What's new?

A big project our web-dev team has been focused on the past few months is making our Connect web-based software available into other languages. A huge project that consists of:

• Making the software translatable, basically ensuring that ALL UI text is retrieved from a translation database.
• Creating a nice and easy web-based CMS tool that translators can log in to and translate text, preview in Connect, etc…
• Doing the actual translations of all UI texts.

And today we can finally show the first results: Connect is now available in Dutch!

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Fixed:

• Sorting problems for certain fields
• Several small Add Screen stability issues

Fixed:

• Add Movies screen: When adding “by IMDb”, the result list always kept the last searched IMDb result.
• Dark Skin: In the Folder panel, we’ve made the barchart color a bit brighter.
• In the Pre-fill popup you could not select an “empty” item for pick lists.
• Sorting your list by date wasn’t always working properly.
• The program will now ask you if you’re sure you want to overwrite an existing file when using “Export to XML” or “Save Database As” (this was already working for other export/save options).

As announced last weekend, here it is, Movie Collector version 23.2 for Windows, with full support for our new CLZ Scanner barcode scanner app!
And as indicated earlier, support for the old CLZ Barry scanner app has now been removed.

Also new in this version: Improved support for barcodes that were used over multiple series.

What is CLZ Scanner?

The aptly-named “CLZ Scanner” is a barcode scanner app, nothing more, nothing less. It is an app that you use on your phone to scan barcodes and then instantly send those scanned barcodes to the Add Movies screen of the Movie Collector software running on your computer. From there, you can then easily and comfortably add the scanned movies to your computer software.

CLZ Scanner replaces the old CLZ Barry app.

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Another update for your Movie Collector software, that could make using the software quite a bit faster and more responsive!

In this update, we are changing the way Youtube trailer videos are shown in the details panel. Instead of an embedded YouTube player (which can be very slow to load), the trailers are displayed as a list of video thumbnails and title. Just click to open the video on the Youtube site.

This new setup has the following advantages:

• Browsing through your movies is a lot faster now.
  
  No more annoying “hangs” while the Youtube video loads.
• It resolves the problem of many videos not being “allowed” to be embedded nowadays.
• Clicking a trailer will now always open it in your default browser!
  
  (previously it always opened in Internet Explorer)

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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

Changed:

• Improved messaging for subscription status
• Update from Core could remove local web-links

After months of working on comic related updates only (for our CovrPrice partnership), the CLZ team is finally freed up to work on our other products again, phew!

So today, we can release a nice update for your Movie Collector software, in which we improve on the IMDb integration. Not a huge “major” update, but since 2023 is getting closer, we are calling it “version 23.0” anyway 🙂

Anyway, about IMDb: 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 the change was?”.

Well, not anymore, because with today’s v23 update we are introducing a nice report that answers just that. Also, this updates makes it easier to update IMDb Ratings for your entire collection in one go.

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Fixed and improved:

• Barcode scanning on iPhone 14 Pro is now FIXED (by using macro lens)
• Barcode scanning on iPhone 13 Pro now also uses macro lens
• Collection Status colors now also visible in Card View

Recently introduced in the CLZ mobile apps and instantly very popular, so now available in all five Connect flavors too: the Card View.
(And… because Connect already had a view called “Card View”, we renamed the old view to “Horizontal Cards” and named the new one “Vertical Cards” here.)

Here’s how to switch to new “Vertical Cards” view: on the toolbar above your collection list, click the 2nd button from the left, called “Vertical Cards”.

Check out the screenshots below:

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A big update for your Connect software today, with several cool new features and some smaller tweaks, all in one go:

• Easily add cover images by pasting into the Edit Screen’s Covers tab
• New Month and Date folder options for all date fields
• Improved Update from Core tool
• “Move to Other Collection” now possible from details panel toolbar

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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!

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Yesterday’s build introduced a couple of small problems which some of you reported to us, so today we’re fixing those!

Fixed:

• Link Screen: Trying to link a movie manually would present an “add” button
• Edit in List: Fields could (still) be cleared when modifying the set of column fields during editing in list

In today’s update, no big new features. Instead, we decided to spend some time fixing a lot of outstanding issues. While we were at it, we also implemented some small tweaks requested by users. Here’s what’s tweaked and fixed:

Tweaks:

• Year folders now sort from most recent year to older
• Transfer Field Data: It is now possible to transfer crew to the Notes field
• Transfer Field Data: It is now possible to transfer data to the Extra Features field

Fixed:

• Link Screen: Fixed various “Access Violation” errors
• Edit Screen: File paths for missing cover images weren’t showing
• Main Screen: filtering on Collection Status “Sold” didn’t show correct filter text in the bottom of the screen
• Edit in List: Fields could be cleared when modifying the column fields during editing in list
• Edit in List: Fixed some problems with editing price/value fields

