What's new?

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

Read more

We have finally been able to free up web-developer Stijn from several long running “back-end” projects, so he is making good progress on all kinds of smaller Book Connect improvements.

In today’s update, 3 nice additions / tweaks:

• Easier user interface for Columns and Sorting
• Remove/Restore the automatic Core images for Front and Back
• More fields available in Field Defaults

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Today, we have updated your Book Connect software for you, with two nice improvements in one go:

• Enhanced Collection Status filter, now including On Order, For Sale, etc..
• Update from Core tool now supports (way) more fields

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Fixed:

• Date fields didn’t always transfer correctly

A nice new v21.3 update is available for Book Collector now, in which we introduce a new super useful database management tool, called Transfer Field Data (new in the Tools menu).

In short, this tool lets you copy field values from one field to another, in batch, so for your entire database, or for a selection of books.

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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

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:

• Image View: Position of the size slider wasn’t always remembered correctly
• Template: Some weblinks could not be opened
• Template: Now only shows the publication year at the top (instead of the full publication date which has been moved to the Details section)

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

Instead of adding more new features, we decided to take a few weeks to work on the look and feel of the app.
In this 6.4 update, we improved the look and layout of the book list and of the book details pages, in both the main screen and the Add screen preview.
On top of that, we finally acted upon a common request from our users: you can now change the size of the thumbnails in the Images View.

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Instead of adding more new features, we decided to take a few weeks to work on the look and feel of the app.
In this 6.4 update, we improved the look and layout of the book list and of the book details pages, in both the main screen and the Add screen preview.
On top of that, we finally acted upon a common request from our users: you can now change the size of the thumbnails in the Images View.

Read more

It is important to have your book entries linked to the corresponding entries in our Core online book database, especially when syncing to the CLZ Cloud and/or the CLZ Books mobile app. Because a correct Core link is what gives you all automatic book details, like cover images, subjects, genres, Dewey, plot description, etc..

All book entries you added through the Add Books from Core screen, will of course be linked with a Core entry automatically. However, if you added books manually, or if you imported a list of books, e.g. from a CSV file or by adding eBook files, some of your entries may arrive “unlinked”. In which case you would need to do the linking afterwards.

Previously, linking books with Core was done in an old and clunky screen, based on a very old version of the Add from Core screen. But not anymore!
As of today, Book Collector has a completely new Link Books with Core screen.

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Fixed:

• Printed by / Printing / First Edition / Paper Type / Photographer / Editor / Translator fields were not available for editing on multiple books.
• Tapping on a book cover in the details screen did not show a full screen cover.

A huge update for your CLZ Books app today, which gives you many fields, the ability to add website links to your book entries and finally: a setting for choosing a currency other than USD!

New fields

The following new fields are now available on the Details tab of the Edit screen:

• Printed by
• Printing
• First Edition (yes/no)
• Paper type
• Photographers
• Editors
• Translators

Add web-site links on the Links tab

A new Links tab is now available in the Edit screen, for adding web-site links to your book entries.

Tip: paste a website link in the URL box and the description will be filled in automatically.

Choose your own currency

Use the Settings screen (from the menu top left) to select your preferred currency for the Cover Price, Purchase Price and Current Value fields. Choose from USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD, NZD, CHF, NOK, SEK or DKK.

A huge update for your CLZ Books app today, which gives you many fields, the ability to add website links to your book entries and finally: a setting for choosing a currency other than USD!

New fields

The following new fields are now available on the Details tab of the Edit screen:

• Printed by
• Printing
• First Edition (yes/no)
• Paper type
• Photographers
• Editors
• Translators

Add web-site links on the Links tab

A new Links tab is now available in the Edit screen, for adding web-site links to your book entries.

Tip: paste a website link in the URL box and the description will be filled in automatically.

Choose your own currency

Use the Settings screen (from the menu top left) to select your preferred currency for the Cover Price, Purchase Price and Current Value fields. Choose from USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD, NZD, CHF, NOK, SEK or DKK.

A small update to the Book Collector for Mac software today, just to help you make the switch to the Book Connect web-based software.

