What's new in CLZ Music?

Here’s my second “v9 feature hilite” email, about another area of improvement in last week’s CLZ Music v9 release.

(tip: if you missed yesterday’s feature hilite #1 about the collection tab-bar, you can read it here).

Today, we are going to discuss the various improvements we implemented for the Add Albums screen:

Quick “Confirm” pop-ups, instead of full screen Preview pages
Search results now also show the number of discs, making it easier to spot multi-disc album entries
Improved process of combining discs into a multi-disc album
Adding by Barcode: Faster camera scanner for scanning barcodes

Last week’s CLZ Music 9.0 update was a big one, with 3 areas of improvement. To make sure you did not miss any of the new stuff, I am going to do three “v9 feature hilite” emails this week, each one highlighting one of the big improvements.

Today’s “v9 feature hilite” is about all the new collections tab-bar.

Read more

A big update v9.0 update for your CLZ Music app today, with many new features and improvements!

Here’s the full list of What’s New:

New collections tab-bar: easily switch between collections using tabs at the bottom
Improved Add Albums screen:
- Quick “Confirm” pop-ups, instead of full screen Preview pages
- Search results now also show the number of discs, making it easier to spot multi-disc album entries
- Improved process of combining discs into a multi-disc album
- Adding by Barcode: Faster camera scanner for scanning barcodes
New: tap a person name in details to show all your albums with that person

What’s New:

New “Delete CLZ Account” option in Settings

settings

What’s new:

Added a new “Remove all unused pick list entries” option in the maintenance menu, to remove all unused pick list entries in one go

manage pick lists

Changed:

For new users: no more Demo Mode

Fixed on iOS:

Edit screen: Picking something from a pick list: The search could mess up your choice
The sync button could show on details view

Fixed on Android:

Merging/deleting instruments was not working correctly
Removing Storage Devices did not work

demo mode edit merge

A build full of fixes for bugs reported by you. Thanks to everyone who reported these bugs!

Fixed:

Unreliable search results after editing or merging pick list items
Now remembers scroll position better when hitting “back” from an item
Adding a new pick list item with an apostrophe, would wrongly trigger an “Already exists” warning
Edit screen: Picking a pick list item after tapping next/previous could crash the app
Edit screen: For some fields the selected pick list item would be added twice
Adding a box set via the Edit Screen could crash the app
Default instrument was missing when adding musicians

box sets edit manage pick lists navigation

A build full of fixes for bugs reported by you. Thanks to everyone who reported these bugs!

Fixed:

Unreliable search results after editing or merging pick list items
Edit Multiple: Some fields were turning orange once typed in
Merge mode in pick lists would not remember selection when using the search in the list
Typing a comma in price/value fields wasn’t always working
Editing a pick list item could give a wrong “Already in List” error
Multi-level folders: when filtering inside a folder the search text would clear after typing a space
Multi-level folders: When you searched an item and picked one from the suggestions dropdown, it would bring you inside the folder, instead of directly to the item
Editing an item could send you to a different folder than you were in

edit multiple manage pick lists multilevel folders

A lot of the questions we get about CLZ Music can usually be answered with:

“Just use Manage Pick Lists”

Renaming locations, Merging duplicate artists, fixing artist sort problems, fixing typos in labels, etc… it is all done in the Manage Pick Lists screen. An important and powerful screen, but… not so easy to find if you don’t know where to look or don’t even know what to look for.

With this update, we are trying to fix all that. We have made the screen much more accessible / discoverable AND we have made several improvements to the MPL screen itself.

Read more

key manage pick lists

This update is all about the Pre-fill screen, you know, the screen that appears when adding items and lets you pre-fill fields while adding, like Location, Owner, Purchase Date/Store/Price, etc…

This Pre-fill screen was introduced in Jan 2021, with a fixed set of fields. Then a year later, in Jan 2022, it was made completely user configurable, so that *you* could choose which fields appeared on the screen.

This screen turned out to be a popular tool, but we’ve seen one problem with it:
Sometimes, users pre-fill a field for a specific album (e.g. Purchase Price or Quantity), then forget to CLEAR it for the next albums they add. Causing lots of albums to be added with that same field set incorrectly.

