What's new?
New:
- The resizable panels in the add screen now have the same design as the ones in the main screen.
Fixed:
- iPad: Wrong initial panel layout in the main screen when the app is started in landscape mode.
v19.0: multiple collections, auto-sync images, 64-bit and a new Flex template!
Book 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:
A useful update of your app today, that is, if you are using the app on an iPad:
All panels in the main screen (folders, list and details) are now resizable using draggable separators between the panels, so that you can customize the layout to your own liking.
- All panels in the main screen (folders, list and details) are now resizable using draggable separators between the panels, so that you can customize the layout to your own liking.
- The resizable panels in the Add screen have been updated to use the nicer look of the draggable separators.
Another useful addition to your software today, as we added a Quick Search box in your folder panel.
Especially useful for those long folder lists, e.g. when using Author as the folder field. Just type a few letters of the author’s name and the folder list will instantly “filter down” to the matching authors, while you type!
See it in action:
A nice time-saving feature was added to your Book Connect software today:
Next / Previous buttons in the Edit Book screen
These buttons let you go through your book list to make changes, while staying in the Edit Book screen. Just use the Next or Previous button on the bottom left.
While doing so, the screen will keep you on the same tab and same field, making it super-easy to make changes to same field(s) for multiple books.
New: Redesigned app icon
We designed new icons that give new users a better indication of what the app actually does (as opposed to just a different color CLZ logo), but still obviously belong together, when shown together.
Fixed:
- List did not scroll to top when the status bar was tapped
A small UI tweak today, made necessary because of the growing number of field options for the folder panel: the folder field menu is now grouped into 4 categories.
This should make it easier to find the field you are looking for.
New: Redesigned app icon
We designed new icons that give new users a better indication of what the app actually does (as opposed to just a different color CLZ logo), but still obviously belong together, when shown together.
And if you have Android 8.0 or higher, we’re also including an “adaptive app icon” as of today which are in line with all your other app icons!
Some of you reported some issues in the Edit Screens in Book Collector using macOS Mojave, which have now been addressed and fixed!
Fixes:
- Searching for a credit or character wasn’t working (dropdown wasn’t opening to show all options)
- The dropdown to choose a role for a credit wasn’t working
- Dragging and dropping of images on the template or edit screen didn’t do anything
By default, the Alphabet Bars for Book Connect uses the first letter of the Author. You can now switch it to use the first letter of the book title, just click the little “gears icon” on the right of the Alphabet Bar:
Do you like to customize your software to suit your needs or just your personal taste? Then we have big news for you today, as we have just introduced four “Skin” choices in your Book Connect software:
- Default (the standard look, as it was before, so dark toolbars, light content)
- Dark (dark toolbars, dark content)
- Light (light toolbars, light content)
- Blue (shades of blue, with yellow highlights)
On top of that, we have given you 3 template style choices for the Book Details area: Dark, Light and Blue. Either to match your Skin choice, or to mix to up, it’s up to you.
Both the Skin and Template selectors can be found in the Settings screen, under Customization.
Screen shots:
Default Skin:
Dark Skin:
Light Skin:
Blue Skin:
A new grouping option is now available in your Connect!
Click the folder icon top left and select Release / Publication Year to see all your items neatly grouped in a year folder. Click on a year to see all items that were released/published in that year!
We still had a couple of persistent Access Violation and List Index Out of Bounds errors happening in the Add Books 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!
The Add Books Automatically screen is now called “Add Books from CLZ Core” and includes improvements to make it both easier-to-use and easier-on-the-eye:
- Single Search Box: Just one box for search (e.g. like Google or Amazon). No more separate Author and Title boxes. Just enter (part of) the author’s name and (part of) the title and you will get the best matching results. (see the screen shot above with “crichton jurassic” results”).
- Big blue buttons for the main actions, Searching and Adding, can’t miss ’em 🙂
- Automatic Preview, just select a result (no more need for double clicking)
- Use the popup in the “Add” button to change it to add to “Collection” or “Wish List”
- Search by Publisher and Year: Getting a lot of results? Filter down to the book edition you’re looking for by adding the publisher and/or publication year to your search! (see screen shot below)
v18.4.2: More images now available in Find Cover screen
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, Edit and Main screens to make the program more stable.
Improved:
- Find Cover screen: now allows more images to be shown and downloaded
Fixed:
This week, we added several new settings and improvements, all based on your feedback:
New setting for the List View: Wrap column content
This new “Wrap column content” setting can be found in the Settings screen. It lets you choose if text in the List View columns should wrap to multiple lines or not.
The default is YES / Checked. Uncheck this setting to keep your List View row as single rows, resulting in a cleaner list and more rows in view.
New Date Format setting
Also found in the Settings screen, this new selector lets you choose how dates are displayed, anywhere in the program where date are shown.
Choose from:
- 7 January 2018
- 07 Jan 2018
- 7 Jan 2018
- January 07, 2018
- January 7, 2018
- Jan 07, 2018
- Jan 7, 2018
- 07/01/2018
- 7/1/2018
- 07/01/18
- 7/1/18
- 01/07/2018
- 1/7/2018
- 01/07/18
- 1/7/18
- 2018-01-07
Core IDs can now be added as columns in the List View
Now available in the Column Selection screen for the List View: The Core ID fields.
E.g. for movies, add the Core Movie ID and Core Media ID fields to your lists, to quickly find movies that are not linked to our Core entry yet.
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 4.10.4, CLZ Books 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 CLZ Books app only communicates with those secure entry points.
For your privacy and security, we strongly recommend updating your app to v4.10.4
Changes
- The buttons to switch folders, sorting and view options have been moved to more logical places to make them more accessible.
