News & updates (Newsletter) (page 4)
This is the CLZ Newsletter for November 2018, by CLZ Alwin.
Currently, most of the CLZ team is preparing for the upcoming v19 desktop releases and the related Cloud, Connect and mobile changes.
So for today’s newsletter, I’d like to focus on the new v19 features and specifically, the two CLZ Cloud Sync improvements that will be a big step forward for all our software editions, including the mobile and Connect apps.
- Coming up soon!
- Version 19 for Windows and macOS
- Cloud-syncing of multiple collections
- Automatic Cloud-syncing of your own “custom” cover images
- CLZ mobile apps:
- New app icons!
- Don’t own the CLZ mobile app(s) yet? Get them today!
- “Connect” web-based software:
- New: Next/Previous buttons in the Edit screens
- New: quick search box in the Folder Panel
- Folders: more options and now grouped into categories
This is CLZ Alwin, with a summary of all Oct 2018 news.
But first, thank you all for all the birthday wishes and for the amazing CLZ Stories that we received from you all (over 250!). My wife Sytske and I (and the rest of the team) really enjoyed reading them. The 50 winners of the CLZ Merch Pack should have received their package by now, congrats to you!
Read all the CLZ Stories at the Trustpilot site here.
Wanna send me your own CLZ Story? Send it through the CLZ Help Center here.
All of today’s topics:
- “Collector” downloadable desktop software:
- Comic Collector for macOS: Updated “Add Comics from CLZ Core” screen
- Good progress on the upcoming v19 versions, for Windows & macOS
- “Connect” web-based software:
- Customize your software with four Skin choices!
- Comic Connect: New for the Add Comics screen: Pull List
- Movie Connect: Add Box Sets as a single database entry
- Other Connect enhancements (folders / alphabet bars)
- Reminder: Switch from Collector to Connect, with our trade-in offer!
- “CLZ” mobile apps:
- Coming up for CLZ Movies: Add Box Sets as a single database entry
- Coming up for all CLZ mobile apps: new app icons!
- Don’t own the CLZ mobile app(s) yet? Get them today!
CLZ Alwin here, with a September Newsletter filled with updates about our “Collector” desktop editions for Windows and macOS, including the first news about the upcoming version 19!
All of today’s topics:
- Book/Music Collector for macOS: Improved Add from Core screens
- All Windows editions: Improved stability + better Find Cover tool
- All Windows/Mac editions: Version 19 is coming soon!
- CLZ apps for Android: Easier to find Folder and Sort options
- FIVE (!!) extra CLZ servers = no more daily backup slowness!
- Connect: new customization settings, Dark/Light Skin selection coming up
- Reminder: Switch from Collector to Connect, or vice versa, with our trade-in offer
An action-packed CLZ Newsletter again, for this August 2018. Nice progress in all 3 flavours of cataloging tools: mobile, web and desktop.
The topics today:
- All music tools: More fields now sync to/from CLZ Cloud
(and are now editable in CLZ Music and Music Connect)! - Movie Collector for macOS: Box-sets, improved Add screen, Movies vs TV Series
- Book Collector/Connect/CLZ Books: Success rate for ISBN searches now 97%! (was 90%)
- CLZ apps for iOS: Easier to find Folder and Sort options
- All Connect editions: Image and Card Views now sharper, smoother, faster
- Collector or Connect? Desktop or Web-based?
Let me help you choose. Wanna switch? Check my trade-in offer!
July was the hottest month ever here in Amsterdam, and the heat wave is continuing this week. Despite the heat, and vacations for several people, the CLZ team is still getting some work done. Here’s this month’s results:
- CLZ Movies 4.12 : Automatically add multi-movie box-sets
- Secure HTTPS connections, for your security and privacy
- Updates to the Connect web-based editions:
- Details panel now integrated in main collection view!
- Improved Cover View and Card View
- Movie/Comic Connect: search box now searches more fields
- Add Movies using the new Most Popular and New Releases tabs
This June 2018 newsletter is all about the extra fields that we added to the movie, comic and music editions of Connect, the CLZ Cloud syncing and the CLZ mobile apps, all based on your requests and suggestions in the past few years.
But first, a quick reminder of this week’s CLZ Summer Sale (3 days left!):
CLZ Summer Sale: Pre-pay for 1 year and get 6 extra months free!
This week only, for all Update Plans and Connect subscriptions:
Pre-pay for 1 year and get 6 extra months free!
LOGIN to the Summer Sale page here
More fields for Cloud, Connect and CLZ mobile apps
For many years, the CLZ Cloud has been at the center of all our cataloging solutions. Starting out basic, with most of the details shared from our Core, but through time enhanced with more and more cloud fields, so that you can sync your own data between desktop, mobile and Connect.