We have received feedback from Book Collector users that they were missing some field in Book Connect / Cloud, so a few days ago we updated Connect to add many of those requested fields.

Check out some screenshot here!

The new fields that were added:

• Editor
• Translator
• Photographer
• Printed by
• Printing
• First Edition (yes/no)
• Paper type
• AND: web-site links on the new Links tab!

Of course, the new fields now being available in Book Connect is of little help to you if you cannot sync your existing data from your Book Collector for Mac software.

So… even though we announced “no more Mac updates”, we decided to do one FINAL v20.3 update of the Book Collector for Mac software, to add support for the syncing of the new fields.

I hope this update will help you make the big switch to Book Connect!

Last week, we added many new fields to the CLZ Cloud storage and the web-based Book Connect software, all based on feedback from our users.

Of course, new fields in the CLZ Cloud won’t help you much if you can’t sync them from Book Collector 🙂 So in today’s v21.1 update, we enhanced the CLZ Cloud syncing system to support all the new fields.

The following extra fields now sync to and from the CLZ Cloud

• Editor
• Translator
• Photographer
• Printed by
• Printing
• First Edition (yes/no)
• Paper type
• AND: web-site links!

BTW: an update for the CLZ Books mobile app is coming up soon, so that you can fully sync the new fields all the way to (and from) your mobile device too.

A huge update for your Book Connect software today, which gives you a LOT of new fields, plus the ability to add website links to your book entries!

New fields on the details tab:

• Printed by
• Printing
• First Edition (yes/no)
• Paper type

New fields on the new Credits tab:

• Photographers
• Editors
• Translators

New: add web-site links on the Links tab

Tip: paste a website link in the URL box and the description will be filled in automatically.

The new fields showing up in the Book Details panel:

Instead of jumping on the next big feature update, we decided to take a couple of weeks to work on various small improvements and fixes. Here’s what’s new and fixed in today’s update:

New: Clear your CLZ Cloud right from the Sync screen

No more need to login to the CLZ Cloud site and use “Clear Database” there. It is now possible to clear/reset your CLZ Cloud straight from the Sync screen, using the Clear CLZ Cloud button at the bottom.

BTW: please only use this when strictly necessary, in case of problems. Clearing the cloud and re-syncing all items is a heavy operation and causes seriously load on our servers. Thank you!

New: Find Duplicates results can now be exported to a TEXT file

By popular demand: you can now export the results of the Find Duplicates screen, either to take with you as a text file, or for printing.

New: Use the Statistics screen on a selection

Something that “got lost” when we replaced the old Database Totals screen with the fancy new Statistics screen: being able to see totals for the selected items in the main screen.
So… now that feature is back! Just select items in the main screen, using the checkboxes or Select All, then open Tools / Statistics to see totals and charts for just those items.

New: Filter area in status bar now highlights when a filter is active

A common question in support: “Why don’t I see all my items anymore”. Always turns out that a filter is active, either in the Quick Filter Panel, the Alphabet Bar or the search box.
To make this clearer, the Filter area in the status bar at the bottom now highlights in yellow when a filter is active.

Improved right-mouse click context menus, with sub-headers

Through the years, new commands kept being added to the right click context menus, and to be honest, they became a bit messy. So about time we cleaned them up.
All main screen context menu’s have now been cleaned up, re-ordered and re-grouped with nice sub-headers.

Fixed:

• Card View: mouse wheel scrolling was broken
• After Select All in list, some action bar button did not show up
• After editing, the list did not scroll to the edited item anymore
• Statistics: rare Access Violation while loading the screen
• Picklist item images are now automatically resolved when folder changes
• Update File Links: manual mode missing trailing slash by default
• Unrecognized ISBN screen did not handle unstable internet connections well

Fixed:

• Opening Statistics could crash the app
• Main Screen: Collection status filter: Could default to “For Sale” when it was previously set to “On Wish List”
• Main screen: Some controls were missing from the top bar on iOS 9/10 devices

A big update for your CLZ app today. Instead of bringing one big new feature, we decided to work on multiple areas that could be improved, all of them based on the feedback we received from you all. Thanks for that!

