left of each book entry in the list. Checkboxes are also available in Card View and Images View, just hover your mouse over an item.

No more need to go into “Select Mode” first. The Select Mode is automatically activated as soon as you checkbox the first book, clearly indicated by the blue Batch Action Bar that replace the regular toolbar.

Batch Action Bar

While in Select Mode, the blue Batch Action Bar is visible, always showing you the number of selected books. Also:

• Use the “Select all” checkbox to select all books in the current list in one go
• Use the “x Cancel” button on the right to leave Select Mode
• And of course, use any of the action buttons (Edit, Delete, Print, Export, Duplicate and Loan) to perform an action on the selection books

As indicated in last week’s GDPR email, we are updating our software and services, to be more secure and to better protect your privacy.

Starting with version 18.2, Book Collector now uses secure HTTPS connections for all communications with our servers:

• for logging in with your username and password
• for syncing your data with CLZ Cloud
• for sending your searches to Core.

To make this possible, we have created new secure “entry points” on our servers, that are only allowing secure HTTPS connections. The new Book Collector software only communicates with those secure entry points.

For your privacy and security, we strongly recommend updating to version 18.2.

Book Collector offers powerful batch commands, for performing actions on multiple books in one go, e.g. editing, removing or updating from Core.
However, we are finding that many users have never use these these batch actions, either because they are not aware of their existence or because they don’t know how to actually select multiple books (by Shift or Ctrl-clicking).

In today’s update we addressed these issues:

New Selection Checkboxes in the List View, for easy selection of multiple books

The List View now features checkboxes on the left. Use the checkboxes to easily select multiple books, no Shift or Ctrl-clicking needed. Of course the classic Shift/Ctrl-clicking still works too, this is just an extra method.

Don’t need the checkboxes? You can hide them using Tools / Options / Customization.

A new Action Bar with batch actions

As soon as multiple books are selected (that is, more than 1), a new Action Bar appears above the list. It shows how many are selected, plus offers buttons for the most popular batch actions.

Also new: Action Bar above Details Panel

At the same time, we also added a new Action Bar above the details panel, for quick access to commands operating on the selected book.

TIP: The commands in this new Action Bar have been removed from the main toolbar, to make that one a bit cleaner. However, if you are upgrading from an older version, it will remember your toolbar. To get the new clean main toolbar, choose View / Toolbars / Reset.

Don’t need or want this new bar? You can hide it using Tools / Options / Customization.

With super hi-res 4K (or even 5K) screens becoming quite common, more and more people are running Windows with the Font Size (DPI scaling) set to 125% or 150%, to keep text readable. So earlier this year, we released maintenance builds for all Windows editions to fix various layout problems when running Windows with “large fonts”.

Today, with version 18.2 we’re taking the next step: Book Collector is now fully “DPI Aware”. Starting with this version, if you have increased your font size in Windows, all screen texts will look sharper, less fuzzy, making full use of your hi-res screen.

To give you an idea, here are 2 close-up screenshots of what it looked like in the old version versus the new version:

Old version:

New version:

New collection status icons

We added new collection status icons to the main screen’s list view and card view to make the screen less clogged up and easier on the eye.

Fixed:

• Edit Book:
  • Index field didn’t have localized or custom caption
  • Clicking next or previous could create a second + button in the User Defined Fields tab
• Templates:
  • Fixed an issue where the template could become “white” if arrow keys were used on the keyboard.
  • Clicking an image would show a drag/drop menu. The image now opens properly.
• Quick Search: Fixed normalization for quick searches so words with umlauts/accents etc. are now easier to be found.
• Fixed a problem with folder paths for users that have their Documents folder rooted to an external drive (program wouldn’t install properly).
• Link Screen could show “Link Selected” button even if there were no matches.
• Manage Column presets:
  • Clicking in certain parts of the screen could cause Access Violations.
  • Clicking the Edit menu could break the focus in the screen.
• Light Skin: Better visibility for selected items in your lists.
• User Defined Fields: It was possible to create invisible User Defined Fields which would then never show up in the edit screen.
• Add Screen: Scrollbar position wouldn’t update sometimes.

