What's new?

If you’re a new user or thinking of moving your collection from the program CATVids to Movie Connect, good news: we’ve just added a new CATVids import tool in Movie Connect!

You can find the CATVids import tool under the menu top left, then choose “Import Data”.

Import from CATVids:

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!

Version 18 is finally here! And it not only bring the promised Auto-Cloud-Syncing, but also many improvements to the main screen, making it both faster and more stable.

NEW: Fully Automatic CLZ Cloud Syncing!

The free CLZ Cloud service is at the center of all our cataloging solutions (desktop, mobile and web), the glue that binds them all together.
Tens of thousands of users are using the CLZ Cloud syncing every day, to transfer data between their desktop, Connect and mobile software, to update their online collection list, or simply for keeping an online backup of their precious database.

Now, it is time to take the CLZ Cloud to the next level, with automatic syncing:
Add or edit movies in Movie Collector and these changes will auto-upload to the CLZ Cloud instantly. Did you make changes using the CLZ Movies mobile app or directly in Movie Connect? Just start your software and changes will download automatically.
No more need to go to the Sync with CLZ Cloud screen, ever.

With “Sync Automatically” switched on…

1. Your online cloud backup is always up-to-date.
2. Your cloud viewer always shows the current state of your collection.
3. All your CLZ tools (desktop, mobile and Connect) will always be in-sync.

Automatic Cloud Syncing is an optional feature, switched OFF by default. If you don’t want to auto-sync, or don’t want to sync with the CLZ Cloud at all, just leave it switched OFF.

Main screen now faster and more stable

In the past few months, we have spent a lot of time rewriting important parts of the main screen. For instance, the code that refreshes the folder panel (which was slow, especially with the “counters” switched on) and also the part that restores your selection in the list after editing. At the same time, we reduced the program’s “memory footprint”, making it more stable overall.

The result is that the program is now a lot more enjoyable to use. It starts quicker, it refreshes much faster (after adding or editing) and switching between folder types is quicker.

The speed-up will be most noticeable on large collections, with thousands of movies. Especially when having LOTS of folders in the folder panel (e.g. Actor folders).

Fixes

• Cloud syncing:
  • After duplicating a movie, the duplicate would not be marked for syncing to cloud.
  • In some situations, a down-sync could update empty fields with data from Core.
  • In some situations, cover images would not upload automatically.
• Main screen:
  • After editing, the edited items would not be selected after refresh.

You were already able to group your movies on various fields such as Format or Director, and we’ve now expanded those options with Actor and Producer!

Log in to your Connect account and click the folder icon top left of the page, then select Actor or Producer.

Selecting a folder option:

Grouping your movies on Actor:

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 Movie 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 added new fields to sort on to change the order in which your movies are displayed in your list. Your movie list will adapt to sort and show the field you’re sorting on. On top of that we’ve redesigned the Select Sort Order screen to make it more clear what you’re choosing.

Open the Select Sort Order screen by tapping the menu top right, then tap “Sort order”.

All available sort fields:

• Title
• Release Date
• Format, then Title (New!)
• Runtime
• IMDb Rating
• Order of Entry (New!)
• Viewing Date (New!)
• My Rating (New!)
• Purchase Date (New!)
• Purchase Price (New!)
• Current Value (New!)
• Quantity (New!)
• Index
• Storage Device (New!)

All fields can be sorted either ascending or descending. Tap the field you wish to sort on, then tap “Apply” to confirm.

Fixed:

• The app did not open the details page when a search result was selected in the quick search box while the [All Movies] folder was active in phone mode.

We had several reports from users about a crash when searching for an item in the collection. This crash has been reproduced and now fixed in the latest build!

This version also has some code change to load the details of a movie a bit faster.

New:

• Faster loading of movie detail screen

Fixed:

• Crash during a search in the device’s database.

Quick Search: Search-As-You-Type suggestions

Instantly find and select a particular movie :

• In the Quick Search box, just start typing the first few letters of the movie title you are looking for.
• While typing, a drop-down list will appear, showing the first five matching movies.
  (for most movies, it only takes 2 or 3 letters before it shows up.)
• Once you see the movie you were looking for, tap it to bring up its detail page
• TIP: Tap the search button on the keyboard or tap “View All Results” to perform the normal search.

Quick Search now searches more fields

Now also searches in:

• Plot
• Episode Titles for TV series
• Notes
• Tags
• Series

Full list of fields that are now searched:

• Title
• Title Extension
• Original Title
• Barcode
• Actors
• Directors
• Writers
• Producers
• Plot
• Episode Titles for TV series
• Notes
• Tags
• Series

Fixed:

• Crash within a few seconds of opening the app.
• Crash when pressing ‘Change account info’ in the sync screen.

Live today in your Movie Connect software: a completely re-designed Edit Movie 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:

Fixed:

• App shortcut wasn’t working in the launcher

You may need to re-add your app shortcut to your launcher screen by tapping/holding the app in your list of apps!

We noticed some performance issues connected to the new Search-as-you-type on your own collection feature we introduced last week and have fixed these in the new update. We also fixed some usability issues we found!

