What's new in Music Collector for Windows? (page 2)

A big update for the Music Collector software today, with several improvements and fixes, all based on the daily feedback we are getting from our users.

Changing your folder field is now much easier

The folder panel is one of the most powerful tools of your Music Collector software. However, in our support conversations with users, we are finding that most users are always leaving their software on the out-of-the-box Artist folders and never use anything else.

Which is sad, as they are missing out on a great tool. The folder panel instantly lets you group and filter your database on other fields too, e.g. by Genre, by Studio, by Release Year by Location, etc.. Super useful and fun!

Now… I must admit that changing your folder panel to a different field was not very easy or obvious. As you had to create a “preset”, add your desired field(s), give the preset a name, save it, then finally activate the new preset in the folder panel.

So… we decided to make this all *much* easier, especially for single field folder settings.

• You can now directly select any folder field for the folder panel, without having to create a preset first. Just instantly pick your desired folder field under the “Folders” heading in the menu of the Folder button.
• Presets are now called Favorites.
• You can still create your own Favorite folder options, e.g. for multi-level folder settings (e.g. Genre, then Artist), or just to make a specific 1-field setting easily accessible.
• Your Favorite folder settings are listed at the top of the menu, under the Favorites heading.
• New: no more need to manually name your Favorites. Sensible names are created automatically (the selected fields separated by slashes).

Columns and Sorting

• For Columns and Sorting, “Presets” have been renamed to “Favorites” too.
• For Sort Favorites: no more need to manually name your Favorites. Sensible names are created automatically (the selected fields separated by slashes).

Edit Album: add multiple artists, studios, etc.. in one go

The Select screen for adding artists, studios, composers, etc… now includes checkboxes, so that you can multiple in one go. No more need to go back and fort between the Select and Edit screen to add multiple.

The new checkboxes for selecting multiple values in one go are now available in the Select screen for the following fields:

• Artists
• Composers
• Studios
• Musicians
• Credits
• Conductors
• Compositions
• Orchestra’s
• Chorus
• Genres
• Tags

Fixed:

• Using “Select All” in your list was very slow. Super fast again now 🙂
• Print screen: “Field ID 221 has no XML tagname” error, when printing the Collection Status field as a column.
• Removed the annoying “beep” when searching in the Add Albums screen.

Fixed:

• If cover downloads were disabled, the program would still download a cover URL
• If no rating was set, it would show with rating “0” in the rating column. It now shows “nothing” in the column again.
• If no rating has been set for an album, it would show in a “0” folder, and now shows in a “[None]” folder in your folder panel.

Fixed:

• In some case, new entries added through Add from Core would get images with .tmp extensions, instead of .jpg.
• Editing pick list items directly from the folder panel did not work anymore.
• Dragging items between folders did not work anymore.

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger!

Here’s another big update for your Music Collector software, with two further performance improvements:

Faster image downloads

We were able to make several improvements to the way images are downloaded (cover art), making it much faster than before.

This change affects all places where images are downloaded from our servers, that is, when Adding Albums from Core, when Updating from Core and when down-syncing from CLZ Cloud.

Faster Update from Core

On large collections the old Update from Core feature was quite slow, as it updated your albums one by one, that is, doing separate requests to our server for each and every album.

So for this update, we also complete rewrote the Update from Core feature to do the updates in batches of 100 albums at a time, making it much much faster! (roughly 4 times as fast).

Remember: Update From Core can be used to update your local album entries with possible extra data from our Core online music database. To use this feature, select some albums, right click, then choose Update from Core.

Fixed:

• Add Albums from Core: when adding by barcode and the barcode is not found, it now automatically pops up the Unrecognized Barcode screen, so that you can 1. add the album anyway and 2. report the missing barcode to our Core.
• When using My Rating as the folder field, the “0” folder was missing.
• When using multiple levels of folders in the folder panel, sometimes the displayed counters were wrong.
• Images View: it is now possible to change thumb size using Ctrl + mouse wheel.
• Card View: Composer will now show instead of artist if it is filled in.

Fixed:

• Images View: Improved spacing between thumbnails
• Images View: Mouse over on images didn’t show the title of the item
• Cover Flow: Now uses big sharp images instead of the small thumbnails
• Find Cover: Could give an Access Violation when finding GIF images

In yesterday’s build the thumbnails couldn’t be set as small as they used to and we forgot to put in the dark background for the classic images view. Both fixed now!

Fixed:

• Thumbnails can now be set as small as before
• Classic shelf in dark skin: dark background was missing

When users send us screenshots during support conversations, we are seeing that many of you are using the Shelves View when browsing your collections. And we can’t blame you, that IS a cool looking view 🙂 However, it *could* be a bit slow and jerky, especially when displaying many cover images in one list.

