What's new in CLZ Movies for Android?
v9.1 Add cover images for “unrecognized barcodes” / Update cover images from Core
Just over two months ago, we released a huge v9.0 upgrade for the CLZ Movies app. But today, we’re back already, with a v9.1 update with two improvements related to cover images, a nice new setting for further customizing your app and finally, an improvement to the barcode scanner.
- Add cover images for “Unrecognized Barcodes”
- Update from Core now also let you REPLACE cover images
- New “Hide Seen It” setting
- Faster barcode scanner
CLZ Movies 9 Feature Hilite: new format icons / tap actor name to find all his movies
This is the fourth and final CLZ Movies 9 Feature Hilite email. In this one, I will go over 2 of the smaller improvements of version 9: the added format icon for digital and streaming format and the new ability to tap on actor name in the movie details to instantly see all movies that actor appeared in.
BTW: if you missed the earlier three v9 feature hilite emails, you can still read them on the CLZ Club forum here:
CLZ Movies 9 Feature Hilite: better screens for reporting “unrecognized barcodes”
Here it is, the 3rd “CLZ Movies v9 feature hilite” email. Today’s email is about the improvement to the screens for dealing with “unrecognized barcodes”.
BTW: if you missed first two v9 feature hilite emails, you can still read them on the CLZ Club forum here:
Here’s my second “v9 feature hilite” email, about the next big feature of last week’s CLZ Movies v9 release.
(tip: if you missed feature hilite #1, you can read it here)
Today, we are going to discuss the new collections tab-bar.
CLZ Movies 9 Feature Hilite: Improved Adding Movies by Title
Last week, we released version 9.0 of the CLZ Movies mobile app, our biggest update ever! So big in fact, that you may not have checked out all the new features yet.
To help you get started with all the new stuff, I am going to do four “v9 feature hilite” emails, each one highlighting one of the four big features of this update.
This is Feature Hilite #1 and today, we’re gonna take a look at all the improvements to the Add Movies by Title feature.
Fixed:
- The app would crash on startup for some users
v9.0: Improved Add by Title screen, Collection tabs and much more!
It has been a while since we had the chance to sit down and work on the CLZ Movies app for a longer stretch. That is, doing improvements that are specific to movies and DVD/Blu-ray/4K releases. In fact, the project took much longer than anticipated, as new ideas for improvements kept popping while we worked on it. And we decided to just let that happen and create the best version of the app that we could think of right now.
Today, we can finally show you this huge v9.0 update for your CLZ Movies mobile app. Here’s what’s new:
- Improved Add Movies / Add by Title screen
- Collection tabs: easily switch between collections using tabs at the bottom
- New: tap an actor name in details to show all your movies with that actor
- Better screens for reporting “unrecognized barcodes” and adding those movies anyway
- When adding Box Sets, the app now automatically asks “Singly Entry or Multiple Entries?”
- Many new icons for digital and streaming formats
A huge update for your CLZ Movies mobile app is coming up, probably next week. Here’s a sneak preview of all the new features and improvements:
- Improved Add Movies screen: big cover images for 4K/Blu-ray/DVD releases
- Collection tabs: easily switch between collections using tabs at the bottom
- New: tap an actor name in details to show all your movies with that actor
- Better screens for reporting “unrecognized barcodes” and adding them anyway
- Many new icons for digital and streaming formats
What’s New:
- New “Delete CLZ Account” option in Settings
v8.5.4: 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
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
- 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
- When sorting by edition release date/year the app would use a wrong date/year
- Adding a box set via the Edit Screen could crash the app
A lot of the questions we get about CLZ Movies can usually be answered with:
“Just use Manage Pick Lists”
Renaming formats, Merging duplicate formats, fixing actor sort problems, fixing typos in locations, 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 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 movie (e.g. Purchase Price or Quantity), then forget to CLEAR it for the next movies they add. Causing lots of movies 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 sometimes.
New:
- Added in-app getting started tips for new users (tap “dismiss” to dismiss)
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-movie “Demo Mode” for new users
For new users who just downloaded the app, we introduced a new “Demo Mode” that lets you add 5 movies before committing to the actual 7-day free trial subscription.
Fixed on Android:
- Edit Comic: When you’ve edited something, and you tapped “Next”, it would skip an item.
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 8.1 update for the CLZ Movies mobile app:
As of today, it is finally possible to modify (or manually enter) the CAST and CREW lists of your movie entries! And of course, to sync your customized lists to and from the CLZ Cloud.
Coming up soon: the ability to add and edit the cast and crew lists, in both the CLZ Movies mobile app and the Movie Connect web-based software. And of course, the syncing of these custom lists between the desktop, web-based and mobile editions.
Fixed:
- Adding: the app could crash while adding a movie
Improved:
- Add Screen: Loading details panel of a result feels a bit faster now
Fixed:
- Shake to Shuffle could cause a crash in some cases
- Opening an item, swiping to the next, then edit “in-details-panel” would reset the details to the first item
- Backdrops could still show behind the list when switched off in Settings
- Add Screen: Scanning a barcode: When the device was rotated, the barcode scanner could stop working
- Multi-level folders: When using the “Show sort names” feature, the breadcrumb at the top could show strange sort names for certain folders
A huge update for your CLZ Movies mobile app today, which introduces a powerful feature for browsing and filtering your movie collection: using multiple levels of folders.
Previously, it was only possible to use one level, so either Format folders OR IMDb rating folders OR Seen it folders OR Location folders, etc… But starting with this version, you can use nested folders, so for instance, use IMDb Rating folders, then within each IMDb rating folder have Seen it folders.
New:
- Menu now shows last “IMDb ratings/votes update” date
- Menu now shows last “Sync with CLZ Cloud” date
- Improved messaging for subscription status
Fixed:
- After searching in your own collection by scanning a barcode, the result will now show instantly
- Add Movie: when scanning a barcode and then add manually, the barcode is now filled in
Most of you are probably diligently updating your IMDb Ratings and Votes on a regular basis. After all, if you are in any way interested in IMDb ratings, it is important to always keep those up-to-date.
However, after running the “Update IMDb Ratings/Votes” and getting the “254 movies updated” message, have you ever wondered
“WHICH movies have been updated and WHAT was the change?”.
Well, not anymore, because with today’s update we are answering that question!
Another big update for your CLZ Movies app, in which we introduce a new view for your movie collection. But there’s more:
- New “Card View”
- Selecting movies now also possible in Card View and Images View
- Floating “Add Movies” button (the big blue “+”) now auto-hides
Fixed:
- Picking a suggestion from the Quick Search would sometimes show the previous shown album
- Box Sets without covers wouldn’t show up in the details panel