What's new in Movie Connect? (page 5)
Whilst we make daily backups for you on our own servers, you can now create your own backup of your Connect database and download it to your computer!
If you ever make a big mistake and lose valuable data, you can upload a previously downloaded backup file and restore it to your current database.
Import any Text or .CSV file into your collection
You can now import any text file (.txt) or comma separated value file (.csv) into your collection on Connect using the new import page in your Connect account.
With this new import tool you are able to quickly import a list of movies from for instance an existing collection you may have in a spreadsheet or different software. All you have to do is export those movies from your other software to a text or CSV file and follow the steps on the new Import page in your Connect account.
If you are adding most of your movies “By Title”, then this will be a huge time-saver.
Here’s how the new “Search-As-You-Type” feature works:
- In the Add Movies Automatically screen, just start typing the first letters of the title you want to add.
- While typing, a drop-down list will appear, showing the five most popular titles that match, including the release year and a small thumbnail image.
- For recent / popular movies, it usually takes only 2 or 3 letters before it shows up. For older or less popular movies, type a few more letters.
- Once you see your movie appear, use the arrow keys to select it, then hit Enter.
- Then under Search Results, that exact movie will be listed, automatically Previewed on the right.
- Click the Add Selected button to add it to your database.
Searching your movie collection in Movie Connect or the CLZ Cloud viewer is now much faster.
However, to achieve this performance improvement, we have had to limit the searching to:
- Title
- Barcode
- Year
Previously the search feature also searched cast and crew names, but this turned out to cause server performance problems when searching large databases. That is, with the search engine we are now using.
We are currently working on the implementation of a different, much faster search engine, which may enable cast/crew searching again in the future.
Do you already have a list of your movies, books, cds, comics or games? E.g. entered in a spread-sheet program, or created using a different cataloging tool, then exported to CSV?
Cool, you can now easily get that list into your Collectorz.com program (desktop, mobile or Connect). Just use our new flexible import tool to import your existing list into the CLZ Cloud. This will make your list instantly available in Connect. Or sync to the mobile app or desktop software using the CLZ Cloud syncing.
As most of you know, at Collectorz.com we take Customer Support very seriously. We’re always here to answer your questions or to help with any problems you may have encountered with our cataloging tools.
To further streamline CLZ Support, Sven, one of our web-developers, has created a new Collectorz.com Help Center, at Help.CLZ.com
Big launch this week, our new Collectorz.com Shop is live at Shop.CLZ.com !
Bernard, Sven, AJ and I (Alwin) have been working on this for quite a while, doing many iterations, to make the new shop super-clear and easy to navigate, even on mobile devices.
This new shop replaces both the shop/buy pages of the collectorz.com website and the shop of the My.CLZ.com website. Both websites now link to the new Shop.CLZ.com.
“Export to Text”, a feature previously only available to Connect subscribers, has now also been added to the CLZ Cloud viewer.
We figured that exporting to a text file, e.g. a CSV for Excel, should be available to any user, whether they own Connect, the desktop software or a CLZ mobile app.
You can find the Export to Text feature by visiting your own collection in the CLZ Cloud viewer, clicking the little “wrench” icon top right, then selecting Export.
Enjoy!
We have completely rewritten our Core for Movie search engine, that is, the online code that gives you results when you search our Core by Title in your Add screen.
The new search engines will provide better search results that are more “to-the-point” and less “fuzzy”. Also, results will be returned much faster.
Previously, the Connect free 30-day trial limited trial users to 100 items in their database.
To allow full evaluation of our Connect software during the trial, we have removed this database limit. The free 30-day trial now lets you add, import or sync as many items as you want.
Enjoy!
For better security, we have now moved both the Cloud and Connect websites to the HTTPS protocol, using so-called Extended Validation SSL certificates.
This SSL connection is indicated by the nice “green bar” in your address bar:
In the past 2 weeks, we have moved all 5 online media databases (movies, books, music, comics and games) to 5 new separate database servers.
This week, CLZ web developers Sven and Dion have further optimized these new servers to give you even better performance from Core, especially for title searches that have many results.
The fruits of their labour are now immediately noticeable in the ADD screens of your Connect software. Enjoy!
