What's new?
A small update for your CLZ Games app today, in which we rectify a big mistake we make in version 9.0 (two mistakes in fact). Also, we improved the camera barcode scanner and introduced a new setting for customizing your app.
Summary of today’s changes:
- Game values are back in the Add Games screen
- Check Values screen now accessible for “grandfathered” users too
- Faster camera barcode scanner for adding games by barcode
- New setting in Settings screen “Show Completed”
A big update for your Game Connect web-based software today, which is all about pick list fields.
Pick list fields (and the pick lists behind them) are an important part of your game database. These are the fields in the Edit screen that let you pick from a list of possible values, with that list being fully configurable by you the user.
Examples of pick list fields are Location, Owner, Genres and Tags (both multi value pick list fields), but also Platform, Developer and Publisher.
Now, a lot of the questions we usually get about Game Connect are related to pick list fields and can usually be answered with:
“Just use the Manage Pick Lists screen”
Renaming Locations, Merging duplicate Genres, fixing series sort problems, fixing typos in Platform names, etc… it is all done in the Manage Pick Lists (MPL) screen. An important and powerful screen, but… not so easy to find if you don’t know where to look or don’t even know what to look for.
With today’s Connect update, we are making this a lot easier: We have improved the Manage Pick Lists screen itself AND made it more accessible / discoverable:
In short:
- Improved Manage Pick Lists (MPL) screen
- Easy access to the MPL screen right from the folder panel
- Refreshed Edit Comic screen, with better pick list fields and direct MPL access
This build fixes a couple of crashes that have been reported through our systems.
New:
- Check Value screen will now highlight titles/barcodes to show if you already have them in your collection (blue = in collection)
- Added 3 new platform icons: MSX, MSX 2 and Atomiswave
Fixed for iOS:
- Search as you Type was not working in the “Check Value” screen (by Title)
- A crash could occur on devices running iOS12
- Update from Core now leaves the value alone (use Update Values to get new values)
Fixed for Android:
- Sync with CLZ Cloud: A crash could occur during downsyncing
- Updating Game Values: A crash would occur on loading the “Updated Values” report
- Unrecognized Barcode: An error would show if no images were found for the barcode
CLZ Games 9 Feature Hilite: Update from Core now lets you replace images
It’s Friday, so this is my fifth and final “CLZ Games 9 Feature Hilite” email.
All five v9 Feature Hilites are now available on our CLZ Blog here, including lots of screenshots:
- Hilite #1: Improved adding games by title
- Hilite #2: The new collections tab-bar
- Hilite #3: The new Check Value screen
- Hilite #4: Dealing with “unrecognized barcodes”
- Hilite #5: Update from Core now lets you replace images
This is “CLZ Games 9 Feature Hilite” number FOUR, all about dealing with barcodes that are not found in CLZ Core.
But first, if you missed an earlier feature hilite, you can still read them on our CLZ Blog here:
- Hilite #1: Improved adding games by title
- Hilite #2: The new collections tab-bar
- Hilite #3: The new Check Value screen
It’s me again, CLZ Alwin, with this week’s third “clz games feature hilite” email. If you missed the first two, you can still read them here:
- Hilite #1: Improved adding games by title
- Hilite #2: The new collections tab-bar
Today’s feature hilite is about the brand-new “Check Value screen!
Here’s my second “v9 feature hilite” email, about the next big feature of last week’s CLZ Games v9 release.
(tip: if you missed yesterday’s feature hilite #1, you can read it here).
Today, we are going to discuss the new collections tab-bar.
Last week’s CLZ Games 9.0 update was HUGE one, with 5 big new improvements. To make sure you did not miss any of the new stuff, I am going to do five “v9 feature hilite” emails this week, each one highlighting one of the big improvements.
Today’s “v9 feature hilite” is about all the improvement to the Add Games screen, in particular the Add by Title part.
v9.0: Improved Add by Title screen, Collection tabs, Check Value screen and more!
