What's new in Music Collector? (page 3)

We fixed an issue with index numbers automatically incrementing when they shouldn’t.

Fixed:

• Custom Image checkbox wasn’t always checked in certain situations (e.g. unrecognized barcode screen, drag/drop image on the details panel, or adding an album from music files)
• Images for items that don’t have a cover in Core didn’t upload automatically
• Images for items that don’t have a cover in your CLZ Cloud didn’t upload automatically
• Got rid of a couple of access violations in the main, filter and find cover screens
• Edit Screen: Covers tab: tabs weren’t high enough
• Import from Other Database:
  • Added 2 progress bars to keep track of the import
  • In rare cases you could get an empty extra collection tab after an import
• Fixed a rare “Range Check Error” happening for big databases
• Filtering of tracks didn’t work correctly for databases with multiple collections

Stability

We have fixed various stability issues in the program to get rid of some more access violation errors that were happening for a couple of users. We also fixed a problem where “File > Open Database” didn’t refresh the main screen to show the opened file.

• Got rid of some Access Violation errors
• “File / Open database” could show an empty screen

32-bit and 64-bit option

We’ve found that when running our program in 64-bit mode, some 3rd party external devices will not work or talk to the program such as:

• TWAIN image scanners
• Some barcode scanners
• Webcams (for barcode scanning)

If you run into issues where you your TWAIN image scanner, or your barcode scanner won’t connect or work, this is usually caused by the drivers of these devices which are not 64-bit compatible, and thus can’t talk to your Collectorz program.

We’re trying to look for a way to make them talk to the 64-bit version, but for now, to work around this, redownload the software from your CLZ Account page and during installation choose to install the 32-bit version!

Music Collector version 19 has arrived! Here’s what’s new:

• Manage multiple “collections” within one database file
• Automatic Cloud-syncing of your own “custom” images
• A new super-adaptive “Flex” template for the Details Panel
• 64-bit version for 64-bit Windows versions

Read on for the full details:

Read more

We still had a couple of persistent Access Violation and List Index Out of Bounds errors happening in the Add Albums screen. We managed to capture them and the Add Screen should be more stable now.

We also fixed a problem with the quick search in the main screen that could throw an error.

Should you still get such errors, please contact us and let us know!

We’ve changed some code in various screens to make the program more stable and even less prone to random Access Violations.

After many support conversations with helpful users, we finally found out what the problem was: a dodgy 3rd party HTTPS component.
So we have now completely replaced that component with a better, more modern one, which seems to have resolved all Access Violation problems.

Fixed:

• Stability: Took care of Access Violation errors that could pop up because of the old HTTPS component
• Add screen: “Change Cover” could break the preview panel

We received reports that the Find Cover screen was giving quite a few “image could not be loaded” errors lately, and we’ve found an issue in the program that caused this. We’ve fixed this and you should be able to load almost any image you find now.

We also changed some background code in the Add Screen to make the program more stable.

Fixed:

• Find Cover screen: now allows more images to be shown and downloaded
• Add screen: Fixed a couple of Access Violation errors
• Add screen: Fixed a false “Barcode already in queue” error
• Sync with CLZ Cloud: Fixed syncing issues if the currency of Windows was set to something with a period (such as “kr.”)
• Edit Screen: Year dropdown for dates would scroll all the way to the top, now uses current year
• Edit Screen: Date Pickers would sometimes not be able to pick today’s date if next/previous was used
• Edit Screen: User Defined Fields: Date Picker button was in the wrong place

A couple of weeks ago, our CLZ Cloud (and Music Connect) has been updated with 8 more fields and loan information. Today’s version 18.4 now supports the syncing of all these new fields and your loan information to the CLZ Cloud and your CLZ Music mobile app!

Added for syncing:

• Sortname for composers
• Original Release Date
• Packaging
• Media Condition
• Vinyl Color
• Vinyl Weight
• Vinyl RPM
• Disc Titles

Heads up: after updating to version 18.4, the software will automatically mark most of your albums as “changed”, to force the upload of your data for the new fields to the CLZ Cloud.

CLZ Music for iOS and Android will be updated in the coming days to allow the new fields to be synced there too!

Fixes:

• Drag and drop of discs to other albums now works
• Fixed a problem with freezing columns in 2 panel mode
• Fixed a problem with dragging columns in list view around

A BIG update for your Music Collector software today, with an important change:

Secure HTTPS connections, for your security and privacy

As indicated in our GDPR email from a couple of weeks ago, we are updating our software and services, to be more secure and to better protect your privacy.

Starting with version 18.3, Music Collector now uses secure HTTPS connections for all communications with our servers:

• for logging in with your username and password
• for syncing your data with CLZ Cloud
• for sending your searches to Core.