Adding new fields to the CLZ Cloud is a *lot* of work, as it requires changes to the cloud storage itself, to the Connect web-apps and to the syncing system. Then when that’s done, all desktop programs and mobile apps need to updated to support the new sync fields. Quite a project, involving *all* CLZ developers.
To make this as efficient as possible, we usually bundle the field additions, doing all requested fields in one go. Last year, the CLZ Clouds for books and games have received a big upgrade with extra fields, plus we added track list syncing to the music cloud.
Now it is time to add a lot of fields to the movie, comic and music editions:
New fields for movie cloud:
- Is TV Series (yes/no)
- Release Date
- Runtime
- Audience Rating
- Region
- Studio
- Distributor
- IMDb Number
- IMDb Rating
- Box Set
All of the above fields are now fully editable in Movie Connect, fully editable in CLZ Movies and now sync your own data between Movie Collector, CLZ Movies and Movie Connect. Of course this requires the latest versions of Movie Collector and CLZ Movies.
New fields for comic cloud:
- Edition
- Crossover
- Story Arc
- Imprint
- Age
- Cover Price
- Cover Date
All of the above fields are now fully editable in Comic Connect, fully editable in CLZ Comics and now sync your own data between Comic Collector, CLZ Comics and Comic Connect. Of course this requires the latest versions of Comic Collector and CLZ Comics.
New fields for music cloud:
- Original Release Date
- Packaging
- Media Condition
- Vinyl Color
- Vinyl Weight
- RPM
- Disc Titles
- Composer Sort Names
All of the above fields are now fully editable in Music Connect.
Updates to support the new fields are coming up for all Windows, Mac, iOS and Android editions, within 4 weeks.
New in Connect: selection checkboxes and action bar
A cool user interface update for the Connect software, in which we makes it easier to select items and easier to perform batch actions on the selected items.
Select using checkboxes
To select items, just click the checkboxes on the left of each entry in the list. Checkboxes are also available in Card View and Images View, just hover your mouse over an item.
No more need to go into “Select Mode” first. The Select Mode is automatically activated as soon as you checkbox the first movie, clearly indicated by the blue Batch Action Bar that replace the regular toolbar.
Batch Action Bar
While in Select Mode, the blue Batch Action Bar appears, always showing you the number of selected entries. Also:
- Use the “Select all” checkbox to select all entries in the current list in one go
- Use the “x Cancel” button on the right to leave Select Mode
- And of course, use any of the action buttons (Edit, Delete, Print, Export, Duplicate and Loan) to perform an action on the selected items
New in Movie Connect: Automatically add multi-movie box-sets
Yes, this time-saving tool finally made it to the Connect edition!
See it in action:
Just use the enhanced Add Movies screen to find a box set, either by title or by barcode, and our Core immediately shows which movies are in the box. Click Add to Collection at the bottom right and all contained movies will be added to your database, automatically linked by a box set entry.
Enjoy!
We’re picking up steam! We have released over 30 updates this month, for the Connect editions, for Windows, for macOS, for iOS and for Android. Let me (CLZ Alwin) give you an overview of all releases in this May 2018 newsletter.
Our software updates in May 2018:
- for Connect:
- Loan Management features
- Comic Connect: more editable fields
- Movie Connect: more editable fields
- More import tools
- for Windows:
- Full support for High DPI screens
- New Selection Checkboxes and Action Bars
- for macOS:
- Secure HTTPS connections, for your security and privacy
- Comic Collector: sync more fields
- for iOS and Android:
- Bigger Add button + now remembers Collection/WishList selection
This Friday, May 25, the new GDPR law (General Data Protection Regulation) goes into effect. The new law regulates how companies must deal with personal information of individuals.
At Collectorz.com we have been working hard to improve our software and services, to make them more secure, to better protect your privacy and to be fully GDPR compliant.
These are the most important changes we have implemented in the past few months:
Read more
It’s the last day of April, so this is the April 2018 CLZ Newsletter.
Never a dull moment at the CLZ HQ. This month a large part of the CLZ team has been working on big projects that bring NO new features or improvements whatsoever. Instead these projects just serve to keep our software and services compatible with the ever changing world around it:
- First, there was Apple suddenly forcing us to create 64-bit versions of our macOS editions.
- Then, a lot of work went into the Windows updates that were necessary to fully support the High DPI screens that are very common nowadays.
- And finally, like most companies, we are implementing several privacy and security related changes, to be able to comply with the upcoming new GDPR law.
Not exactly what we would like to be doing, but hey, this is what the Update Plans are for: your guarantee that we deal with everything the world throws at us 🙂
Our software updates in April 2018:
- V18.1 for macOS: 64-bit versions!
- Music Collector 18.1 for Windows:
Full support for High DPI screens / Several tweaks for Add Albums screen - All iOS apps: New sorting options
- Connect : Add screens are now pop-up screens and remember barcode queues.
