What's new in Book Collector? (page 2)

We already worked on this area in the previous update, but we were still not completely satisfied. So more tweaks to the Add button in the Add Games from Core screen today:

Tweaks to the Add button:

• All Collection Status values are now available, including “For Sale” and “On Order”!
• The little popup menu now indicates the selected value with a checkmark.
• The Add button itself now says “Add to Collection” or “Add to Wishlist”.

Screenshot from the Add button in Movie Collector:

Fixed:

• Flashing starting the program (especially visible on very big screens)
• Selected x from x items in the status bar and the total items at the top now have a bit more space
• Clicking the add button twice didn’t give an “Already in collection” warning
• Opening the program in full screen on a secondary screen didn’t work
• Add Screen: On high DPI screens, search results could take up too much space

With the big feature updates behind us (multi-collections, image syncing, 64-bit support, Flex template, etc…), it is time for some smaller tweaks that were requested by our loyal users:

• More compact toolbar layout, to save screen space
• No more annoying Add to Collection / Wish List popup in Add Books screen
• New “Transparent” styles for the Flex template, to show off your backdrops

Read more

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

Read on for the full details:

Read more

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

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)

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.

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 🙂

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.

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 🙂

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 CLZ Books 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.

Revamped Edit Book screen

A huge refresh of the Edit Book screen, bringing the look and feel more in line with the recent Add Books from Core screen. But it’s not all just cosmetic changes, here’s what’s new:

• Button bar is now at the bottom of the screen
  With OK button high-lighted in blue, nice Next/Prev arrow buttons, etc…

• Re-designed user interface for adding and editing Authors
  • The Author list in the Edit Book screen is now a cleaner list, showing just Display Name and Pseudonym.
  • To add an Author, click the Add button top right. The new Select Author screen appears, showing your current Author pick list. Use the search box to find the author you’d like to add, typing just a few letters will make it appear. Select it, then click the big blue Add Author button at the bottom right. If your author is not in the pick list yet, use the New Author button to create it.
  • Right-click to Modify the name and sort name of an author in the list.
  • Drag the icon in the first column to change the order.
  • Click the “x” in the last column to remove entries.
• Clearer blue + buttons for checkbox list fields (like Genres and Subjects)
• Same blue + buttons for dropdown fields (like Publisher, Country and Language)
• Revamped Edit screen for pick list items
  Button bar at the bottom with blue OK button, smaller generate buttons, etc..

Simplified: Edit Multiple Books screen

• Now use checkboxes to explicitly indicate which field(s) you want set.
  Safer and clearer, no more unexpected changes.

• To clear a field, just click the checkbox and leave the box empty.
  The box will highlight in red to indicate the CLEAR action. No more hidden F8 keys.

Simplified screens for selecting Column, Sort and Folder fields.

The ability to select your own Columns for the List View is an important customization feature of our Book Collector software. The same holds for selecting the sort order and the folder fields for the folder panel.

However, the “field selection” screens for doing these customizations have always been an area of confusion. So for v18 we decided to re-imagine both the field selection screens and the system for creating/managing your own presets.

• Simplified Field Selection screen:
  • Available fields are now grouped, like the tabs in the Edit Book screen.
  • Easily find the field you want with the search box top left.
  • Use checkboxes on the left to select fields.
  • Use the “x” button on the right to remove fields.
  • Drag and drop fields on the right side to change the order.
  • Rename the field set at the top right.
• Simplified system for managing your field presets:
  • Just click the Columns or Sort Order button to EDIT the current preset.
  • Click the little arrow to the right of the Columns or Sort Order button to open the preset menu and switch to a different preset.
  • Choose Manage Presets from the preset menu to edit your presets and create new ones.

NEW: “Clean” template for the details panel, in Light and Dark styles

A complete refresh, based on the recent Connect/Cloud details page updates. Clean, clear and modern, with some fresh layout ideas:

• Cleaner look, in both Light and Dark styles.
• Re-designed and more compact Author panel at the top.
• Clearer display of Genres and Subjects.
• Now uses the book cover image as a subtle background image. Or opt for the “Plain” style for a “quieter” background.

No more Standard edition: Pro-only features now available for everyone!

Since last week, we stopped selling the Standard edition of Book Collector. From now on, the Pro edition is the only edition we sell, and will just be called “Book Collector” now.

Our gift to all users on the Standard edition who have a valid Update Plan:
Starting with v18, you now get access to all Pro-only features:

• Batch editing with the Edit Multiple feature:
  
  Save time by editing multiple items in batch, e.g. to fill in a field value for many items in one go.

• Customizable pre-sets for sorting, columns and folders:
  
  Create your own pre-set field combination for sorting and columns. Define your own folder options, even multi-level folder combinations.

• User Defined Fields:
  
  Create your own fields (text, number, pick list, checkbox or date) and rename pre-defined fields.

• Export features:
  
  Export your database to a CSV or XML file.

Next week, Apple will release the new macOS 10.13 “High Sierra”.
If you are planning to update your Mac to this new OS, then we strongly recommend to update your Book Collector software to today’s version 17.0.5!