To make this possible, we have created new secure “entry points” on our servers, that are only allowing secure HTTPS connections. The new Music Collector software only communicates with those secure entry points.

For your privacy and security, we strongly recommend updating to version 18.3.

We fixed an issue in two panel mode where, on start-up, the items in your database sometimes wouldn’t show up correctly.

Fixes:

• Several Access Violation errors in the main screen.
• List View: Double clicking on checks would make list unresponsive.
• Edit Screen: Using Next/Prev would cause strange effects with checkboxes in main screen.
• Main Screen: The width of the columns wasn’t remembered correctly sometimes.
• Main Screen: “Follow album” option didn’t work correctly.
• Multiple Selection Action Bar didn’t always show the “check all” check box when switching between Album and Track view.

Fixed:

• The “Multiple Selection Action Bar” didn’t show the “Edit Track” button in Track View.

Fixed:

• Main Screen: hiding the alphabet bar would leave an empty space
• Details panel: Action Bar didn’t always show the correct buttons

Music Collector offers powerful batch commands, for performing actions on multiple albums in one go, e.g. editing, removing or updating from Core.
However, we are finding that many users have never use these these batch actions, either because they are not aware of their existence or because they don’t know how to actually select multiple albums (by Shift or Ctrl-clicking).

In today’s update we addressed these issues:

New Selection Checkboxes in the List View, for easy selection of multiple albums

The List View now features checkboxes on the left. Use the checkboxes to easily select multiple albums, no Shift or Ctrl-clicking needed. Of course the classic Shift/Ctrl-clicking still works too, this is just an extra method.

Don’t need the checkboxes? You can hide them using Tools / Options / Customization.

A new Action Bar with batch actions

As soon as multiple albums are selected (that is, more than 1), a new Action Bar appears above the list. It shows how many are selected, plus offers buttons for the most popular batch actions.

Also new: Action Bar above Details Panel

At the same time, we also added a new Action Bar above the details panel, for quick access to commands operating on the selected album.

TIP: The commands in this new Action Bar have been removed from the main toolbar, to make that one a bit cleaner. However, if you are upgrading from an older version, it will remember your toolbar. To get the new clean main toolbar, choose View / Toolbars / Reset.

Don’t need or want this new bar? You can hide it using Tools / Options / Customization.

Fixed:

• Find Cover: images weren’t scaling correctly
• Edit Screen: Grid Icons weren’t scaling correctly
• Improved loading speed for Cover Flow view
• Edit Track: title bar wasn’t wide enough

Fixed

• Add Screen:
  • By CDID: Fixed some issues with adding multidiscs / multiple single albums
  • By CDID: Fixed the counter of the add button bottom left
  • By Barcode: For single barcode results the single add button (bottom right) didn’t work.
• Reassign Album Index / Select Sort Fields:
  • Fixed an “Access Violation” when changing the sort order.
  • Fixed an enable/disable problem for the “Save” button.

Improvement to the Add Screen

When adding by barcode and compiling your multidisc entry using the checkboxes, the Add button bottom right can now also add the compiled result as a multidisc.

New collection status icons

We added new collection status icons to the main screen’s list view and card view to make the screen less clogged up and easier on the eye.

Various DPI scaling improvements and fixes

We did some more DPI scaling fixes, including:

• Main Screen:
  • Cards view: Collection status icons now scale correctly
  • Images view: Default size and maximum size is now DPI dependent
• Add Albums screen:
  • The pop out on the Add Album button was too big
  • Right click menus were too big
  • Auto-read toggle didn’t scale
  • The default width of the panels is now correctly set
• Edit Screen: Help and Manage Picklist buttons now scale correctly
• Various screens: Rating Stars now scale correctly
• Options screen: Various layout problems have been fixed

Fixes

• Add Albums screen:
  • CD ID tab: Adding scanned albums as multidisc would not add the CDID
  • Barcode tab: Adding albums by barcode as multidisc would not add the barcode

New:

• Add Albums: The results cells now scale according to your screen settings.

Fixed:

• Edit Multiple: Labels weren’t scaling correctly.
• Various small scaling fixes (Edit Track, Sync with CLZ Cloud screen and more).
• Images View: You can now size your images in the images view up to 2x.

Following yesterday’s Full DPI Awareness build it seems we went a bit too far: the details view templates (and preview templates in the Add Albums screen) also followed your DPI settings, making them very sharp, but also very small. We fixed that in today’s build!

Some of you also mentioned the tracks tab in the Edit Album screen was acting up. This happened if the program itself was set to use bigger fonts. This has also been addressed now.

Fixed:

• Details View Templates and Preview Templates were displayed too small on screens with higher DPI settings.
• Edit Album: Tracks tab had bad scaling if the program font was set bigger than normal.
• Image popup status bar wasn’t scaling correctly.
• Background color in the trial popup was incorrect.
  

