What's new in Game Connect? (page 3)
A nice time-saving feature was added to your Game Connect software today:
Next / Previous buttons in the Edit Game screen
These buttons let you go through your game list to make changes, while staying in the Edit Game screen. Just use the Next or Previous button on the bottom left.
While doing so, the screen will keep you on the same tab and same field, making it super-easy to make changes to same field(s) for multiple games.
Do you like to customize your software to suit your needs or just your personal taste? Then we have big news for you today, as we have just introduced four “Skin” choices in your Game Connect software:
- Default (the standard look, as it was before, so dark toolbars, light content)
- Dark (dark toolbars, dark content)
- Light (light toolbars, light content)
- Blue (shades of blue, with yellow highlights)
On top of that, we have given you 3 template style choices for the Game Details area: Dark, Light and Blue. Either to match your Skin choice, or to mix to up, it’s up to you.
Both the Skin and Template selectors can be found in the Settings screen, under Customization.
Screen shots:
Default Skin:
Dark Skin:
Light Skin:
Blue Skin:
A new grouping option is now available in your Connect!
Click the folder icon top left and select Release / Publication Year to see all your items neatly grouped in a year folder. Click on a year to see all items that were released/published in that year!
This week, we added several new settings and improvements, all based on your feedback:
New setting for the List View: Wrap column content
This new “Wrap column content” setting can be found in the Settings screen. It lets you choose if text in the List View columns should wrap to multiple lines or not.
The default is YES / Checked. Uncheck this setting to keep your List View row as single rows, resulting in a cleaner list and more rows in view.
New Date Format setting
Also found in the Settings screen, this new selector lets you choose how dates are displayed, anywhere in the program where date are shown.
Choose from:
- 7 January 2018
- 07 Jan 2018
- 7 Jan 2018
- January 07, 2018
- January 7, 2018
- Jan 07, 2018
- Jan 7, 2018
- 07/01/2018
- 7/1/2018
- 07/01/18
- 7/1/18
- 01/07/2018
- 1/7/2018
- 01/07/18
- 1/7/18
- 2018-01-07
Core IDs can now be added as columns in the List View
Now available in the Column Selection screen for the List View: The Core ID fields.
E.g. for movies, add the Core Movie ID and Core Media ID fields to your lists, to quickly find movies that are not linked to our Core entry yet.
Previously, setting up for the usage of the CLZ Barry as a barcode scanner required going to your Connect Profile page and back. Not anymore.
You can now get started with CLZ Barry straight from the By Barcode/ISBN tab of your Add screen. Just click the blue text “Set your Barry ID” on the far right of the barcode box and all the setting up can be done right then and there:
Sharper images in Cover View and Card View
This week, we have implemented several changes to the cover images that are shown in Cover View and Card View, making them much sharper/crisper, less blurry.
Also, on computers with a 4k / Ultra HD screen, both the Cover View and the Card will automatically switch to even higher quality images, with twice the resolution!
The difference is huge, check out the screen shots below. But the best way to experience the sharper images is to log in to your own account and look at your own collection!
Other improvements to Cover and Card View
At the same time, we made other improvements to the Cover and Card views, to make them look nicer and to make the scrolling experience smoother and faster:
- While scrolling, the images now load faster.
- Scrolling the view while images are loading is now smoother, less “choppy”.
- The Images view now has black background for a more classy look.
- In both Images and Card View, while scrolling, it does not first load a placeholder image anymore, it just show the background color until the actual image is loaded, also resulting in a less choppy scrolling experience.
It is important to have your game entries linked to the corresponding entries in our Core online game database, because that is what gives you all automatic game details, like developer, publisher, description, cover art, backdrop art, trailer videos, etc..
All game entries you add through the Add Games screen, by searching our Core, will of course automatically be linked to Core.
However, if you imported a list of games, e.g. from a CSV file or from a competitor product, some/most of your entries may arrive “unlinked”, especially if you did not import barcodes.
Previously, linking those unlinked entries to Core was a one-by-one job, slow and cumbersome. But we fixed that once and for all, with the new smart Link Games tool!