New for the Add Books screen:

• Add button is now bigger and easier to spot (some new users missed the little round “+”).
• Add button now “remembers” your collection vs. wish list selection. No need to pick from the Collection/Wish List popup menu every time you add anymore.
• Remove from queue button is now bigger and easier to spot. Tap and hold on a barcode in the queue to select barcodes you want to remove.

Fixed:

• Accented characters in sortnames/titles were sorted incorrectly.
• Main screen: the over-sensitive quickscroll bar in the thumbnail view has been fixed.
• Edit: ‘Done’- button doest not scroll from screen on manual scroll.
• Edit: New ‘Unsaved changes’ dialog.
• Cloud sync: Sync reporting ‘invalid xml’ in rare cases.

If you’re a new user or thinking of moving your collection from the program “BookCAT” to Book Connect, good news: we’ve just added a new “BookCAT” import tool in Book Connect!

You can find the “BookCAT” import tool under the menu top left, then choose “Import Data”.

If you’re a new user or thinking of moving your collection from the program “Delicious Library” to Connect, good news: we’ve just added a new “Delicious Library” import tool in Connect!

You can find the “Delicious Library” import tool under the menu top left, then choose “Import Data”.

New for the Add Books screen:

• Add button is now bigger and easier to spot (some new users missed the little round “+”).
• Add button now “remembers” your collection vs. wish list selection. No need to pick from the Collection/Wish List popup menu every time you add anymore.

Fixed:

• Crash when sorting on Index field when a book didn’t have an index value.
• Already added barcode results could reappear in the ‘add by barcode’ queue.
• Adding a book would clear the collection status filter in the main screen.
• The sorting option screen would sometimes not fully show the chosen sort option when opened.
• iPad: Main screen: the details view did not refresh after changing the details template.
• iPad: Main screen: the ‘edit my rating’ pop up was rotated when in landscape mode.

Never a dull moment at the CLZ HQ… Here we were, working on nice improvements for our software, when suddenly… the guys at Apple had a brainwave: In their ultimate wisdom, they decided to start phasing out 32-bit applications.

Since April 12, users of macOS High Sierra are getting a “not optimized for your Mac” warning when they start a 32-bit application. Which includes the Book Collector software for macOS 🙁

On top of that, Apple have already stopped allowing 32-bit applications in their App Store and rumours are that they may even stop supporting 32-bit applications in a future version of macOS, requiring every application to be 64-bit!

Of course, we were already aware that Apple would be going this route some day; the rumours have been around for quite a while. So we had already been working on a 64-bit version of our software, as a “back-burner project”.

But the introduction of last week’s “not optimized” warnings suddenly made this a high-priority project. So… we dropped everything we were doing and finalized our 64-bit project. And I am happy to report:

A fully 64-bit v18.1 version of Book Collector is available now!

Not exactly what we were planning to do this month, but hey, this is what the Update Plans are for: your guarantee that we deal with everything the world throws at us 🙂

A small user interface tweak today:
The Add Books screen is now a pop-up screen that lays over your book list.
(previously it was a separate full screen page)

Looks cooler, feels more “snappy” and while adding books, you can actually see the new additions appear in your book list in the background!

Fixed:

• Sync with CLZ Cloud:
  • Sometimes the “Local changes to be uploaded” counter didn’t show the correct number.
  • When a cover could not be downloaded during down syncing it would stop and not continue. Now it will continue and show a report of any possible errors that have occurred.
  • Sometimes covers weren’t uploaded when they should have.
  • The error: “This database is different from the one in CLZ Cloud” would show up in rare cases when it shouldn’t.
• Main Screen:
  • There were still some cases where “follow edited item” option was not working.
  • Folder grouping on a credit role would show folders for all credit roles instead of just the one selected.
• Add Books from CLZ Core: adding a book via the “Missing Barcode” popup would not set the “Last Modified” date.

Persistent barcode queue

Barcodes scanned on the add page are now remembered! This means you can scan your barcodes into the add queue, leave the page, return later and still add the barcodes you scanned.

