What's new?

As you all know, we have seen no new comic releases in the past 2 months. Luckily, things are slowly starting up again. At Collectorz.com, we took this opportunity to focus on the older comics in our database, especially the 1970 to 2000 era, where barcode recognition by our Core was still “below par”.

And with today’s CLZ Comics update, you can start enjoying the fruits of our labor!

Better barcode search results for older comics (1970 to 2000 era)

• Over 35 thousand extra barcodes are now being recognized.
• Add By Barcode feature now correctly handles multiple comics with the same barcode (quite common in this era) and nicely just presents to you all comics that match your searched barcode, even when spread over multiple series.
• Improved barcode search engine.

In the screenshot below you can see a barcode that is used in 9 issues spread over 3 series. The Add Screen will now show you all possible results we have for that barcode:

Re-designed search results in Add Comics screen

While we were at it, we also re-designed the search result entries for both title and barcode searches:

• Clearer layout of all search result entries.
• Issue numbers are now listed in “badges” on the left, separate from series titles and now change color depending on Collection Status.

As you all know, we have seen no new comic releases in the past 2 months. Luckily, things are slowly starting up again. At Collectorz.com, we took this opportunity to focus on the older comics in our database, especially the 1970 to 2000 era, where barcode recognition by our Core was still “below par”.

And with today’s CLZ Comics update, you can start enjoying the fruits of our labor!

Better barcode search results for older comics (1970 to 2000 era)

• Over 35 thousand extra barcodes are now being recognized.
• Add By Barcode feature now correctly handles multiple comics with the same barcode (quite common in this era) and nicely just presents to you all comics that match your searched barcode, even when spread over multiple series.
• Improved barcode search engine.

In the screenshot below you can see a barcode that is used in 9 issues spread over 3 series. The Add Screen will now show you all possible results we have for that barcode:

Re-designed search results in Add Comics screen

While we were at it, we also re-designed the search result entries for both title and barcode searches:

• Clearer layout of all search result entries.
• Issue numbers are now listed in “badges” on the left, separate from series titles and now change color depending on Collection Status.

As you all know, we have seen no new comic releases in the past 2 months. Luckily, things are slowly starting up again. At Collectorz.com, we took this opportunity to focus on the older comics in our database, especially the 1970 to 2000 era, where barcode recognition by our Core was still “below par”. And as of today, you can start enjoying the fruits of our labor!

Better barcode search results for older comics (1970 to 2000 era)

• Over 35 thousand extra barcodes are now being recognized.
• Add By Barcode feature now correctly handles multiple comics with the same barcode (quite common in this era) and nicely just presents to you all comics that match your searched barcode, even when spread over multiple series.
• Improved barcode search engine.

In the screenshot below you can see a barcode that is used in 9 issues spread over 3 series. The Add Screen will now show you all possible results we have for that barcode:

Re-designed search results in Add Comics screen

While we were at it, we also re-designed the search result entries for both title and barcode searches:

• Clearer layout of all search result entries.
• Issue numbers are now listed in “badges” on the left, separate from series titles and now change color depending on Collection Status.

New in the Cover tab of your Edit screen: built-in Crop and Rotate tools for your cover images!

Super useful for fine-tuning images that you uploaded or found through the Find Online tool. You can even Crop/Rotate images that you received from Core, in which case they will be automatically turned into a custom image.

To use the new Crop/Rotate tools, open your Edit screen go to the Cover tab and click the “Crop/Rotate” icon on the top right above the Front or Back cover image:

Then:

• Click the Rotate icon to rotate the image 90 degrees to the right.
• Drag the blue crop rectangle to indicate your desired crop area.
• Click Apply to apply the changes.

Adding Creators and Characters as folder options has been on our ideas list for a long time, but it was never implemented because of performance problems.
After all, on large collections, the list of creators or characters can get HUGE.

But during the past few weeks, our mobile team has been working to improve the performance of the folder lists, including the recently introduced folder list search.

Soo… today we can finally introduce the new folder options.
(BTW: the performance improvements we made will also make your Series folders faster!)