- The skins and templates options are now only available from the settings screen.
- The selection mode button has been removed, just tap and hold on an item to start selecting items.
Fixed:
- Update from Core could (in some cases) overwrite manually entered information for the Authors, Publisher, ISBN, Series, Edition, Sub title, Dewey, Loc, Width and Height fields.
- Re-added index field to book information cell
Previously, setting up for the usage of the CLZ Barry as a barcode scanner required going to your Connect Profile page and back. Not anymore.
You can now get started with CLZ Barry straight from the By Barcode/ISBN tab of your Add screen. Just click the blue text “Set your Barry ID” on the far right of the barcode box and all the setting up can be done right then and there:
Secure HTTPS connections, for your security and privacy
As indicated in our recent GDPR email, we are updating our software and services, to be more secure and to better protect your privacy.
Starting with version 4.11, CLZ Books 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 CLZ Books app only communicates with those secure entry points.
For your privacy and security, we strongly recommend updating your app to v4.11.
Changes:
- The buttons to switch folders, sorting and view options have been moved to more logical places to make them more accessible.
- The skins and templates options have been moved to the settings screen.
- The selection mode button has been removed, just tap and hold on an item to start selecting items.
Fixed:
- Last update made some settings disappear in the settings screen. They are back now.
- Added bottom margin to the add auto screen on iPhone X to make the add button more reachable
- The sync screen wasn’t logging local deletes.
Sharper images in Cover View and Card View
This week, we have implemented several changes to the cover images that are shown in Cover View and Card View, making them much sharper/crisper, less blurry.
Also, on computers with a 4k / Ultra HD screen, both the Cover View and the Card will automatically switch to even higher quality images, with twice the resolution!
The difference is huge, check out the screen shots below. But the best way to experience the sharper images is to log in to your own account and look at your own collection!
Other improvements to Cover and Card View
At the same time, we made other improvements to the Cover and Card views, to make them look nicer and to make the scrolling experience smoother and faster:
- While scrolling, the images now load faster.
- Scrolling the view while images are loading is now smoother, less “choppy”.
- The Images view now has black background for a more classy look.
- In both Images and Card View, while scrolling, it does not first load a placeholder image anymore, it just show the background color until the actual image is loaded, also resulting in a less choppy scrolling experience.
It is important to have your book entries linked to the corresponding entries in our Core online book database, because that is what gives you all automatic book details, like subjects, genres, Dewey, plot description, cover art, etc..
All book entries you add through the Add Books screen, by searching our Core, will of course automatically be linked to Core.
However, if you imported a list of books, e.g. from a CSV file or from a competitor product, some/most of your entries may arrive “unlinked”, especially if you did not import ISBNs.
Previously, linking those unlinked entries to Core was a one-by-one job, slow and cumbersome. But we fixed that once and for all, with the new smart Link Books tool!
This new Link Books tool automatically finds best matches in our Core online book database, based on author, title and publisher in your list. Then, it lets you auto-link all “high match score” books, saving you loads and loads of time and clicks!
Great news for all users of our book database solutions, on any version (old or new), on any platform (Connect, Windows, Mac, iOS and Android):
Our Core online book database now recognizes 97% of all ISBNs searched!
In the past few weeks, our web-developers have been working on several improvements to our Core online book database system, which has increased the success rate for ISBN searches to 97 percent!
Basically, this means that on average, for every 100 ISBNs you scan into the Add Books screen, our Core online book database will recognize 97, leaving only 3 as “unrecognized”.
(in the past, the success rate has always been around 89% to 90%.)
Note that this 97% is a world-wide average, over all users from all countries.
For US and UK books, the results are even better, at 99%. In other countries, the hit-rate will be slightly below 97%. But for everyone, it will definitely be better than before!
How can you start enjoying the improved ISBN searches?
The above is a “server-side” change, so you don’t need to do anything 🙂
You can now instantly experience the benefits, in the Book Connect web-based software, the Book Collector desktop software (Windows or Mac) and the CLZ Books mobile app (iOS or Android).
Whatever version you have! No update needed, no payment needed!
A BIG update for your Book 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 18.4, Book 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 Book Collector software only communicates with those secure entry points.
For your privacy and security, we strongly recommend updating to version 18.4.
Two updates for the Book Connect software and the CLZ Cloud viewer today. One a big step forward in usability, the other a nice cosmetic improvement:
Book Details now integrated in main screen
Up till now, when you clicked a book entry to see its’ full details, you were taken to the book details page, that is, a new page in your browser. One had to click “Back” to get back to the book list again. Often resulting in an annoying back and forth clicking, each time causing you to lose your position in the list.
But not anymore! Starting with today’s update, the book details are now integrated in a panel within the main collection view:
No more back and forth clicking. Just click a book entry to see its’ details, click another one to see that book’s details. Nice and easy, never lose your spot again.
Choose from two Layouts:
- Horizontal Split: folders on the left, list on the top right, details on bottom right
- Vertical Split: 3 panels side by side, folder, list and details
In either layout, the 3 panels are fully resizable by dragging the black “splitter bars” between the panels, so that you can customize the layout to your own liking.
The book details panel comes with its’ own “action bar”, with the main actions you may want to take on the selected book (Edit, Share, Delete, Duplicate, Loan and Link with Core).
Improved Cover View and Card View
At the same time, we made some small tweaks to both the Card View and Cover View, so that they’re making better use of your specific screen width. Both now use a “fully justified” layout, with the Cards auto-resizing to fit your screen width and the Cover distributing over the width, both resulting in a cleaner, less “jagged” view.