If you wish to remove barcodes from your queue, use the Edit button top right of the list of barcodes!

Fixed:

• Main screen:
  • “None” folder for user defined fields didn’t display.
  • Main screen could freeze in some cases when folder grouping on a user defined field.
• Auto sync could crash the program in some cases.

We’ve added new fields to sort on to change the order in which your books are displayed in your list. Your book list will adapt to sort and show the field you’re sorting on. On top of that we’ve redesigned the Select Sort Order screen to make it more clear what you’re choosing.

Open the Select Sort Order screen by tapping the menu top right, then tap “Sort order”.

All available sort fields:

• Author
• Title
• Publication Date
• Number of Pages (New!)
• Order of Entry (New!)
• Index
• Reading Date (New!)
• My Rating (New!)
• Purchase Date (New!)
• Purchase Price (New!)
• Current Value (New!)
• Quantity (New!)
• Dewey (New!)
• LoC Classification (New!)
• Series / Volume (New!)
• Series / Issue (New!)

All fields can be sorted either ascending or descending. Tap the field you wish to sort on, then tap “Apply” to confirm.

Version 18 is finally here! And it not only bring the promised Auto-Cloud-Syncing, but also many improvements to the main screen, making it both faster and more stable.

NEW: Fully Automatic CLZ Cloud Syncing!

The free CLZ Cloud service is at the center of all our cataloging solutions (desktop, mobile and web), the glue that binds them all together.
Tens of thousands of users are using the CLZ Cloud syncing every day, to transfer data between their desktop, Connect and mobile software, to update their online collection list, or simply for keeping an online backup of their precious database.

Now, it is time to take the CLZ Cloud to the next level, with automatic syncing:
Add or edit books in Book Collector and these changes will auto-upload to the CLZ Cloud instantly. Did you make changes using the CLZ Books mobile app or directly in Book Connect? Just start your software and changes will download automatically.
No more need to go to the Sync with CLZ Cloud screen, ever.

With “Sync Automatically” switched on…

1. Your online cloud backup is always up-to-date.
2. Your cloud viewer always shows the current state of your collection.
3. All your CLZ tools (desktop, mobile and Connect) will always be in-sync.

Automatic Cloud Syncing is an optional feature, switched OFF by default. If you don’t want to auto-sync, or don’t want to sync with the CLZ Cloud at all, just leave it switched OFF.

Main screen now faster and more stable

In the past few months, we have spent a lot of time rewriting important parts of the main screen. For instance, the code that refreshes the folder panel (which was slow, especially with the “counters” switched on) and also the part that restores your selection in the list after editing. At the same time, we reduced the program’s “memory footprint”, making it more stable overall.

The result is that the program is now a lot more enjoyable to use. It starts quicker, it refreshes much faster (after adding or editing) and switching between folder types is quicker.

The speed-up will be most noticeable on large collections, with thousands of books. Especially when having LOTS of folders in the folder panel (e.g. Author folders).

Fixes

• Cloud syncing:
  • After duplicating a book, the duplicate would not be marked for syncing to cloud.
  • In some situations, a down-sync could update empty fields with data from Core.
  • In some situations, cover images would not upload automatically.
• Main screen:
  • After editing, the edited items would not be selected after refresh.

Last week we updated the field selection popup for Connect and CLZ Cloud, and this week we bring that same field selection popup to your “Export to Text” and “Print to PDF” pages.

The update also includes an update Preview box for Export to Text, and an updated way for dragging/dropping fields for your columns or sort order.

Open up your Export to Text or Print to PDF screen via the menu top left in Connect.

New field selection popup:

Updated “Export to Text” page:

With new preview panel:

Updated “Print to PDF” page:

The ability to select your own Columns for the List View is an important customization feature of Book Connect. The same holds for selecting the Sort Order fields.

However, the “field selection” screens for doing these customizations were a bit outdated and finding a field could be tricky. So we decided to re-imagine the field selection screens to make them easier to understand, easier to use and better to use on mobile devices too.