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

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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

Fixed:

• Templates: Tapping the cover to zoom in on it often caused the cover to flip to the back cover
• Adding an item to a different collection status caused Pre-fill fields to clear in the existing entry

Initially, when we created the mobile apps, we deliberately decided to leave out the back cover images, for performance, storage and bandwidth reasons. But with today’s fast internet speeds and fast devices with large storage.. it is time to change our minds!
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Fixed:

• Various “Access Violation” errors fixed in the Link Movies screen
• User Defined Fields: default values weren’t used when adding movies
• Pre-fill: User Defined Fields weren’t remembered between sessions
• Light Skin: Rating stars weren’t visible

Fixed:

• Add/Update Movies: Country and Language weren’t downloaded
• Add/Update settings: Download links from MovieMeter checkbox was missing
• Pre-fill screen: It wasn’t possible to clear out certain fields (such as Tags)
• Edit screen: Pick list popups for certain fields didn’t remember their sort order
• Pre-fill wasn’t working after the “move to other collection status” popup
• Add Movies: When adding books to “Sold” the button wasn’t showing text

In this update, no new features, just a nice improvement that makes existing functionality a bit better.

All actions in the app that can take a bit longer are now showing a nice progress bar!
This gives you some idea how long the action will take.
Also, the new Cancel button lets you stop actions, e.g. if you see it will take too long to do at this time.

The new progress bars are now shown when:

• Adding multiple movies
• Editing multiple movies
• Removing multiple movies
• Updating from Core
• Updating IMDb Ratings

It’s been a few months since the last Movie Collector update, but behind the scenes we have of course been preparing for a big v22 update! And today, it is finally ready for release, with 3 cool new features:

• User-configurable Pre-fill screen: choose your own fields
• User-configurable Add / Update from Core
• Support for WebP images
• New collection status “Sold” and new collection status icons and colors

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One of the most popular features we added to the Movie Connect software in the past few years is the Pre-fill screen. You know, the screen that pops up when adding new movies from Core and lets you “pre-fill” some fields for the new additions, right there and then. Without having to go back and edit the entries afterwards. A big time-saver for most users.

The set of fields that is available on the Pre-fill screen has always been fixed, limited to Location, Owner, Purchase Date/Store/Price, Quantity and Tags.

However, after the release of this feature, we instantly started getting requests for more fields to be added to the Pre-fill screen. Which makes sense, I mean, if you always fill in a field that is not on the Pre-fill screen, you would have to “edit after adding” anyway, rendering the entire Pre-fill screen useless…

So today we are taking the Pre-fill feature to the next level by making the screen completely user-configurable. That is, to allow you to choose your own Pre-fill fields!

And while we were at it, we made some other related improvements. Here’s what’s new today:

• User-configurable Pre-fill screen: choose your own fields
• Pre-fill: new for personal Date fields: Fill with “Today”
• The Pre-fill screen is now also used to set field defaults

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One of the most popular features we added to the CLZ Movies app in the past few years is the Pre-fill screen. You know, the screen that pops up when adding new movies from Core and lets you “pre-fill” some fields for the new additions, right there and then. Without having to go back and edit the entries afterwards. A big time-saver for most users.

The set of fields that is available on the Pre-fill screen has always been fixed, limited to Location, Owner, Purchase Date/Store/Price, Quantity and Tags.

However, after the release of this feature, we instantly started getting requests for more fields to be added to the Pre-fill screen. Which makes sense, I mean, if you always fill in a field that is not on the Pre-fill screen, you would have to “edit after adding” anyway, rendering the entire Pre-fill screen useless…

So today we are taking the Pre-fill feature to the next level by making the screen completely user-configurable. That is, to allow you to choose your own Pre-fill fields!

And while we were at it, we made some other related improvements. Here’s what’s new in version 7.1:

• User-configurable Pre-fill screen: choose your own fields
• Pre-fill: new for personal Date fields: Use “Today”
• The Pre-fill screen is now also used to set field defaults
• New sorting and folder options
• Several fixes.

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A huge 7.0 update for your CLZ Movies app is now available, with new features and lots of improvements to existing functionality. All in one go and all based on your feedback!

New in version 7 today:

• Use barcode scanner to search your own database
• New Collection Status: Sold
• New Collection Status icons and colors
• Improved Add Movies screen: enlarge thumbs, new beeps, num pad for barcode entry
• New Favorites section in Manage Pick List screen
• New setting to enable/disable showing trailers in the movie details
• The quantity field now shows in the list entries (when not “1”)
• In the Statistics screen you can now use “Tap to show all” to show all recent additions

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