- Coming up: more Cloud/Connect/Sync fields for comics and movies!
CLZ Alwin here, with your March 2018 CLZ News.
Let’s start with the biggest news: we hired two new web-developers: Joel and Stijn!
Which has increased the size of the CLZ Team to 12 people! Me (Alwin) running the place, my wife Sytske on Support, AJ doing Support, UI design and testing, Martin and Rowdy on Core, Ronald on Mac, Joe on Windows, Pim on iOS/Android and finally, Robbert, Sven, Joel and Stijn on Connect.
With 4 guys working on Connect, you can expect lots of progress there, with new features, more fields and many UI improvements. (Haven’t tried Connect yet? Just login at my.clz.com and use the Trial button there.)
Our software updates in March 2018:
- V18 for macOS: Auto-Cloud-Syncing + Performance improvements!
- Android apps: New sorting options
- Connect web-based editions:
- Redesigned screens for selecting Columns and Sort Order
- Movie Connect: group movies into Actor or Producer folders
- Many import tools coming up. Now live: “Import from Discogs”
- Coming up for Windows: full “DPI Awareness”
Alwin here, with your monthly dose of CLZ News.
This month, with our Windows/Mac developer Ronald on vacation, the focus has been on both the mobile apps and the Connect web-based versions. Don’t worry, next month there will be macOS and Windows news again 🙂
For now, this is what happened in February:
- Core for Music: Better and Faster results when adding by Artist/Title
- iOS: Improved search, with Search-As-You-Type & more search fields
- Connect web-based editions:
- Re-designed Edit screens
- Music Connect: New Add Albums screen
- Game+Book Connect: Easily add items that come up as “Unrecognized Barcode/ISBN”
- Game+Book Connect: Search box now searches more fields
This year, the CLZ Team hit the ground running. Many updates were released, in quick succession. If you are following our Collectorz.com Facebook page you’ve probably seen the news go by as we launched, but here’s your action-packed monthly summary:
- Connect web-based editions:
- New Add screens for Book-, Game-, and Comic Connect
- Faster collection browsing (also in the free CLZ Cloud viewer!)
- Book Connect Add screen: Single Search Box for Author/Title searches
- Coming up: new Edit screens / details panel in main screen
- Windows editions:
- Various tweaks and fixes for the V18 versions
- Book Collector Add Screen: Single Search Box for Author/Title searches
- Fixed: various layout problems on “125% DPI/Font Size” systems
- Mobile apps:
- iOS: Automatic CLZ Cloud Syncing
- Android: Improved search: Search-As-You-Type / more search fields
- Coming up: More sorting options
This is Alwin, with the final CLZ Newsletter for 2017. December is always a busy month here at the CLZ HQ, but this December was particularly crazy, with all the v18 for Windows releases.
Our support guys and gal have been handling over 100 support requests every day since early December. Add to that this week’s Connect updates plus a Year End Sale and we’re up to 150 tickets each day 🙂
But no worries, it’s not just all work and no play 🙂 On December 23, the entire CLZ Team and their families visited the local Dutch theme park “De Efteling”! We had a great day, with cool rides, great food and a lot of laughter.
More pictures of the CLZ Family here.
Our newsletter topics for December 2017:
- Now live: version 18 for all Windows editions
- Now live: a new look for all Connect editions
- Now live: a new Add Movies screen in Movie Connect
- Year-End-Sale: Get Connect for 1 year, get 6 extra months free
- Coming up: Auto-Cloud-Syncing for all iOS and macOS editions
On Saturday December 23, the entire CLZ Team and their families visited the local Dutch theme park “De Efteling”! We had a great day, with cool rides, great good and a lot of laughter.
2018 is coming closer, which means: version 18 is coming up! First, for the Windows editions (early December), then for all Mac editions (early January). For both, the main attraction will be: Automatic CLZ Cloud syncing! Full details below.
The topics of this November 2017 CLZ Newsletter:
- Coming up: Automatic CLZ Cloud syncing
- Coming up: version 18 for all Windows editions
- Now live: updates for all mobile apps, with several Add screen improvements
This is CLZ Alwin, with your October 2017 CLZ news.
2018 is getting closer, so work has started on v18 for Windows (v18 for Mac will follow in 2018). Next to that, regular updates for all mobile apps and continuous improvements for the Connect editions:
- Movie Collector 17.2 for Windows: Automatically add multi-movie box-sets
- All 5 iOS apps: new “Selection Mode”, for easy batch removing and updating
- Connect and CLZ Cloud: Re-designs of all detail pages
- Connect and CLZ Cloud: improved search, plus Search-As-You-Type suggestions
- What’s cooking at the CLZ HQ?
Welcome to the September 2017 edition of the Collectorz.com Newsletter. In this issue, an overview of the September releases and some behind-the-scenes insights into our current projects.
