What's new in Comic Collector for Windows? (page 6)

Fixed:

• Edit Comic: Edit/Add Story would throw an “Ancestor for ‘cxTreeStyleRepository’ not found” error

Fixed:

• Starting program in Cover Flow or switching to it was very slow
• Main Screen: Cards View: selection wasn’t always restored properly
• Update File Links: Story front cover paths were not updated properly
• Quick search:
  • Pasting text into quick search box didn’t show the clear button
  • Escape button will now clear quick search when quick search is selected.

Fixed:

• Update from Core: Preview Art was not downloaded even when update option was set to “replace current data”.
• Add Automatically: fixed a few bugs regarding fetching and showing Pull List issues.
• Update File Links: Story front cover paths were not validated.

New view for the main screen: Card View

Next to List View, Images View and Cover Flow, we have added a Card View, a multi-column view with little info cards for each comic, showing the main issue details and a small cover thumbnail.

Fixed:

• Add Comics Automatically:
  • expanding series on Pull List tab would sometimes retrieve too many issues
  • issue dates weren’t always showing on Pull List tab
  • right click menu didn’t popup when there were no results showing
• Carbon + Quicksilver templates: series image didn’t scale down to correct size
• Quicksilver template didn’t show the issue numbers for trade paper backs
• Linking comics: updating an unlinked comic would not update it from Core after linking it

Fixed:

• Loading of backup.xml is now more robust

Fixed:

• Improved Webcam functionality for Webcam Barcode scanning:
  • Sometimes starting the webcam feature would hang the program
  • Some webcams didn’t show any video
  • A JPEG error could be thrown for some webcams
• Add Automatically: when you didn’t want to move an issue from your wish list into your collection, it wasn’t possible.

Find Image Online tool now uses Bing Image Search

The Find Image Online tool previously used Google Images to find images.

However, it turns out that on December 1, Google terminated the free Google Image Search API
that we were using, causing our Find Image Online functionality to stop working.

Google provides a new paid version of the Search API, but it is limited to max 10K searches per day.
With the amount of customers we have, we need at least 20K daily searches (600K per month!) 🙁

The solution: Switch to BING!

Microsoft also offers a paid Bing Image Search API and this one has no limits.
Or, to be more precise, they let us pay more for higher limits.

We immediately went to work and updated all our Windows and Mac programs
to use Bing Images for the Find Image Online tool instead.
Obviously, this generates considerable extra monthly costs (well over US $1,000),
but we have decided that we will NOT pass on these extra costs to our customers.

So here it is: the new Find Image Online, powered by Bing. Enjoy!

Fixed:

• Freezes at start up for some users, caused by the webcam detection.

Fixed:

• Access Violation when starting the program after a fresh installation.
• Access Violation when closing the program.

Fixed:

• Delete Orphan Images tools didn’t account for images linked in the Links / Local Files tab.
• Delete Orphan Images tools didn’t account for cover images linked at the Story level.

Webcam barcode scanning

Use your webcam as a barcode scanner, to add or find comics by barcode.

• Scan barcodes with your webcam
  Just use the live camera view to point your webcam at a barcode
  and let our software detect the barcode that is in view.
• Use the webcam scanner to add comics by barcode
  Pop-up the scan window and scan comic barcodes,
  either using Direct Search or scanning into the Queue.
• Or use it in the main screen to find movies by barcode
  Scan a comic barcode while in the main screen,
  to quickly search your local database by barcode.
• Works best with auto-focus or manual-focus webcams
  Fixed focus cameras will not work well (or at all).

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