What's new in CLZ Comics for Android?
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-comic “Demo Mode” for new users
For new users who just downloaded the app, we introduced a new “Demo Mode” that lets you add 5 comics before committing to the actual 7-day free trial subscription.
Fixed on iOS:
- When adding comics and you were prompted to change the collection status of an existing item, pre-fill data was ignored.
Fixed on Android:
- Edit Comic: When you’ve edited something, and you tapped “Next”, it would skip an item.
v8.5: Modify the Creators and Character lists of your comic entries!
I know it was a long wait, but here it finally is: CLZ Comics 8.5, with the long awaited editing tools for your creator and character lists!
The entire CLZ development team has been working on this major feature for several months. A huge project that we have been postponing for many years, because of the complexity and the enormous amount of work. But today we can finally go public with it, resulting in a major 8.5 update for the CLZ Comics mobile app:
As of today, it is 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.
A huge update for your CLZ Comics mobile app today, which introduces a powerful feature for browsing and filtering your comic collection: using nested folders.
Previously, it was only possible to use one level, so either Series folders OR Tag folders OR Series Group OR Storage Box folders, etc… But starting with this version, you can use nested folders, so for instance, use Series Group folders, then within each series group folder have Series folders.
v8.3: A new look for slabbed comics, plus 3 new slab-related fields
Version 8.3 is here, a big update that is all about slabbed comics!
More and more CLZ Comics users are using the app to catalog slabbed comics (CGC, CBCS, PGX, etc..). So let’s take our slab support to the next level!
Here’s what’s new in CLZ Comics 8.3:
- A cool new look for your slabs in Card View and the comic details page.
- Three new slab-related fields: Label Type, Page Quality and Custom Label.
- Four new options for the Grade field: NG, PG, CVR and ART.
- A new setting “For raw comics, show Grade as letters”
Introduced in November 2021, the Update Key Info tool is one the biggest and most popular features of the CLZ Comics app. It automatically gives you crucial information about your collection, that is, which of your comics are major keys, which ones are minor keys. Of course, it also tells you why, for example: first appearances of characters, deaths, cameo appearances, first team appearances, origins, iconic cover art, etc…
However, since we introduced this feature, one of the most requested improvements has become:
“After updating my key info, I would like to see WHICH comics were updated and WHAT has changed.”
New in Update Values report screen:
- Now shows the “report date” at the top
- Tap an entry to visit the CovrPrice page for that comic!
- “no value” is now shown as a dash “-“, instead of $0
Version 8.1 of the CLZ Comics app is now live in the App Store and Play Store. Based on your feedback and questions, we have made 2 big improvements to the CovrPrice integration, that is, to the way values are displayed in your app:
- Improved value displaying for My Value entries
- CovrPrice value box now also visible when CP value is 0
Also, version 8.1 also FIXES the barcode scanning problem on iPhone 14 Pro!
IMPORTANT: IMPORTANT: for the displaying of the CovrPrice links, the app now downloads “CovrPrice IDs” for all entries. This means that after your first Update Values action with v8.1, it will modify almost ALL your entries, causing a HUGE amount of changes when Syncing to the CLZ Cloud the next time!
TIP: before Updating Values for the 1st time with this version, switch OFF Auto-Syncing, then Update Values, then Sync with CLZ Cloud MANUALLY. This is much more efficient than letting it auto-sync. When done, feel free to switch ON the AutoSync again.
This is it, the big Launch Day of the CovrPrice integration!
As of today, you can get comic values from CovrPrice inside your CLZ Comics mobile app!
Another week, another CLZ Comics update!
Still no version 8.0 yet though, as we are saving that major version number for the upcoming huge CovrPrice update.
Today’s update is version 7.11, introducing a configurable Update from Core tool.
Nope, we won’t stop improving this app 🙂 Here’s version 7.10 already, with one new feature and one improvement requested by you all:
- Relink Core Variant: easily link your local entry to a different variant in Core
- Improved Card View: now including Grade/Value and Collection Status
Another nice update for your CLZ Comics app, with 2 new features that were requested by you all:
- Filter your Series list by “Completed” status
- New Setting for Series Images: Earliest Issue or Latest Issue
Filter your Series list by “Completed” status
This has been a recurring request since we introduced the ability to mark series as “Completed”. So we made it happen.
Just tap the checklist icon at the top and choose “Show completed” to only show all series that have been marked as Completed.
Note that the Series Completed flag is a manual flag. You decide if a series is completed or not. You can either set that flag in the Edit Series screen (e.g. from Manage Pick Lists) or just select multiple series in the series list, then choose “Mark as Completed” from the Action button menu.
New Setting for Series Images: Earliest Issue or Latest Issue
In your series list, the app has always shown the cover image of the latest issue for that series that you own. But some users indicated that they would prefer it to use the first or earliest issue of the series, because in most cases that is a more recognizable issue.
So we made it into a setting!
Other changes:
Next to the features above, we also added 2 other things, 1 requested (or demanded) by Apple, and 1 requested by the CLZ support guys and gal 🙂
- Edit Series screen: modify the CLZ Series ID:
This is sometimes necessary when your series entry is linked to the wrong Core Series. In general: only do this when instructed by CLZ support staff. - New “Delete my CLZ Account” option under Settings (iOS only):
A new requirement by Apple, a way to to delete your account from the app itself. If you value your app, subscription and your cloud data, do NOT press this button!!! 🙂
Fixed for iOS:
- New in the Settings screen, as required by Apple: a “Delete my CLZ Account” button.