This new Link Games tool automatically finds best matches in our Core online game database, based on title and platform in your list. Then, it lets you auto-link all “high match score” games, saving you loads and loads of time and clicks!
Two updates for the Game Connect software and the CLZ Cloud viewer today. One a big step forward in usability, the other a nice cosmetic improvement:
Game Details now integrated in main screen
Up till now, when you clicked a game entry to see its’ full details, you were taken to the game details page, that is, a new page in your browser. One had to click “Back” to get back to the game list again. Often resulting in an annoying back and forth clicking, each time causing you to lose your position in the list.
But not anymore! Starting with today’s update, the game details are now integrated in a panel within the main collection view:
No more back and forth clicking. Just click a game entry to see its’ details, click another one to see that game’s details. Nice and easy, never lose your spot again.
Choose from two Layouts:
- Horizontal Split: folders on the left, list on the top right, details on bottom right
- Vertical Split: 3 panels side by side, folder, list and details
In either layout, the 3 panels are fully resizable by dragging the black “splitter bars” between the panels, so that you can customize the layout to your own liking.
The game details panel comes with its’ own “action bar”, with the main actions you may want to take on the selected game (Edit, Share, Delete, Duplicate, Loan and Link with Core).
Improved Cover View and Card View
At the same time, we made some small tweaks to both the Card View and Cover View, so that they’re making better use of your specific screen width. Both now use a “fully justified” layout, with the Cards auto-resizing to fit your screen width and the Covers distributing over the width, both resulting in a cleaner, less “jagged” view.
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 Game Connect software today, in which we makes it easier to select games and easier to perform batch actions on the selected games.
Select using checkboxes
To select games, just click the checkboxes on the left of each game 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 game, 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 games. Also:
- Use the “Select all” checkbox to select all games 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 games
You can now loan games in Game Connect: just find and select a game (or select multiple with the Select tool), and click the “Loan” button at the top!
Loan Manager
Click the menu top left, and then Loan Manager to access the new Loan Manager where you can see all your loaned out items, and directly return them. Alternatively you can also use CLZ Barry to scan a barcode of a game, find it in your outstanding loans, and return it.
In the Loan Manager, you can click on a loaned item to modify the loan date, due date, return date, loaner and notes about the loan.
Print current loans to PDF
You can print out all your current loans to a PDF file by clicking the Print to PDF button in the Loan Manager screen.
Alternatively, you can select a loaner from the dropdown menu there, and only print out his/her current loans to a PDF file!
New:
- Loan games by selecting a couple in your list, or by viewing the details of a game, and then click “Loan” at the top.
- Return games straight from the loan manager or by scanning their barcodes with CLZ Barry.
- Check outstanding loans and loan history in the Loan Manager.
- Edit outstanding or returned loans by clicking on them.
- Print out current loans to a PDF file
Coming up:
We will be adding the syncing of loan information to Game Collector for Windows and macOS, and CLZ Games for iOS and Android.
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”.
A small user interface tweak today:
The Add Games screen is now a pop-up screen that lays over your game list.
(previously it was a separate full screen page)
Looks cooler, feels more “snappy” and while adding games, you can actually see the new additions appear in your game list in the background!
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!
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 Game 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:
We’ve just updated Game Connect to introduce an easy way to deal with “Unrecognized barcodes”.
A new screen that not only helps you to add the game to your database anyway, but also helps your fellow Game Connect users by instantly adding the missing barcode to the CLZ Core central online game database.
(this feature was introduced for our Windows, iOS and Android versions earlier, and in the meantime, people have used this new tool to add over 49 thousand new game barcodes to our Core!)
- In the Add Games screen, when a scanned or typed barcode is not recognized, a new “Unrecognized barcode” screen will appear.
- In this screen, find the game by searching for its title (and find a cover if you want) then click Add to Collection.
- This will:
- Add the game to your own database, with the information you picked.
- Add the game to our Core central online game database.