So our Windows guy Joe has spent several weeks to make this Shelves View faster and smoother. At the same time, our in-house graphics man AJ has created two new Shelf styles. Here’s what’s new:

• Images are now loading a lot faster.
• Scrolling is faster and smoother.
• Shelves background is smoother, no more visible tile edges.
• Shelves now always continue over the full width, even when a row is not full.
• Two new Shelf Styles are now available: White and Concrete.

The new “White” style:

The new “Concrete” style:

Fixed:

• Fixed several issues with AutoSync that could cause Access Violation errors
• Updated a couple of translations

Fixed:

• Scanning CDID would give the “no results” entry before the actual result

Faster CLZ Cloud syncing!

We have made several structural changes to the CLZ Cloud syncing, making it much much faster than before, especially when syncing large amounts of entries up to the CLZ Cloud or down from the CLZ Cloud.

To enjoy the faster syncing, you need to use the actual Sync with CLZ Cloud screen.
(The Auto-Syncing in the background is also slightly faster now, but if you need to sync many entries up or down, please use the Sync with CLZ Cloud screen.)

Improved stability when using Auto-Syncing

At the same time, we have resolved several issues with the Auto-Syncing in the background, problems that could cause Access Violations in some situation. So this 20.2 version should provide a more stable experience too.

The new 20.1 version introduced smarter automatic album grouping when scanning a folder of music files. For some users this could introduce bad album grouping (for instance if you have your multi disc albums as loose folders together with other loose albums of the same artist).

This version introduces a checkbox at the top of the Add/Link Music Files screen to disable smart album grouping and tries to focus on your album tags only. Keep in mind that your file tags should be correct to make this work.

New:

• Checkbox to enable/disable smart album grouping based on folder structure.

Improved:

• Add/Link Music Files defines loose albums even better now.

Fixed:

• Edit Screen: adding files on the tracks tab wasn’t working correctly

This one is for the music file catalogers among you! In this version 20.1, we have enhanced the music file cataloging features of Music Collector and added support for more file formats.

What’s new?

• Better reading/writing of file tags:
  • Support for FLAC file tags (READ/WRITE) + covers and disc indexes.
  • Support for DSF file tags (READ ONLY).
  • Support for AIF file tags (READ ONLY).
  • Support for ID3v2 tags (READING) (ID3v3 was already supported).
  • If the tags for number of discs for your music files is off, the program will recognise the issue, and won’t create empty discs.
• Better parsing of folders and file structure:
• Improved album parsing based on folder structure (also looks at disc indexes or disc numbers in folder titles).
• The program now tries to look for CD1/CD2 or Disc 1/Disc 2 folders and use that information accordingly.
• New Parse Settings button that takes you to the Options screen to add “parse formats”.
• Creating a new parse format: You can now click a parse item to add it.
• Edit Screen: you can now browse and select multiple files in one go to add to the file links tab of an album.

Now recognises multiple file tags better and groups multi-disc albums better:

Now finds the cover inside FLAC files:

Fixed:

• Submitting an album to Core could generate a wrong error.

Fixed:

• Some statistics weren’t shown correctly on screens with higher DPI settings.

In this update a re-design of the Tag editing interface and faster and more stable cloud syncing through our brand-new dedicated Sync-server.

Edit Album: improved interface for adding/editing Tags

In version 20, we changed the user interface for adding/editing Tags to a checkbox list. Of course, we did so thinking we were improving this, making it easier for you all. Instead of having to type in the box, just checkbox from your existing tag list, quick and easy 🙂

Boy, were we wrong here. After the v20 release, we received complaint after complaint about this change. Most users were very upset about not being able to copy/paste tags in anymore, others criticized having to scroll through long tag lists to find the ones they want, yet others, found it way too difficult to add new tags (some even missing the possibility) and finally some even reported it as a serious database corruption that they now suddenly saw all tags in all their albums (which was of course not the case).

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we made a big boo-boo there :-).
Our sincerest apologies!

So in today’s v20.0.2, we have again re-designed the tag adding/editing interface, to take away all complaints, to resolve all problems. We are convinced that with the new design, we are giving you the best of both worlds:

• Clear overview of which tags are currently set.
• Easy adding of existing tags, using the Add Tags popup screen, which lets you:
  • Find existing tags using a search box,
  • Checkbox tags to add them.
  • Even lets you checkbox multiple tags in one go.
• The big “paste-box” is back for easily adding multiple tags by copy/pasting.

Now uses our brand-new CLZ Cloud Sync-server

Previously one big server was handling the Connect website, the CLZ Cloud website AND the CLZ Cloud syncing from the desktop programs and the mobile apps.
But this week we have set up a brand-new dedicated Sync-server to handle just the CLZ Cloud syncing.

In today’s update, Music Collector has been updated to sync through this new server, which should result in faster syncing and a more stable syncing experience during high load times (weekends).

Fixed:

• Solved several different “Access Violation” errors.
• Statistics:
  • Added runtime to albums in the various top lists.
  • Added number of discs to the top.
  • Changed colors of statistics screen for Light Skin.