So today, we are making another tweak to the Pre-fill screen:

The Pre-fill screen now highlights filled fields in orange, so that they stand out more.
Also, we added a “Clear” button, to quickly clear all Pre-fill fields.

Fixed

iOS: iPad: Year folders: the wrong year folder could be selected sometimes.

key pre-fill

New:

Added in-app getting started tips for new users (tap “dismiss” to dismiss)

tips

New:

Added in-app getting started tips for new users (tap “dismiss” to dismiss)

tips

Fixed:

Fixed: adding items did not work for users that were not logged in

clz account

In this update, we try to tackle a problem that we often see in our support system:

Users changing phones without updating their CLZ Cloud first. Or even worse, without even having a CLZ Account yet.
Which of course cause data loss (and a lot of sadness).

So in this version, we are trying to create more awareness of:

The importance of creating a CLZ Account, so that you can Sync with CLZ Cloud.
The importance of keeping your CLZ Cloud up-to-date by actually Syncing with CLZ Cloud.

New Sync button in main screen

When not in sync with CLZ Cloud, a new Sync button will appear on the main screen, above the Add button. This way you will always know if there are still items to sync up to CLZ Cloud or down from CLZ Cloud (even when you use auto-sync).

(Don’t like this button? In the Settings screen, switch OFF the setting that says “Show on-screen sync button”)

New “Sync with Cloud!” bar when not logged in

When using the app while not logged in to a CLZ Account, a new bar will appear at the bottom of the main screen that says “Sync to CLZ Cloud for an online backup”.
Hopefully that will help prevent future data loss.

(Don’t like this bar? In the Settings screen, switch OFF the setting that says “Show backup suggestion bar”)

New 5-album “Demo Mode” for new users

For new users who just downloaded the app, we introduced a new “Demo Mode” that lets you add 5 albums before committing to the actual 7-day free trial subscription.

Fixed on Android:

Edit Comic: When you’ve edited something, and you tapped “Next”, it would skip an item.

cloud demo mode key sync

Fixed:

Adding: the app could crash while adding an album

adding albums

Fixed:

When using multi-level folders, the folder panel search text would sometimes copy over to the next folder (and not be remembered when going back)
After syncing, the main screen did not always refresh
A crash could occur when entering Selection Mode in Card View if no cards were available
A crash could occur when selecting folders
When switching between collection statuses while in multi-level folders, the app could show a wrong selection of items
The app crashed on devices with iOS13
iPad: The folder panel search did not have an “X” to clear the search

card view folders multilevel folders syncing

Improved:

Add Screen: Loading details panel of a result feels a bit faster now

Fixed:

Shake to Shuffle could cause a crash in some cases
Opening an item, swiping to the next, then edit “in-details-panel” would reset the details to the first item
Backdrops could still show behind the list when switched off in Settings
Add Screen: Scanning a barcode: When the device was rotated, the barcode scanner could stop working
Multi-level folders: When using the “Show sort names” feature, the breadcrumb at the top could show strange sort names for certain folders

adding details panel multilevel folders shake to shuffle

Fixed:

Card View: titles were sometimes displayed wrong.
Folders: The search filter in “Create new favorite” wasn’t working correctly.
Fixed a couple of folder labels that were displayed wrongly at the top.
iPad: The folder panel could jump to the top if a folder was selected from the bottom.
iPad: made the switching between folders appear more smooth.
iPad: breadcrumb wasn’t always displayed correctly when backing out of a folder.

breadcrumb card view folders

A huge update for your CLZ Music mobile app today, which introduces a powerful feature for browsing and filtering your music collection: using multiple levels of folders.

Previously, it was only possible to use one level, so either Artist folders OR Format folders OR Genre folders OR Location folders, etc… But starting with this version, you can use nested folders, so for instance, use Genre folders, then within each genre folder have Artist folders.

Read more

folders key multi-level

New:

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 Album: when scanning a barcode or adding by Cat. No., and then add manually, the barcode or Cat. No. is now filled in
Details page of album wasn’t always updating correctly when editing “in template”

adding albums search