Version 9 is here, a huge update for your CLZ Games app. In fact, it may even be the biggest update we ever did for CLZ Games, with many new features and several big improvements.
On top of that, our content team has been working for months to check and correct game cover images, to make sure the cover image exactly matches the barcode (regular editions vs collector’s editions, US vs EU vs JP vs AU covers, etc…).
- Improved Adding Games by Title: big cover images for the various game editions (regional, collector’s editions, etc..), filter releases by Region (US, EU, JP, AU, etc.. )
- New collections tab-bar: switch between collections using tabs at the bottom
- New Check Value screen: quickly look up the value of a game, by scanning its barcode or searching by title (requires subscription!)
- Improved Update from Core: now lets you replace cover images with better ones from Core
- Better screens for dealing with “unrecognized barcodes”
- More platforms icons: more platforms now come with their own icons
An enormous update for the CLZ Games app is coming up within a few weeks, with the following new features and improvements:
- Improved Adding Games by Title: big cover images for the various game editions (regional, collector’s editions, etc..), filter releases by Region (US, EU, JP, AU, etc.. )
- New collections tab-bar: switch between collections using tabs at the bottom
- New Check Value screen: quickly look up the value of a game, by scanning its barcode or searching by title (requires subscription!)
- Better screens for reporting “unrecognized barcodes”
- More platforms icons: more platforms now come with their own icons
Thanks to our translator Peter Stickler, the Connect web-based software is now available in Swedish!
If you are interested in translating Connect to your language, let us know!
The main translations we are looking for at the moment are:
- Norwegian
- Italian
Thanks to our translator Frank Silas Kesia Jensen, the Connect web-based software is now available in Danish!
If you are interested in translating Connect to your language, let us know!
The main translations we are looking for at the moment are:
- Norwegian
- Swedish
- Italian
Thanks to our translators Fernando Carvalho, Milan Sobat and Brano Mazari, the Connect web-based software is now available in 3 extra languages: Portuguese, Serbian and Slovak!
Thanks guys!
If you are interested in translating Connect to your language, let us know!
The main translations we are looking for at the moment are:
- Danish
- Norwegian
- Swedish
- Italian
What’s New:
- New “Delete CLZ Account” option in Settings
v8.4.4: Added a new “Remove all unused pick list entries” option
What’s new:
- Added a new “Remove all unused pick list entries” option in the maintenance menu, to remove all unused pick list entries in one go
Here’s the latest results from our endeavour to improve the UI/UX of all Connect features and screens. Today, we made further improvements to both the “Manage Collections” tools and the new Edit Multiple tool.
Changed:
- For new users: no more Demo Mode
Fixed on iOS:
- Edit screen: Picking something from a pick list: The search could mess up your choice
- The sync button could show on details view
A build full of fixes for bugs reported by you. Thanks to everyone who reported these bugs!
Fixed:
- Unreliable search results after editing or merging pick list items
- Edit Multiple: Some fields were turning orange once typed in
- Merge mode in pick lists would not remember selection when using the search in the list
- Typing a comma in price/value fields wasn’t always working
- Editing a pick list item could give a wrong “Already in List” error
- Multi-level folders: when filtering inside a folder the search text would clear after typing a space
- Multi-level folders: When you searched an item and picked one from the suggestions dropdown, it would bring you inside the folder, instead of directly to the item.
- Editing an item could send you to a different folder than you were in
- Pre-fill screen: Completeness toggle didn’t set manual/box checkboxes correctly
A build full of fixes for bugs reported by you. Thanks to everyone who reported these bugs!
Fixed:
- Unreliable search results after editing or merging pick list items
- Now remembers scroll position better when hitting “back” from an item
- Adding a new pick list item with an apostrophe, would wrongly trigger an “Already exists” warning
- Edit screen: Picking a pick list item after tapping next/previous could crash the app
- Edit screen: For some fields the selected pick list item would be added twice
- Add by Platform: checkboxes are now unchecked after adding the games
- Values weren’t always showing in the Add Games screen
The Edit Multiple feature is an efficient tool for making changes to multiple (or all) of your database entries in one go. It has been part of the Connect web-based software for many years (since May 2015!). For the CLZ mobile apps, this “batch editing” ability was introduced much later, in July 2020.