Full support for larger text sizes (Full DPI Awareness)

With super hi-res 4K (or even 5K) screens becoming quite common, more and more people are running Windows with the Font Size (DPI scaling) set to 125% or 150%, to keep text readable. So earlier this year, we released maintenance builds for all Windows editions to fix various layout problems when running Windows with “large fonts”.

Today, with version 18.1 we’re taking the next step: Music Collector is now fully “DPI Aware”. Starting with this version, if you have increased your font size in Windows, the program will actually follow that setting and use bigger text fonts in all screens!

On top of that, texts now look sharper, less fuzzy, making full use of your hi-res screen.

Old version:

New version:

Improvements to the Add Albums from Core screen

• Single Search Box: Just one box for searching (e.g. like Google or Amazon). No more separate Artist and Title boxes. Just enter (part of) the artist’s name and (part of) the title and you will get the best matching results. (see the screen shot below with “metallica justice” results”)

• Changed timing of “Report missing barcode” popup: The missing barcode popup now pops up when you click on a “not found” result instead of interfering while you’re still scanning barcodes.

• Easier way of adding multi-disc albums: Add multi-disc albums by selecting multiple results from your search. Just check the boxes next to the results to compile a multi-disc album and add it to your collection straight away:

Adding Multi-Disc Albums by Artist and Title:

Adding Multi-Disc Albums by Barcode:

Fixed:

• Edit Album:
  • Index field had a typo
  • Clicking next or previous could create a second + button in the User Defined Fields tab
• Edit Multiple: Enabled acquire button in edit multiple
• Quick Search: We’ve fixed normalization for quick searches so words with umlauts/accents etc. are now easier to be found.
• Fixed a problem with folder paths for users that have their Documents folder rooted to an external drive (program wouldn’t install properly).
• Link Screen could show “Link Selected” button even if there were no matches.
• Template: Fixed an issue where the template could become “white” if arrow keys were used on the keyboard
• Light Skin: Better visibility for selected items in your lists.
• User Defined Fields: It was possible to create invisible User Defined Fields which would then never show up in the edit screen.

Our web-team has been working on this for a long time, but it is now LIVE: a new search engine for Artist/Title searches in our Core online music database and Discogs. An engine that is both better and much, much faster!

And the good news is: these are all “server-side” changes, which means you don’t need to update your Music Collector software, CLZ Music app or Music Connect web-app. Everyone can now instantly enjoy the benefits, no matter which version of the software you have :-).

Read more

Fixed:

• Edit Album/Track/Header/Disc/Subtrack: components on the classical tab weren’t always sized properly until resizing the screen
• Edit Album: clicking OK while uploading cover would cause a crash. Buttons are disabled now during upload.
• Add Albums from Core:
  • after adding selected albums as multi-disc albums, all subsequent adds would be multi-disc adds
  • the edit screen didn’t open after adding albums as multi-disc album when “Automatically open edit screen after adding” option was checked
  • after adding checked results they were not unchecked
• 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

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 Album 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.

Other fixes:

• Edit Screens: Composition grid’s selection screen didn’t have the correct composition columns
• Add Albums from Core: format filters were not showing correctly when searching by Catalog Number

Various tweaks and fixes, based on your v18 feedback:

Tweaks to the Edit screen:

• Add Genre screen now has checkboxes to allow the addition of multiple genres in one go.
• Artist/Credit/Musician/Genre lists: right click to directly access that specific Manage List screen.
• Artist/Credit/Musician 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.
• Add Track/Header/Disc/Subtrack: hitting enter didn’t add another entry but closed the screen.
• Edit Track/Header/Disc/Subtrack: cancel could cause an Access Violation in some cases.
• Edit screens: Adding a Composition in the Composition grid would sometimes add the wrong item when compositions had identical display names.

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 Album: navigating Tracks or Links using ALT+N or ALT+P would navigate the albums instead

Fixed:

• Edit Screen:
  • Some fields were overlapping when resizing the screen
  • Orchestra grid was too small after opening the screen in a wider size than normal
  • Making the screen larger and then smaller again would show a scrollbar on the “user defined” tab when it wasn’t needed
  • ALT+N/ALT+P for Next/Previous played a Windows sound
• 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
• Export/Print field selection menus were missing “Manage Presets…” caption

Fixes for the Clean Templates:

• Country flags weren’t displayed
• We swapped musicians and instruments (musician names now display on the left, instruments on the right)
• Images for musicians weren’t displayed correctly
• Layout of discs wasn’t always correct for multi-disc albums
• Tracks that were placed after (but not inside) a header messed up the layout of the tracklist
• Several other improvements to the layout