The result: for the next user who searches for this particular barcode, it will be recognized 🙂
Up until today, the quick search box in Game Connect (and the CLZ Cloud viewer for games) only searched in the Title, Platform, Barcode 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 the Series, Notes and Description fields. The complete lists of fields that are now searched:
- Title
- Platform
- Barcode
- Tags
- Series
- Notes
- Description
Example: searching for “tennis” not only give you games with “tennis” in the title, but also games where the word “tennis” appears in the description:
Live today in your Game Connect software: a completely re-designed Edit Game screen with an improved look, layout and usability!
New look and layout
We’ve moved some fields around and to have them grouped and placed more logically. You’ll notice that we’ve also updated the look of certain buttons so it’s all easier on the eye, and there’s only one big blue important “OK” button to save your changes.
Updated dropdown and pick list fields
The pick list fields have been updated so they’ll only show options from your own collection instead of all available options in our online database. This makes it a lot faster to quickly pick something from a pick list that you used before!
You can just start typing to filter to the pick list entry you want to use, or open up the dropdown to scroll and pick.
Multi value pick list fields such as the Genre field, have a blue plus button to pick a genre from your genre list. Click it, and either start typing or just pick a genre from the list.
New Pick List fields
We’ve updated the following fields from plain text fields to “pick list” fields. This means that those fields now have a dropdown which you can click to quickly pick an existing pick list entry for that field.
The following fields haven been updated from plain text to pick list fields:
- Location
- Condition
- Purchase Store
- Storage Device
- Owner
These field now all have a dropdown to pick an entry. You can also type into them to search or create a new entry for that field.
Panel with personal fields on all tabs
At the bottom of the edit screen we added a “sticky” panel that you can see on all edit tabs. This panel contains some of your most important personal fields so you can always edit them quickly.
New Find Cover pop-up
The Find Cover pop-up has been updated to the latest version we introduced in the Add Screen. Check it out:
We have just updated both the Connect web-application and the free CLZ Cloud viewers to make them a lot faster.
- The folder panel now uses “lazy-loading” which makes it load (a lot) faster.
- When selecting a folder, only the list panel is re-loaded, where previously the entire page was refreshed.
The above changes will make browsing your CLZ Cloud or Connect app a lot snappier and will prevent server performance problems (two birds with one stone!).
The performance improvements are especially noticeable for large book, music and comic collections, as these generally have loooonnnngggg lists of author, artist and series folders.
Now live in your Game Connect software, a complete re-design of the Add Games screen, with a new look, easier interface and new features.
Adding Games by Barcode
Scanned barcodes will be automatically added to your queue, with the game information populating instantly. Use the big blue Add to Collection button at the bottom right to add the selected game to your database, OR use the little blue “+” buttons to add straight from the queue.
Adding Books by Title and Platform
Search by title to see a list of matching game results. Optionally, filter the results by Platform.
Not the right cover image? Use the built-in Find Cover tool to pick the correct one.
In this “between Christmas and New Year” week, a huge update to the look and feel of our Connect web-based software.
- We removed the tabs at the top that let you switch between the programs, to give you more screen space for the software you are in. (you can still switch using the app-switcher button top right).
- Dark toolbars with white text and buttons everywhere, while keeping your list and details pages light and clear.
- All tools and feature are now accessible from the “hamburger” menu on the top left.
- Your account settings and log out options in a “user menu” on the right.
- TIP: the new look is also available in your free CLZ Cloud viewer!
Now live, a new design and layout for the game detail page in both Game Connect and the free CLZ Cloud viewer.
Some highlights of the new look:
- bigger cover image
- new and bigger platform logos and icons
- more logical layout and placement of all fields
Screen shot:
All Connect apps: Manage Pick Lists, edit, merge and remove pick list entries.
A Manage Pick Lists screen is now available in Connect!
Finally, you can easily manage your pick lists for Artists, Authors, Series, Genres, Formats, etc… To edit your sort names, merge duplicate entries or remove entries.
The new Manage Pick Lists screen can be found in the Tools menu top right (the wrench icon).
New:
- New fields you can now sort your games on:
- Edition
- Format
- Region
- Series
- New fields you can now folder group your games on:
- Region
- Series