New folder options for Creators and Characters

With this update, we introduced 22 (!) new folder options:

• Characters
• All Creators (group by all creators, regardless of their “role”)
• Plus: separate folder options for all 20 creator roles:
  like Artist, Colorist, Penciller, Cover Artist, Writer, etc…

IMPORTANT: for correct sorting of Creator folders, you need to use Update from Core on all your comics. Here’s how:

• Go to your All Comics list.
• Tap and hold on 1 comic to select it, then choose Select All on the top right.
• Now tap the menu icon on the bottom left, then choose Update from Core.

Redesigned Select Folder Field screen

Through the years, the number of available folder fields has grown enormously, making the Select Folder Field screen a bit “unwieldy”. And with todays addition of 22 more folder options, we *had to* come up with a better solution.

That is why version 5.5 also includes a re-designed Select Folder Field screen, with all folder options nicely grouped under sensible headers, and the most popular options (Series, Publisher, All Creators and Storage Box) instantly accessible at the top (see screenshot above).

Faster Update from Core

The Update from Core feature has become essential in this update, so that you can retrieve the correct sort names for your Creators from Core and get nicely sorted Creator folder list.

However, on large collections the old Update from Core feature was quite slow, as it updated your comics one by one, that is doing separate requests to our server for each and every comic.

So for this 5.5 update, we also complete rewrote the Update from Core feature to do the updates in batches of 100 comics at a time, making it much much faster!

Enjoy!

Adding Creators and Characters as folder options has been on our ideas list for a long time, but it was never implemented because of performance problems.
After all, on large collections, the list of creators or characters can get HUGE.

But during the past few weeks, our mobile team has been working to improve the performance of the folder lists, including the recently introduced folder list search.

Soo… today we can finally introduce the new folder options.
(BTW: the performance improvements we made will also make your Series folders faster!)

New folder options for Creators and Characters

With this update, we introduced 22 (!) new folder options:

• Characters
• All Creators (group by all creators, regardless of their “role”)
• Plus: separate folder options for all 20 creator roles:
  like Artist, Colorist, Penciller, Cover Artist, Writer, etc…

IMPORTANT: for correct sorting of Creator folders, you need to use Update from Core on all your comics. Here’s how:

• Go to your All Comics list.
• Tap and hold on 1 comic to select it, then choose Select All on the top right.
• Now tap the menu icon on the bottom right, then choose Update from Core.

Redesigned Select Folder Field screen

Through the years, the number of available folder fields has grown enormously, making the Select Folder Field screen a bit “unwieldy”. And with todays addition of 22 more folder options, we *had to* come up with a better solution.

That is why version 5.5 also includes a re-designed Select Folder Field screen, with all folder options nicely grouped under sensible headers, and the most popular options (Series, Publisher, All Creators and Storage Box) instantly accessible at the top (see screenshot above).

Faster Update from Core

The Update from Core feature has become essential in this update, so that you can retrieve the correct sort names for your Creators from Core and get nicely sorted Creator folder list.

However, on large collections the old Update from Core feature was quite slow, as it updated your comics one by one, that is doing separate requests to our server for each and every comic.

So for this 5.5 update, we also complete rewrote the Update from Core feature to do the updates in batches of 100 comics at a time, making it much much faster!

Enjoy!

Fixed:

• “List index out of bounds” error when viewing / modifying TPB entries

CLZ Core is our central online comic database, that is the database that you search by barcode or by Series in the Add Comics screen. In general, the comic information delivered by Core is quite complete and correct, but you may sometimes run into entries that are quite sparse (e.g. just series, issue number and publisher) or even entries with incorrect data.

As of today, *you* can help us improve that, using the new Submit to Core feature!
Just fill in the correct data in your own entry, then select the comic and choose Submit to Core from the toolbar above the comic details:

Which takes you to a form the core.collectorz.net site, where you can see our Core data on the left and your own data on the right. Now use the green arrow icons to use your data to correct and complete our data. Then finally, click the big green Submit Changes button on the bottom:

Thanks for your help!