Collection Status filter

The 2nd button from the top right (next to the search button) is the Collection Status filter. Previously, it allowed you to filter by All, Collection or Wish List, but with this update, we added all collection status option there as filters, including On order and For Sale.

Also, the button will now be highlighted in yellow when a filter is active, that is, when it is set to anything other than “All”.

Re-designed toolbars at the top

The toolbars at the top have been re-designed, mainly to make the interactive elements stand out more as actual “buttons”.

(Especially the folder icon on the left was something that was often overlooked as something you could tap on. Hopefully this re-design will help to let more users find the most powerful feature of the app 🙂 )

New sort and display options in Settings

For Authors:

• Ignore Sort Names when sorting by Authors
• Show Sort Names instead of display names for Authors

For Titles:

• Ignore Sort Titles when sorting by Title
• Show Sort Titles instead of Titles

Improved Statistics screen

The Statistics screen has been updated with:

• More database totals at the top (nr of pages, purchase price, current value)
• An extra chart that shows Books by Year
• A new: “tap to show all” option to enlarge charts and see ALL entries

A big update for your CLZ app today. Instead of bringing one big new feature, we decided to work on multiple areas that could be improved, all of them based on the feedback we received from you all. Thanks for that!

Collection Status filter

The 2nd button from the top right (next to the search button) is the Collection Status filter. Previously, it allowed you to filter by All, Collection or Wish List, but with this update, we added all collection status option there as filters, including On order and For Sale.

Also, the button will now be highlighted in yellow when a filter is active, that is, when it is set to anything other than “All”.

Re-designed toolbars at the top

The toolbars at the top have been re-designed, mainly to make the interactive elements stand out more as actual “buttons”.

(Especially the folder icon on the left was something that was often overlooked as something you could tap on. Hopefully this re-design will help to let more users find the most powerful feature of the app 🙂 )

New sort and display options in Settings

For Authors:

• Ignore Sort Names when sorting by Authors
• Show Sort Names instead of display names for Authors

For Titles:

• Ignore Sort Titles when sorting by Title
• Show Sort Titles instead of Titles

Improved Statistics screen

The Statistics screen has been updated with:

• More database totals at the top (nr of pages, purchase price, current value)
• An extra chart that shows Books by Year
• A new: “tap to show all” option to enlarge charts and see ALL entries

With so many users switching from the desktop software to the Connect web-based software, we are getting a lot of useful feedback about the things they are missing, or would like to see in Connect.

Today, a small update with 3 new settings to save screen space in the main screen:

• Show Filter Bar: uncheck this setting to hide the bar at the top with the Collection Status filter and the Alphabet Bar, giving you quite a bit more vertical screen space for your list.
• Show Collection Status indicators: uncheck this to remove the column with the status icons from your List View, giving you more horizontal room for your columns.
• Show pencil icons (for editing): uncheck this to remove the column with the pencil (edit) icons from your List View, again giving you more horizontal list space.

Oh and BTW: we also took this opportunity to complete re-think the layout of the Settings screen, to make the grouping of settings more logical. I recommend to take a good look again, maybe you will find some useful settings you never knew existed 🙂

Long overdue, but it is finally here: you can now select your own currency for all value and price fields in Book Connect.

Find the new currency settings in your Settings screen. Under Currency, choose your desired currency.
Choose from USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD, NZD, CHF, NOK, SEK or DKK. Then use the Currency display setting to customize how prices and values will be displayed.

Read more

Fixed:

• Editing books with “content” could throw a “List Index out of Bounds” error

We’re well into 2021, so it’s time for Book Collector 21.
In this update we bring you a great new time-saving tool in the Add Books screen.

New Pre-fill screen that pops up when adding books

When adding a book to your database using the Add Books screen, it will now pop-up a new screen called “Pre-fill book details, letting you set various fields right then and there.

Fields available in the Pre-fill screen:

• Location
• Owner
• Purchase Date
• Purchase Store
• Purchase Price
• Quantity
• Tags

No more need to edit your added books afterwards!

(BTW: of course, using the new Pre-fill screen is optional. If you don’t want to use it, just uncheck the “Show Pre-fill screen” toggle at the bottom. You can always re-enable it through the program’s Options screen.)