Redesigned Field Selection screen:

• Available fields are now grouped, like the tabs in the Edit screen.
• Easily find the field you want with the search box top left.
• Use checkboxes on the left to select fields.
• Use the “x” button on the right to remove fields.
• Drag and drop fields on the right side to change the order.
• For sorting: use the ASC/DESC button to change the sort direction of that particular field.
• Works great on both your desktop and mobile browsers!

Select Columns screen:

Select Sort Order screen:

Fixed:

• Crash in the Add Books screen on tablet devices.

We’ve added new fields to sort on to change the order in which your books are displayed in your list. Your book list will adapt to sort and show the field you’re sorting on. On top of that we’ve redesigned the Select Sort Order screen to make it more clear what you’re choosing.

Open the Select Sort Order screen by tapping the menu top right, then tap “Sort order”.

All available sort fields:

• Author
• Title
• Publication Date
• Number of Pages (New!)
• Order of Entry (New!)
• Index
• Reading Date (New!)
• My Rating (New!)
• Purchase Date (New!)
• Purchase Price (New!)
• Current Value (New!)
• Quantity (New!)
• Dewey (New!)
• LoC Classification (New!)
• Series / Volume (New!)
• Series / Issue (New!)

All fields can be sorted either ascending or descending. Tap the field you wish to sort on, then tap “Apply” to confirm.

What’s new in the Add Books screen?

• Single Search Box: Just one box for search (e.g. like Google or Amazon). 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. (see the screen shot below with “crichton jurassic” results”).

• Search by Publisher and Year: Getting a lot of results? Filter down to the book edition you’re looking for by adding the publisher and/or publication year to your search! (see screen shot below)

What’s new in the Add Books screen?

• Single Search Box: Just one box for search (e.g. like Google or Amazon). 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. (see the screen shot below with “crichton jurassic” results”).

• Search by Publisher and Year: Getting a lot of results? Filter down to the book edition you’re looking for by adding the publisher and/or publication year to your search! (see screen shot below)

Fixed:

• Custom written plots could be overwritten with the default plot when books were updated from the online CLZ Core for Books database.
• The app did not open the details page when a search result was selected in the quick search box while the [All Books] folder was active in phone mode.

We had several reports from users about a crash when searching for an item in the collection. This crash has been reproduced and now fixed in the latest build!

Fixed:

• Crash during a search in the device’s database.

Quick Search: Search-As-You-Type suggestions

Instantly find and select a particular book in your local database:

• In the Quick Search box, just start typing the first few letters of the author or title you are looking for.
• While typing, a drop-down list will appear, showing the first five matching books.
  (for most books, it only takes 2 or 3 letters before it shows up.)
• Once you see the book you were looking for, tap it to bring up its detail page
• TIP: Tap the search button on the keyboard or tap “View All Results” to perform the normal search.

Quick Search now searches more fields

Now also searches in:

• Subtitle
• Series
• LoC Classification
• LoC Control Nr
• Dewey
• Plot
• Tags
• Notes

Full list of fields that are now searched:

• Title
• Author
• ISBN
• Publisher
• Subtitle
• Series
• LoC Classification
• LoC Control Nr
• Dewey
• Plot
• Tags
• Notes

Fixed:

• Faster loading of details screen.
• Crash within a few seconds of opening the app.
• Crash when pressing ‘Change account info’ in the sync screen.

Up until today, the quick search box in Book Connect (and the CLZ Cloud viewer for books) only searched in the Title, Author, ISBN, Year and Tags fields. Pretty limited, but necessary for performance reasons.

However, with the new search engine we created last year, it became possible to search more fields while keeping the search super-fast. So lets use that capability!

From now on, if you use the search box, it will also search in many more fields. The complete lists of fields that are now searched:

• Author
• Title
• ISBN
• Year
• Tags
• Subtitle
• Dewey
• LoC Classification
• LoC Control
• Publisher
• Series
• Notes
• Plot

Example: searching for “langdon” will return all Dan Brown’s “Robert Langdon” books, because the name appears in the plot summary: