What's new in Book Collector? 2018

Stability

We have fixed various stability issues in the program to get rid of some more access violation errors that were happening for a couple of users. We also fixed a problem where “File > Open Database” didn’t refresh the main screen to show the opened file.

• Got rid of some Access Violation errors
• “File / Open database” could show an empty screen

32-bit and 64-bit option

We’ve found that when running our program in 64-bit mode, some 3rd party external devices will not work or talk to the program such as:

• TWAIN image scanners
• Some barcode scanners
• Webcams (for barcode scanning)

If you run into issues where you your TWAIN image scanner, or your barcode scanner won’t connect or work, this is usually caused by the drivers of these devices which are not 64-bit compatible, and thus can’t talk to your Collectorz program.

We’re trying to look for a way to make them talk to the 64-bit version, but for now, to work around this, redownload the software from your CLZ Account page and during installation choose to install the 32-bit version!

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:

Read more

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

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)

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:

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.

We fixed an issue in two panel mode where, on start-up, the items in your database sometimes wouldn’t show up correctly.

Fixes:

• Several Access Violation errors in the main screen.
• List View: Double clicking on checks would make list unresponsive.
• Edit Screen: Using Next/Prev would cause strange effects with checkboxes in main screen.
• Main Screen: The width of the columns wasn’t remembered correctly sometimes.

As indicated in last week’s GDPR email, we are updating our software and services, to be more secure and to better protect your privacy.

Starting with version 18.2, 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 18.2.

Book Collector offers powerful batch commands, for performing actions on multiple books in one go, e.g. editing, removing or updating from Core.
However, we are finding that many users have never use these these batch actions, either because they are not aware of their existence or because they don’t know how to actually select multiple books (by Shift or Ctrl-clicking).

In today’s update we addressed these issues:

New Selection Checkboxes in the List View, for easy selection of multiple books

The List View now features checkboxes on the left. Use the checkboxes to easily select multiple books, no Shift or Ctrl-clicking needed. Of course the classic Shift/Ctrl-clicking still works too, this is just an extra method.

Don’t need the checkboxes? You can hide them using Tools / Options / Customization.

A new Action Bar with batch actions

As soon as multiple books are selected (that is, more than 1), a new Action Bar appears above the list. It shows how many are selected, plus offers buttons for the most popular batch actions.

Also new: Action Bar above Details Panel

At the same time, we also added a new Action Bar above the details panel, for quick access to commands operating on the selected book.

TIP: The commands in this new Action Bar have been removed from the main toolbar, to make that one a bit cleaner. However, if you are upgrading from an older version, it will remember your toolbar. To get the new clean main toolbar, choose View / Toolbars / Reset.

Don’t need or want this new bar? You can hide it using Tools / Options / Customization.

With super hi-res 4K (or even 5K) screens becoming quite common, more and more people are running Windows with the Font Size (DPI scaling) set to 125% or 150%, to keep text readable. So earlier this year, we released maintenance builds for all Windows editions to fix various layout problems when running Windows with “large fonts”.

Today, with version 18.2 we’re taking the next step: Book Collector is now fully “DPI Aware”. Starting with this version, if you have increased your font size in Windows, all screen texts will look sharper, less fuzzy, making full use of your hi-res screen.

To give you an idea, here are 2 close-up screenshots of what it looked like in the old version versus the new version:

Old version:

New version:

New collection status icons

We added new collection status icons to the main screen’s list view and card view to make the screen less clogged up and easier on the eye.

Fixed:

• Edit Book:
  • Index field didn’t have localized or custom caption
  • Clicking next or previous could create a second + button in the User Defined Fields tab
• Templates:
  • Fixed an issue where the template could become “white” if arrow keys were used on the keyboard.
  • Clicking an image would show a drag/drop menu. The image now opens properly.
• Quick Search: Fixed normalization for quick searches so words with umlauts/accents etc. are now easier to be found.
• Fixed a problem with folder paths for users that have their Documents folder rooted to an external drive (program wouldn’t install properly).
• Link Screen could show “Link Selected” button even if there were no matches.
• Manage Column presets:
  • Clicking in certain parts of the screen could cause Access Violations.
  • Clicking the Edit menu could break the focus in the screen.
• Light Skin: Better visibility for selected items in your lists.
• User Defined Fields: It was possible to create invisible User Defined Fields which would then never show up in the edit screen.
• Add Screen: Scrollbar position wouldn’t update sometimes.

Never a dull moment at the CLZ HQ… Here we were, working on nice improvements for our software, when suddenly… the guys at Apple had a brainwave: In their ultimate wisdom, they decided to start phasing out 32-bit applications.

Since April 12, users of macOS High Sierra are getting a “not optimized for your Mac” warning when they start a 32-bit application. Which includes the Book Collector software for macOS 🙁

On top of that, Apple have already stopped allowing 32-bit applications in their App Store and rumours are that they may even stop supporting 32-bit applications in a future version of macOS, requiring every application to be 64-bit!

Of course, we were already aware that Apple would be going this route some day; the rumours have been around for quite a while. So we had already been working on a 64-bit version of our software, as a “back-burner project”.

But the introduction of last week’s “not optimized” warnings suddenly made this a high-priority project. So… we dropped everything we were doing and finalized our 64-bit project. And I am happy to report:

A fully 64-bit v18.1 version of Book Collector is available now!

Not exactly what we were planning to do this month, but hey, this is what the Update Plans are for: your guarantee that we deal with everything the world throws at us 🙂

Fixed:

• Sync with CLZ Cloud:
  • Sometimes the “Local changes to be uploaded” counter didn’t show the correct number.
  • When a cover could not be downloaded during down syncing it would stop and not continue. Now it will continue and show a report of any possible errors that have occurred.
  • Sometimes covers weren’t uploaded when they should have.
  • The error: “This database is different from the one in CLZ Cloud” would show up in rare cases when it shouldn’t.
• Main Screen:
  • There were still some cases where “follow edited item” option was not working.
  • Folder grouping on a credit role would show folders for all credit roles instead of just the one selected.
• Add Books from CLZ Core: adding a book via the “Missing Barcode” popup would not set the “Last Modified” date.

Fixed:

• Main screen:
  • “None” folder for user defined fields didn’t display.
  • Main screen could freeze in some cases when folder grouping on a user defined field.
• Auto sync could crash the program in some cases.

Version 18 is finally here! And it not only bring the promised Auto-Cloud-Syncing, but also many improvements to the main screen, making it both faster and more stable.

NEW: Fully Automatic CLZ Cloud Syncing!

The free CLZ Cloud service is at the center of all our cataloging solutions (desktop, mobile and web), the glue that binds them all together.
Tens of thousands of users are using the CLZ Cloud syncing every day, to transfer data between their desktop, Connect and mobile software, to update their online collection list, or simply for keeping an online backup of their precious database.

Now, it is time to take the CLZ Cloud to the next level, with automatic syncing:
Add or edit books in Book Collector and these changes will auto-upload to the CLZ Cloud instantly. Did you make changes using the CLZ Books mobile app or directly in Book Connect? Just start your software and changes will download automatically.
No more need to go to the Sync with CLZ Cloud screen, ever.

With “Sync Automatically” switched on…

1. Your online cloud backup is always up-to-date.
2. Your cloud viewer always shows the current state of your collection.
3. All your CLZ tools (desktop, mobile and Connect) will always be in-sync.

Automatic Cloud Syncing is an optional feature, switched OFF by default. If you don’t want to auto-sync, or don’t want to sync with the CLZ Cloud at all, just leave it switched OFF.

Main screen now faster and more stable

In the past few months, we have spent a lot of time rewriting important parts of the main screen. For instance, the code that refreshes the folder panel (which was slow, especially with the “counters” switched on) and also the part that restores your selection in the list after editing. At the same time, we reduced the program’s “memory footprint”, making it more stable overall.

The result is that the program is now a lot more enjoyable to use. It starts quicker, it refreshes much faster (after adding or editing) and switching between folder types is quicker.

The speed-up will be most noticeable on large collections, with thousands of books. Especially when having LOTS of folders in the folder panel (e.g. Author folders).

Fixes

• Cloud syncing:
  • After duplicating a book, the duplicate would not be marked for syncing to cloud.
  • In some situations, a down-sync could update empty fields with data from Core.
  • In some situations, cover images would not upload automatically.
• Main screen:
  • After editing, the edited items would not be selected after refresh.

Fixed:

• Edit Multiple Books:
  • it wasn’t possible to set “Read It” to Yes
  • boolean radiogroups (Yes/No) were placed too high in Light Skin
  • Link Books with CLZ Core: searches were not using the author
• Main Screen:
  • using CTRL to deselect items would not update the selected counter at the left bottom
  • showing/hiding the quick filter panel would expose the details view when it was closed
  • when the details view image popup was scrolled down, opening it again would scroll down again
  • quick search suggestions: selecting a suggestion would not clear the previous quick search
  • selecting the window’s “restore” option when running full screen could hang the program in some cases
  • refresh of the statistics view could fall back to the currently active folder instead of selected statistics field
• User Defined Fields: fields with an ampersand (‘&’) in their name weren’t always displayed correctly throughout the program
• Edit Book: clicking OK while uploading cover would cause a crash. Buttons are disabled now during upload.
• Clicking OK/Next/Previous in an edit pick list item screen without editing its details would trigger unnecessary cloud changes
• Using “search” in some file open dialogs for images wouldn’t find .png files
• Syncing with CLZ Cloud: locally inserted items would update empty fields with Core fields after syncing

Our web-team has been working on this for a long time: a new search engine for Author/Title searches in our Core online book database.

And it is now available in your “Add Books from Core” screen!

What’s new?

• Faster searches: Most Author/Title searches will give you results within a second. UNLESS our Core server decides to consult our “back-end” sources like Google Books, Library of Congress and other national libraries.
• Better search results: The results are now more focussed, less fuzzy, as it will only show books containing ALL your search term words (as opposed to the old search that gave you books that matched ANY or your search term words).
• 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”).
• 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)

Fixed: Various font size and layout problems

This has been a long-standing problem: on Windows systems with the DPI or Font Size set to 125% or 150%, many screens had strange font size and layout problems, particularly visible in the Edit Book screen, but also affecting other screens.

This was a tricky one, but we have finally been able to fix these problems 🙂

Various tweaks and fixes, based on your v18 feedback:

Tweaks to the Edit screen:

• Add Genre/Subject screen now has checkboxes to allow the addition of multiple Genres/Subjects in one go.
• Author/Credit/Character/Genre/Subject lists: right click to directly access that specific Manage List screen.
• Author/Credit/Character lists now show a “Sort Name” column again.

Fixes:

• Edit Multiple: boolean fields would be reset to “No”.
• Add from Core: Stopping a running search could cause an Access Violation.
• Main Screen: Selected filter wasn’t restored on starting the program.
• Select Column/Sort/Folder fields: adding/removing a field after changing the order of the fields, would reset that order again.
• Various stability improvements.