Fixed:

• Slower performance in the main screen when using folders
• Usability tweaks for the quick search pop-up

Fixed:

• Export/Import of a movie that is part of a box set didn’t work properly
• Edit Movie:
  • assigning a box set will now always add this movie as the last movie in that box set
  • clicking OK while uploading cover would cause a crash. Buttons are disabled now during upload.
• Main Screen:
  • using CTRL to deselect items would not update the selected counter at the left bottom
  • showing/hiding the quick filter panel would expose the details view when it was closed
  • when the details view image popup was scrolled down, opening it again would scroll down again
  • quick search suggestions: selecting a suggestion would not clear the previous quick search
  • selecting the window’s “restore” option when running full screen could hang the program in some cases
  • refresh of the statistics view could fall back to the currently active folder instead of selected statistics field
• User Defined Fields: fields with an ampersand (‘&’) in their name weren’t always displayed correctly throughout the program
• Clicking OK/Next/Previous in an edit pick list item screen without editing its details would trigger unnecessary cloud changes
• Using “search” in some file open dialogs for images wouldn’t find .png files
• Syncing with CLZ Cloud: locally inserted items would update empty fields with Core fields after syncing

Quick Search: Search-As-You-Type suggestions

Instantly find and select a particular movie :

• In the Quick Search box, just start typing the first few letters of the movie title you are looking for.
• While typing, a drop-down list will appear, showing the first five matching movies.
  (for most movies, it only takes 2 or 3 letters before it shows up.)
• Once you see the movie you were looking for, tap it to bring up its detail page
• TIP: Tap the search button on the keyboard or tap “View All Results” to perform the normal search.

Quick Search now searches more fields

Now also searches in:

• Plot
• Episode Titles for TV series
• Notes
• Tags
• Series

Full list of fields that are now searched:

• Title
• Title Extension
• Original Title
• Barcode
• Actors
• Directors
• Writers
• Producers
• Plot
• Episode Titles for TV series
• Notes
• Tags
• Series

Disable backdrop downloading

Also new: in Settings screen, a new setting “Download backdrop images”. Switch that OFF to disable the downloading of the big backdrop images, to save space on your device.

In this maintenance build, we fixed a long-standing problem:
On Windows systems with the DPI or Font Size set to 125% or 150%, many screens had strange font size and layout problems, particularly visible in the Edit Movie screen, but also affecting other screens.

This has been a particularly tricky problem to fix, but Ronald and AJ jumped into the magical world of Windows display settings and, after a week of cursing and yelling, they have finally been able to fix it. Phew… peace and quiet again.

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.

A new v4.8.1 update for your app is available now, with:

Automatic CLZ Cloud syncing

Add or edit movies and your changes will auto-upload to the CLZ Cloud instantly.
Made changes on the desktop or Connect side? Just start the app and changes will download automatically.

Note: Auto-Syncing is switched OFF by default. Switch it ON in the “Sync with CLZ Cloud” screen.

The CLZ Cloud syncing will let you:

1. Sync your data between devices, e.g. between your phone and your tablet. Or from your old phone to your new phone.
2. View your database online using the free CLZ Cloud viewer website.
3. Make an online backup of your data. Better safe than sorry!

Fixed:

• Search cleared when the X button was pushed in the search bar of the main screen.
• Update from Core didn’t update the episode list correctly.

Various tweaks and fixes, based on your v18 feedback:

Tweaks to the Edit screen:

• Cast and Crew lists: right click to directly access that specific Manage List screen.
• Cast and Crew lists now show a “Sort Name” column again.

Fixes:

• Edit Multiple: boolean fields would be reset to “No”.
• Add from Core: Stopping a running search could cause an Access Violation.
• Main Screen: Selected filter wasn’t restored on starting the program.
• Select Column/Sort/Folder fields: adding/removing a field after changing the order of the fields, would reset that order again.
• Various stability improvements.
• Various fixes to the “Clean” template

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 in your Movie Connect software, a complete re-design of the Add Movies screen, with a new look, easier interface and new features.

Adding Movies by Title

Search by title to see a list of matching movie results, or pick the movie you were looking for directly for the Search-As-You-Type suggestions.
Expand a movie entry to see the available DVD and Blu-ray editions, with small cover thumbnails:

Pick your format straight from this Add screen, no need to edit afterwards:

Not the right cover image? Use the built-in Find Cover tool to pick the correct one.

Adding Movies by Barcode

Scanned barcodes will be automatically added to your queue, with the movie information populating instantly. Use the big blue Add to Collection button at the bottom right to add the selected movie to your database, OR use the little blue “+” buttons to add straight from the queue.

Barcode not found? Use the new Unrecognized Barcode screen to find the movie by title. This will not only let you add the movie anyway, but also helps our Core by adding the barcode to that selected movie.

Fixed

• Pick Item Screens: when using the quick search the list wasn’t always sorted correctly
• Manage Pick List:
  • When using the quick search the list wasn’t always sorted correctly
  • “auto resort” check box didn’t work
• Reassign Index fields sort fields were stored as “reassignindex” as sort fields preset
• Manage Presets: removing all presets would cause an Access Violation after closing the screen
• Edit Movie: navigating Episodes or Links using ALT+N or ALT+P would navigate the movies instead

New:

• Edit Movie: Studios can now be added and edited in a pick item grid
• Pick Item Screens: adding a new item will now use the quick search string to pre-fill the name field

Fixed:

• Edit Screen: ALT+N/ALT+P for Next/Previous played a Windows sound
• Edit Screen: Adding a new item to a list sometimes displayed a popup that was too small
• Reassign Index Fields: Saving your selected fields wasn’t possible sometimes
• Clean Templates:
  • “Genre” and “Subject” fields didn’t follow the field labels
  • Some improvements to the layout

New:

• Edit Movie: Add Cast/Crew: When searching for a cast/crew member and clicking “New Actor” (or crew), the screen will now use the search words for the name of the new cast/crew member you’re adding.

Fixed:

• Edit Movie: Add button for User Defined Fields comboboxes were not positioned correctly when resizing the Edit Movie screen
• Main Screen: the bread crumb at the top didn’t reflect the “Collection Status” filter from the quick filter panel
• Add from Core: the program could freeze when experiencing connection problems

This one slipped through. Quick fix available now:

Fixed:

• Edit Episode: error “class TAdvSmoothButton not found” when opening “Edit Episode” screen