- Pull List: My Series now only works on your currently selected collection, instead of all collections
- Small fixes to the most valuable comics statistic
Fixed for Android:
- After tapping on a quick search series result, the keyboard wouldn’t automatically hide
- Small fixes to the most valuable comics statistic
Based on lots of feedback from members of the CLZ Comics group on Facebook, we decided to completely re-design and rewrite the Pull List feature. With this update, the Pull List tab in the Add Comics screen has been expanded into a fully flexible way to browse recent and upcoming comic releases.
Another big update for your CLZ Comics app, in which we introduce a new view for your comic collection. But there’s more:
- Main screen:
- New “Card View”
- Selecting comics now also possible in Card View and Images View
- Floating “Add Comics” button (the big blue “+”) now auto-hides
- Add Comics screen:
- List View is back!
- “Add Manually” is back!
For this update, the main goal was to make the cover images in the Add Comics screen bigger, to make it easier to find the issue or variant that you own.
However, while working on that, we ran into many other things that could be improved, so we figured why not? So in the end, it turned out be a serious overhaul of the Add Comics screen 🙂
Here’s an overview of all the improvements:
- Bigger cover images in the Issue List
- The Issue List for a series now opens in a separate page
- Preview Page now also shows a bigger cover image
- New look or series search results and series search “suggestions box”
- Close the Add Comics screen with “X” top left, no more “double back button” confusion
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 comics
- Editing multiple comics
- Removing multiple comics
- Updating from Core
- Updating key comic information
Fixed for Android:
- App could crash when tapping the Add button in the main screen
We’re on a roll! Today marks the release of CLZ Comics 7.3, with an easier and quicker way of marking Series as Completed.
We introduced the “Completed” toggle back in November 2021. It is used to indicate that a Series is “completed”. Until now, the toggle could only be set one series at a time, using the Edit Series screen.
Today, by popular request, we’re introducing a way to mark multiple Series as Completed in one go! Just select multiple series in the Series list, then choose “Mark as Completed” from the Action button menu.
One of the most popular features we added to the CLZ Comics app in the past few years is the Pre-fill screen. You know, the screen that pops up when adding new comics 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 Storage Box, Owner, Purchase Date/Store/Price, Quantity, Grade, Grading Company 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 7.2:
- User-configurable Pre-fill screen: choose your own fields
- Pre-fill: new for personal Date fields: Use “Today”
- Pre-fill: new for Purchase Price: Use “Cover Price” minus your discount percentage.
- The Pre-fill screen is now also used to set field defaults
The “Automatic key comic info” feature, introduced early November, has proven to be enormously popular… BUT it is also easily THE most controversial feature that we have ever introduced to any of our software titles!
Most users are loving the extra little trivia about their comics. But others are annoyed by too many comics being “key” for reasons that are not important enough in their opinion.
Soo… let’s see if we can improve this feature, so that we can remove most of the annoyance and make it useful for a larger part of our audience.
Today, we introduce the following improvements to the key comics feature:
- Distinction between Minor Keys (blue icon) and Major Keys (yellow icon).
- New “Key Category” field, automatically delivered from Core, e.g. “First appearance”, “Death”, “Cameo appearance”, “Iconic cover”, etc..
- New “Update Key Info” tool in menu, that is fully configurable (Minor/Major Keys, Allow Overwrite/Clear). No more need to use Update from Core.
- Key icons now also show in issue lists in Add Comics screen.
- New charts in Statistics screen, for Key Comics and Key Category.
A huge 7.0 update for your CLZ Comics apps is now available, with one big new feature (key comic info!), many new fields and several improvements to existing features. All in one go and all based on your feedback!
New today:
- NEW: Automatic key comic information from Core!
- Many new fields (Sold date/price, Series Completed, Slab Cert Nr, Bag/Board date)
- Improved List View entries, showing Key/Slabbed icons and Qty
- Improved Add Comics screen: Show/Hide Variants, enlarge thumbs, new beeps
- Improved “Missing Comics” screen (Show/Hide On Order and Unreleased)
- Use barcode scanner to search your own database
- Your Pull List now syncs between devices and software platforms
- New Collection Status icons and colors
IMPORTANT: For this v7 update, we have changed the database format (because of the new fields), so the first time you start version 7, the app will have to migrate your database to the new format. Depending on the speed of your device and the size of your database, this may take anywhere between 15 seconds and several minutes.
Our agreement with GoCollect has ended, so in this update we have removed all GoCollect-related features.
Which means no more automatic comic values when you add comics and no more daily updates for values.
We fully understand this is a shock and a disappointment for you all. Trust me, we are very disappointed too, maybe even more so than you are. In any case, we sincerely apologize for this sudden loss of functionality.
v6.8.2: Main screen lists now fully support system font sizes
New:
Main screen lists now fully support system font sizes, that is, the list rows now automatically become bigger/higher if you have set your device to a larger font size. (previously, some information would be cropped)
Read more
Now available in the Play Store, version 6.8 for CLZ Comics. In this update, we finally bring the Submit to Core feature to the mobile app, so that you can help improve the Core online comic 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!
v6.7: Duplicate / Clear Cloud / Shake to Shuffle / Web-links
It’s been a while since the last CLZ Comics 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 4 new features in one go!
- a new “Duplicate Comic” tool, for making a full copy an existing comic 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 comic
- a new Links tab in the Edit Comic screen, for adding web-links to your comic entries
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 6.6 update, we improved the look and layout of the issue list and of the comic 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.