New in Connect today: We have added several keyboard shortcuts to the most commonly used features:

For the Main screen:

• Navigate through your items with your arrow keys (works in List, Images, Shelves and Card View!)
• Use c + a or c then a for Add from Core
• Use c + m or c then m for Add Manually
• Use c + h or c then h for Add Hardware from Core (Game Connect)
• Use c + j or c then j for Add Hardware Manually (Game Connect)
• Use c + e or c then e for Edit Selected Item

For the Edit screen:

• Use cmd/ctrl + s to Save and close
• Use cmd/ctrl + j to Save and go to Previous item
• Use cmd/ctrl + k to Save and go to Next item

New:

• “Collection Status” field can now be used as a folder field
• “Storage Box” field has been added to the Add from Core Quick Fill pop up

Fixed:

• Update All Values from GoCollect did not work anymore (on large collections)
• Problems using the Add Comics screen Pull List tab
• Resources/Handles related error when Adding or Updating from Core
• Series “have/want” summaries erroneously included comics from ALL sub-collections

Fixed:

• The app could crash when editing certain fields defaults.

Fixed:

• Fixed several issues with AutoSync that could cause Access Violation errors

Fixed

• When a comic was edited, empty ‘value’, ‘purchase price’ and ‘cover price’ fields were set to 0.00.

Fixed:

• When downloading new entries from CLZ Cloud, previously cleared fields could get filled in.
• In the Add from Core screen, when adding acomic that is already in your app as ‘On Wish List’ or ‘On Order’, the app will now offer to change its status to ‘In Collection’.
• On devices with intermittent internet connection, app could revert to trial mode
• After down-syncing updated cover images, the list could still show old cover.
• Improved error messages in case of core search problems.

Faster CLZ Cloud syncing!

We have made several structural changes to the CLZ Cloud syncing, making it much much faster than before, especially when syncing large amounts of entries up to the CLZ Cloud or down from the CLZ Cloud.

To enjoy the faster syncing, you need to use the actual Sync with CLZ Cloud screen.
(The Auto-Syncing in the background is also slightly faster now, but if you need to sync many entries up or down, please use the Sync with CLZ Cloud screen.)

Fixed:

• Link to Core: changing the search criteria could crash the program
• Add screen: changed the “already in collection” font color in dark skin to be more readable
• Add screen: Now allows multiple barcode matches
• Main screen: The “Rating” column could not be moved to a different place
• Improved cover scaling for syncing

Fixed:

• The app could crash when editing certain fields.

Fixed:

• Downsync from CLZ Cloud, comics without series were not added.
• Downsync from CLZ Cloud: cleared fields could get filled in.
• Edit screen: Multi-value fields are now saved in the order they are picked.
• Add from Core did not display subscription related errors.
• Add from Core now suggests move to collection for WishList entries.
• When scanning barcodes, the beeping sound was broken.
• Field Defaults: ‘Storage Box’ was still called ‘Location’.

Previously, the “Add to …” button in the Add screen let you choose between “Add to Collection” or “Add to Wishlist”. But as of today, you can now choose from ALL possible Collection Status option directly. For instance, this lets you add an item as “On Order” straight from the Add screen!

Now, the possible choices are:

• In Collection
• For Sale
• Wish List
• On Order
• Not In Collection

A big update for Comic Connect again, in which we introduce many new settings for further customizing your software to your own liking.
And while we were at it, we updated the Settings screen with clearer grouping and naming of settings.

Here’s what’s new:

Date Format

Choose how date formats are displayed throughout Connect.

Timezone

Choose your own timezone and all Date Added and Date Modified fields will be displayed according to that timezone. (previously these all showed in UTC time)

BTW: also new today: new column options Date/Time Added and Date/Time Modified, for showing the full added and modified timestamps.

Sorting

Two new options that control the sorting by Series and how Series are displayed:

• When sorting, ignore sort names for Series and Signees: check this if you prefer to ignore all sort names when sorting and just have the software sort on the display name.
• When displaying, show sort names for Series and Signees: showing the actual sort names that it sorts on can make your list a bit “easier on the eye”.

Faster CLZ Cloud syncing!

We have made several structural changes to the CLZ Cloud syncing, making it much much faster than before, especially when syncing large amounts of entries up to the CLZ Cloud or down from the CLZ Cloud.