However, when we did that, we were forced to completely re-design the feature’s user interface, to make it work well on the small phone screen. And a strange thing happened: the UI/UX we ended up with, turned out be much better than the original Edit Multiple design of the Connect web-based software and the Collector desktop software 🙂
So today, we are bringing that new Edit Multiple setup to the Connect web-based software!
This update is all about the Pre-fill screen, you know, the screen that appears when adding items and lets you pre-fill fields while adding, like Location (= Storage Box for comics), Owner, Purchase Date/Store/Price, etc…
This Pre-fill screen was introduced in Dec 2020, with a fixed set of fields. Then a year later, in March 2022, it was made completely user configurable, so that *you* could choose which fields appeared on the screen.
This screen turned out to be a popular tool, but we’ve seen one problem with it:
Sometimes, users pre-fill a field for a specific movie (e.g. Purchase Price or Quantity), then forget to CLEAR it for the next items they add. Causing lots of items to be added with that same field set incorrectly.
So today, we are making another tweak to the Pre-fill screen:
A lot of the questions we get about CLZ Games can usually be answered with:
“Just use Manage Pick Lists”
Renaming Locations, Merging duplicate genres, fixing platform sort problems, fixing typos in formats, etc… it is all done in the Manage Pick Lists screen. An important and powerful screen, but… not so easy to find if you don’t know where to look or don’t even know what to look for.
With this update, we are trying to fix all that. We have made the screen much more accessible / discoverable AND we have made several improvements to the MPL screen itself.
This update is all about the Pre-fill screen, you know, the screen that appears when adding items and lets you pre-fill fields while adding, like Completeness, Location, Owner, Purchase Date/Store/Price, etc…
This Pre-fill screen was introduced in Jan 2021, with a fixed set of fields. Then a year later, in Jan 2022, it was made completely user configurable, so that *you* could choose which fields appeared on the screen.
This screen turned out to be a popular tool, but we’ve seen one problem with it:
Sometimes, users pre-fill a field for a specific game (e.g. Purchase Price or Quantity), then forget to CLEAR it for the next games they add. Causing lots of games to be added with that same field set incorrectly.
So today, we are making another tweak to the Pre-fill screen:
- The Pre-fill screen now highlights filled fields in orange, so that they stand out more.
- Also, we added a “Clear” button, to quickly clear all Pre-fill fields.
Fixed
- iOS: iPad: Year folders: the wrong year folder could be selected.
- Android: Values weren’t downloaded for games sometimes.
The Link with Core screen is a tool in the CLZ Cloud site and the Connect web-based software that is used to link entries with CLZ Core. E.g. items that you added manually, or items that you imported. The Link with Core tool is mostly used by users coming from other software and are switching to CLZ.
Today’s update is a “behind the scenes” update, to make the Link screen faster and to improve search results.
Improved
- The search now uses our elastic search engine, giving you better and more meaningful results for your unlinked items.
- Better uses of indexes and the elastic engine makes everything much faster too!
On top of that, we’ve improved the search results in the Link with Core screens for some Connect flavours specifically:
- Comic: Now takes series popularity into account.
- Movie: Now now also digs into our vast library of “alternative” and foreign titles for movies to obtain a result that matches your movie.
- Music: Now also uses Discogs for finding results.
What is Linking with Core?
Connect is built around our central online database: Core. All factual data and cover images are used and shown directly from Core. If you have been using the Add screen to catalog your items, then most, if not all of your items will already be linked to Core.
If you’ve added some items “manually” or if you’ve imported a list from CSV (or from somewhere else), there will not be a lot of data in them.
To automagically fill in data for your items, the items need to be linked with Core. If you have unlinked items, you can link them to Core using the Link with Core screen which is found in the menu top left!