Released in September:
- All Mac editions: now compatible with macOS 10.13 “High Sierra”
- CLZ Games (iOS/Android): download game values from PriceCharting.com
- All Connect apps: Manage Pick Lists, edit, merge and remove pick list entries
- Movie Connect/Cloud: Improved search results, plus Search-As-You-Type suggestions
Current projects:
- Movie Collector for Windows: better support for multi-movie box-sets
- iOS apps: new “Selection Mode”, for easier batch removing/updating
- Connect: Redesigns of all detail pages and Add from Core screens
CLZ Alwin here, with the CLZ News for August 2017. Today I wanna start with news about our CLZ Shop that may save you quite a bit of money.
You see, we are now offering various new discounts, that is, volume discounts for buying multiple similar products (e.g. on 3 mobile apps) and bundle discounts for buying multiple products within the same group (e.g. Movie Collector plus CLZ Movies).
For the loyal users of our desktop software, the most interesting change may very well be that we now offer discounts on renewing multiple Update Plans in one go:
- Buy two 1-year Update Plans in one go: US $8.00 off
- Buy three 1-year Update Plans in one go: US $18.15 off
- Buy four 1-year Update Plans in one go: US $29.20 off
- Buy five 1-year Update Plans in one go: US $40.75 off
Explore the various discounts and create your own CLZ bundle here.
In other news:
- Comic Collector for Windows: A completely new Add Comics from Core screen
- CLZ Games (iOS/Android): more editable fields, plus new Loose/CIB/New field
- Connnect: Revised Edit Multiple screen, now allowing the clearing of fields.
Summer has arrived, even in Amsterdam. But even though part of the CLZ team was, is or will be on vacation, we’re keeping up a steady stream of releases, on desktop, mobile and web:
- Music Collector for Windows: A completely new Add Albums from Core screen
- Book Collector (PC/Mac): Sync your loan info to CLZ Cloud and Connect
- Book Connect: Loan Manager / Improved Author sorting
- CLZ mobile apps (iOS/Android): lots of small tweaks
[CLZ News] Two v17.1 for Windows releases, plus many improvements for Connect
Alwin here, with the CLZ Newsletter for June 2017. With news about two big updates for the Windows editions of Book- and Game Collector and many improvements for the Connect editions.
But there’s a lot more going on at the CLZ HQ. Read all about that in the 3rd topic of this newsletter, a What’s Cooking overview. Enjoy!
- New Add from Core screen now live in Book and Game Collector 17.1.
- Further improvements to Connect and the free CLZ Cloud viewer
- What’s Cooking & Coming Up?
CLZ Alwin here, with an action-filled May 2017 Newsletter.
Lots of new releases and big ones too! Here we go:
- Movie Collector v17.1 for Windows: A completely new Add Movies screen
- v4.5 for all 5 CLZ Android apps, with improved Add screens
- Major progress for all 5 Connect editions
- The CLZ Barry barcode scanner app is now free! (was US $10)
April 27 is King’s Day in the Netherlands and a national holiday. With the CLZ office closed, this gives me, Alwin, the time to write this month’s CLZ Newsletter.
Two main events this April:
- Five huge v4.5 updates for the CLZ apps for iPhone & iPad:
All 5 have received a huge make-over, with a fresh new look that is cleaner and brighter, plus Light and Dark Skin options. - Game Collector v17.1, with several improvements for serious collectors:
A new Loose/CIB/New field, automatic PriceCharting price updates and 10 more fields being synced to the CLZ Cloud.
(BTW: the updates for the Add screens of the Android apps are still a work in progress. This project got delayed because our Android developer Pim had to do some emergency assistance on other projects. But, almost done now, ETA within 2 weeks.)
CLZ Alwin here, with the March 2017 edition of the CLZ newsletter.
Of course, the main event this month was the launch of the new www.collectorz.com website. But there was more, and even more coming up (as always):
The topics today:
- Live: Version 17 for all Mac editions.
- Live: Enhanced search-as-you-type suggestions for all v17s (Win+Mac).
- Live: Flexible Import from Text and local Backup/Restore tools for Connect.
- Coming up: Game Collector 17.1 with Loose/CIB/New field and price updates.
- Coming up: v4.4 for iOS: with a new user interface, plus Light and Dark Skin options.
- Coming up: v4.4 for Android: several Add screen improvements.
This is CLZ Alwin, with an extra edition of the CLZ Newsletter.
Today, I am proud to announce that our new Collectorz.com website is LIVE!
CLZ Alwin here, with the final 2016 edition of the Collectorz.com newsletter. I have 3 news topics for you today:
- New Collectorz.com Help Center at Help.CLZ.com.
- New “Unrecognized Barcode” tools are a huge success!
- New iOS Add screens now live for CLZ Music and CLZ Games.