Today, we have completed the big project of moving our 5 Core and Cloud databases to a new server solution. Previously, everything was running on two high performance dedicated machines: one for all databases and websites, the second for all cover images.
For better performance, stability and scalability, we are now splitting up all services into multiple separate cloud-based solutions:
- 5 separate database servers for all 5 Core+Cloud databases
Status: completed today! - 5 separate storage servers / delivery networks for all cover images.
Status: preparing the switch now. ETA: several weeks. - 1 new fast web server for the Cloud, Core and Connect sites and services.
ETA: within 2 months.
A few weeks ago, we introduced the ability to assign multiple formats to a movie, for example, Blu-ray AND DVD. However, the user interface for doing so was a bit clunky (and annoying, to be honest).
So fixed that. Here’s our new super-fast UI, just check checkboxes to select the formats:
Enjoy!
This week, we updated both our CLZ Cloud storage for movies and the Movie Connect software with 6 extra data fields, multi-format support, plus the ability to track your “Seen It” status per episodes (for TV Series).
Multiple new field options have been added for the folder panel (for both Connect and the free CLZ Cloud viewers). My favorite new folder option: The Year folder for movies:
The home / hub page of your CLZ Cloud or Connect account now loads a lot faster.
(the 5 separate collection lists are now “lazy-loaded”)
A few weeks ago, we introduced the new Sort Order screen. Today we’re taking the next step: allowing multi-field sorting.
For example, you can now sort your list first by Year, then within the years, by Title.
Just drag multiple fields from the Available panel to the Selected panel, one by one:
New in all five Connect editions: Export your list to a text file, e.g. to CSV format, for importing into spreadsheet programs like Excel, Numbers, etc…
You can either:
- Export your entire database, by choosing Export from the Tools menu.
- Export only a selection. To do this, go to Select Mode, select some items, then click the Export button at the top.
Just over a week ago, we introduced a new design for the Columns screen. Today, we moved the new design over to the Sort Order screen, so that both have a consistent user interface.
Just drag your desired Sort Field to the right, then select Ascending or Descending using the toggle buttons below the field.
Next up: multi-field sorting!
Today, more sort field options have been added to the Sort Order screen of all five Connect and Cloud Viewer editions.
This basically means that from now on, ALL available cloud fields can also be sorted on.
The first version of Connect had a nice A to Z “alphabet bar” at the top, for quickly filtering your list to show only the items starting with a specific letter.
However, in the Two-Point-Oh redesign the wise wizards at the CLZ HQ the alphabet bar was reduced to just a tiny button, with a drop down panel showing all letters. Which of course saves space on the toolbar, in an attempt to make it all fit on smaller tablet and phone screens.
Not a bad idea in itself, but the first letter filtering lost its’ easy of use and accessibility.
So we changed our minds and today we brought back the Alphabet Bar!
It is now available on both the free CLZ Cloud viewers and the Connect software. But: only on bigger screens where it actually fits. On smaller screens, the Alphabet Bar nicely reduces to the tiny button again 🙂
New today, in all Connect apps AND Cloud viewers: a new Column Selection screen for the List View.
This new Columns screen lets you:
- Easily select your preferred columns by dragging fields from the Available Columns area to the Selected Columns area.
- Drag and drop to re-order columns within the Selected area.
Several small fixes today:
- Editing multiple items with really many items selected (say over 1,000) didn’t work.
Now it does. But still, editing many items in one go may be slow. - On large desktop screen, with the browser window set full screen, the infinite scrolling system didn’t work.
It immediately stopped loading after the first set of items was shown. Happened only in Images and Card Views though, in List View all was well. Fixed now. - When changing the sorting by clicking a column header, the sort direction of the previous sort column was used. Now it correctly resets to ascending sorting when changing to a different sort field.
Until recently, the public Cloud Viewer always followed the Sort Order and Columns selection set by the owner of the specific cloud collection you were viewing.
But as of today, the Cloud Viewer also features the Sort Order and Columns buttons:
Now, everyone who views your collection in the cloud is able to select his own Sort Order and Columns. Of course these settings are saved only for them (in a local cookie on their device), so their choices will not affect your own settings.