To enjoy the faster syncing, you need to use the actual Sync with CLZ Cloud screen.
(The Auto-Syncing in the background is also slightly faster now, but if you need to sync many entries up or down, please use the Sync with CLZ Cloud screen.)

Improved stability when using Auto-Syncing

At the same time, we have resolved several issues with the Auto-Syncing in the background, problems that could cause Access Violations in some situation. So this 20.2 version should provide a more stable experience too.

Fixed:

• Issues could end up in another series after syncing.
• Crash when syncing a removed comic without an issue title.

A very nice cosmetic update for your Connect software today: a new “Shelves View”!

Shelves View is a fourth view for your comic list, similar to Cover View, but with your cover images standing on a nice shelves background. You can even choose between 6 different shelf styles using the Shelf Style selector:

• Wood Light
• Wood Dark
• Glass
• Metal
• Carbon
• White

Also new, for both Shelves View and Images View, as “Size Slider” to control the size of the images.

Toolbar tweaks

Because of the introduction of the new view, the Shelf Style selector and the Size Slider, we have also made several changes to the various Connect toolbars:

• A new “View” toolbar right above the list, with 4 buttons for switching between the 4 views (List, Card, Cover and Shelves), the Size Slider and the Style Selector (for Shelves) and finally the Sort Order button (on the far right).
• The new “View” toolbar replaces the “Filter” toolbar that was in that spot.
• The “Filter” toolbar now only appears when a filter is actually active, and now has a pale yellow background to make it super-clear that you are looking at a filtered list.
• The number of comics indicator has been moved (back) to the center of the top toolbar.

Faster CLZ Cloud syncing!

We have made several structural changes to the CLZ Cloud syncing, making it much much faster than before, especially when syncing large amounts of entries up to the CLZ Cloud or down from the CLZ Cloud.

To enjoy the faster syncing, you need to use the actual Sync with CLZ Cloud screen.

(The Auto-Syncing in the background is also slightly faster now, but if you need to sync many entries up or down, please use the Sync with CLZ Cloud screen.)

New design for Sync with CLZ Cloud screen

While we were at it, we decided to do a quick make-over for the Sync screen, with a new look and layout and a direct link to your CLZ Cloud page online.

Fixed:

• Made the touch area for scrollbars a bit bigger (useful for quick scrolling)

Faster CLZ Cloud syncing!

We have made several structural changes to the CLZ Cloud syncing, making it much much faster than before, especially when syncing large amounts of entries up to the CLZ Cloud or down from the CLZ Cloud.

To enjoy the faster syncing, you need to use the actual Sync with CLZ Cloud screen.

(The Auto-Syncing in the background is also slightly faster now, but if you need to sync many entries up or down, please use the Sync with CLZ Cloud screen.)

New design for Sync with CLZ Cloud screen

While we were at it, we decided to do a quick make-over for the Sync screen, with a new look and layout and a direct link to your CLZ Cloud page online.

Another big update for your Comic Collector software for Windows. With this version 20.1, we’re introducing two improvements to the “Add Comics by barcode” feature.

Easily add and report comics with “unrecognized barcodes”

In general, our CLZ Core online comic database gives you excellent results on your barcode searches. However, it can always happen that you scan a comic’s barcode and it comes up as “unrecognized”, meaning that the barcode is not listed in our CLZ Core yet.

In today’s update, we have added a new “Unrecognized Barcode” screen, that serves two purposes. It lets you:

1. Easily add the comic to your database anyway
2. Report the barcode as missing, so that we can add it to our Core ASAP

Just fill in the following fields:

• Series
• Issue No and Variant
• Variant Description
• Cover Year and Month

and hit Add Issue at the bottom.

BTW: please make sure that you scanned the FULL barcode before reporting it as missing!

Let’s work together to get all comic barcodes added to the CLZ Core!

Barcode search now supports multiple results

For older comics (1970 to 1990 era), publishers sometimes re-used barcodes on different issues in the same series. The Comic Collector software has never supported that situation well, it would just returned ONE of those issue.

However, with more and more barcodes for older comics now being added, we have updated the barcode search engine to fully support this situation. When searching for a barcode that was used for multiple issues, the program will now give you all matching results, for you to choose from.