We are 2 weeks into 2020, so it’s time for Music Collector 20! Today in v20, we’re bringing you 2 super useful and time-saving improvements for the folder panel, plus a brand new Statistics screen.

Read more

Fixed:

• Edit Multiple could change Collection Status of selected albums to “Not in Collection”
• “Added Date” field could be entered wrong when syncing

With all the big comic and game related releases going on, it has been a few months since the last Music Collector update. But we didn’t forget you! In the background, we have been “secretly” working on a big update, which is available now as version 19.3!

Here’s what’s new:

• Many more fields now sync with the CLZ Cloud / Music Connect:
  • Classical music fields, like Conductor, Orchestra, Composers
  • Recording specific fields, like Studio, Date, Live, Sound
  • Extras
  • AND the Back Cover image!
• The Location field has been moved to the bottom of the Edit Screen
• Collection Status field is now a dropdown menu

Read more

Changed:

• Bigger buttons for the find cover screen and option screen.

Fixed:

• Filter Screen: Drag/Drop of pre-set filters could give an Access Violation error
• Duplicate Finder:
  • Updated the standard set of columns (you can also pick your own using the column button top right)
  • After searching for duplicates twice, the screen could show “0 found” even if it found duplicates
• When running the program on 2 or more screens with different DPI settings, you could get a “List Index out of Bounds” error
• You can now bypass the “Lock File” warning if it appears on start up
• Add buttons in the Add Screen are now disabled while data is being downloaded to prevent an Access Violation

Based on user feedback we found out users were looking for and expecting a tool to find duplicate entries in their database. Some way to find out if you’ve accidentally added multiple versions of the same album, but perhaps with a different length or barcode.

After quite a few requests and discussions with users about this, to find out how they got duplicates and what they would expect from such a Duplicate Finder tool, it’s here today: Find Duplicate entries in your database!

New: Find Duplicate Albums

Click menu Tools > Maintenance > Find Duplicates to begin.

Then select which field to find duplicates on. You can find duplicates based on:

• Title
• Title & Artist
• Barcode
• Index
• All Fields

Click “Find Duplicates” and see what it comes up with. Use the blue “Keep” button to keep a group of duplicates, or use the red “Remove” button to remove a duplicate!

If you click “Remove all duplicates automatically” the program will remove all duplicate entries and will only keep 1 single entry (the oldest one) in your database.

Tip: use the columns button, top right, to set up the columns you’d like to see!

We already worked on this area in the previous update, but we were still not completely satisfied. So more tweaks to the Add button in the Add Games from Core screen today:

Tweaks to the Add button:

• All Collection Status values are now available, including “For Sale” and “On Order”!
• The little popup menu now indicates the selected value with a checkmark.
• The Add button itself now says “Add to Collection” or “Add to Wishlist”.

Screenshot from the Add button in Movie Collector:

Fixed:

• Flashing starting the program (especially visible on very big screens)
• Selected x from x items in the status bar and the total items at the top now have a bit more space
• Clicking the add button twice didn’t give an “Already in collection” warning
• Opening the program in full screen on a secondary screen didn’t work
• Add Screen: On high DPI screens, search results could take up too much space

With the big feature updates behind us (multi-collections, image syncing, 64-bit support, Flex template, etc…), it is time for some smaller tweaks that were requested by our loyal users:

• More compact toolbar layout, to save screen space
• No more annoying Add to Collection / Wish List popup in Add Albums screen
• New “Transparent” styles for the Flex template, to show off your backdrops

Read more

We’ve made several tweaks to improve the trial mode experience and fixed a freeze problem:

• Trial mode improvements:
  • Bigger “+ Add Albums” button on the default toolbar.
  • Improved “My CLZ Account” messaging when logging in with a CLZ Account.
  • New hints to Sync with CLZ Cloud after adding some movies.
  • Removed the ugly blue “hint box” that appeared when starting with an empty database.
• Fixed:
  • Occasional freeze/hang problems after a period of program inactivity.

Fixed:

• Automatically syncing cover images could happen too often
• Edit Screens:
  • While using Next/Previous, the cursor position wasn’t always retained
  • After scanning an image, some of the buttons would sometimes not be enabled

Right after the release of v19, we started receiving reports from users that their image scanners would not be found when using the 64-bit version. Other users reported that the web-cam scanning would not work anymore.
A temporary work-around has been to use the 32-bit version of version 19.

In the meantime, our Windows developer Joe has been working hard to get both of these problems resolved and I am happy to report that both have been fixed in today’s version 19.0.5:

• 64-bit version now uses WIA to connect with image scanners. When acquiring, make sure to select the WIA driver for your scanner, not TWAIN.
• Scanning barcodes with your webcam scanner is working again.

If you have been using the 32-bit version as a workaround, please switch to the 64-bit version again (this is a choice during installation).

Then, please let us know your findings, is everything working again?

Other fixes in v19.0.5:

• In some cases, Tools > Options would forget your image scanner.
• Edit in List did not work for track lists.
• Track View: Select All checkbox did not respond.