Book Collector problems on High Sierra:
We have been testing our software on beta versions of High Sierra for quite a while, to make sure we were ready for it’s release. We found that most of the software seems to be working as normal.

Unfortunately, we found a big problem in the Preferences screen, it does not open at all anymore, making it impossible to make any changes to program settings.

Luckily, our Mac developer Ronald was able to fix the Preferences screen to make it work on the new macOS. A fix was released today, in version 17.1.2.

Fixed

• Preferences screen didn’t load properly on macOS 10.13 “High Sierra”.
• Upload Cover to CLZ Core: Images were not always uploaded properly even if they were within the 500KB file size limit.
• Main Screen: Quick Search: Occasional crashes in the quick search when using the “Search-as-you-type” suggestions.
• Sync with CLZ Cloud: Sometimes crashed during the upload of covers.

Now sync your loan information to the CLZ Cloud

• Sync information about outstanding loans to the CLZ Cloud, directly visible in your CLZ Cloud viewer (just add the Loan columns to the list).
• Sync your loan history to the CLZ Cloud (only visible in Book Connect’s new Loan Manager)

New in Book Connect: a really nice Loan Manager feature!

• Loan books and return books, by scanning their barcodes with CLZ Barry.
• Check outstanding loans and loan history in the Loan Manager

( Coming soon: sync loan information to the CLZ Books mobile app )

Now sync your loan information to the CLZ Cloud

• Sync information about outstanding loans to the CLZ Cloud, directly visible in your CLZ Cloud viewer (just add the Loan columns to the list).
• Sync your loan history to the CLZ Cloud (only visible in Book Connect’s new Loan Manager)

New in Book Connect: a really nice Loan Manager feature!

• Loan books and return books, by scanning their barcodes with CLZ Barry.
• Check outstanding loans and loan history in the Loan Manager

( Coming soon: sync loan information to the CLZ Books mobile app )

Other tweaks

• Add Books from Core: Search Results list is now loading/refreshing faster, especially for long lists.
• New option for CLZ Barry: Auto-Connect. When enabled, the built-in Buddy for Barry automatically connects to the server when you start the program or open the Add screen.
• The Expire Date of your Update Plan is now always visible in the lower right bottom of the main screen.

Big changes today! The Add Books Automatically screen has been completely re-designed, to make it both easier-to-use and easier-on-the-eye (and it’s now called “Add Books from CLZ Core”):

• A simple two-panel design: Search Results on the left, Preview on the right.
• The Search Results now show cover images.
• Automatic Preview of selected result (no more double clicking).

See it in action:

Here’s the full list of improvements:

Read more

We’ve expanded the quick search box to now also allow “search-as-you-type” with suggestions for pick list fields.

How does it work?

In the quick search box top right of your screen you should see a “dropdown” button. Use this to select which field you wish to perform a search on. If “search-as-you-type” is available for that field, it will instantly work once you start typing in the box.

Example

You can now select the field “Author” in the quick search box, start typing an author name, and instantly see suggestions (based on what you typed) of authors you have in your database. Click on an author to see all his/her books.

Try it with the “Publisher” field too! Instantly see which books you own from a specific publisher you type in the quick search box.

Fixes in this version

We also fixed some issues with the program in this version:

• Images Popup:
  • “size window to picture” showed image slightly smaller
  • .tiff images were not showing

Quick Search: Search-As-You-Type suggestions

Instantly find and select a particular book in your local database:

• In the Quick Search box, just start typing the first few letters of the author or title you are looking for.
• While typing, a drop-down list will appear, showing the first five matching books.
  (for most books, it only takes 2 or 3 letters before it shows up.)
• Once you see the one you were looking for, use the up/down keys to select it, then hit Enter.
• The book will now be selected in your list, with the details showing in the Details Panel.

NOTE: this Search-As-You-Type feature replaces the old “filter-as-you-type” behaviour of the Quick Search box. If you want to go back to the old behaviour, you can do so in the Preferences screen, on the Behaviour page using the setting called “When typing in Quick Search box”.

Read more

Quick Search: Search-As-You-Type suggestions

Instantly find and select a particular book in your local database:

• In the Quick Search box, just start typing the first few letters of the author or title you are looking for.
• While typing, a drop-down list will appear, showing the first five matching books.
  (for most books, it only takes 2 or 3 letters before it shows up.)
• Once you see the one you were looking for, use the up/down keys to select it, then hit Enter.
• The book will now be selected in your list, with the details showing in the Details Panel.

Read more

Improved “Unrecognized ISBN” screen

• NEW: integrated Find Cover tool.
  Easily pick a cover images from internet search results for the ISBN.

• Two extra fields: Publisher and Year.
• Author box now has drop-down with your Author list for easy entry of existing author names.

Fixed:

• Main Screen: after resizing the first column too much, the text was no longer readable
• Edit Book: Closing the edit screen could cause a crash on El Capitan

Improved “Unrecognized ISBN” screen

• NEW: integrated Find Cover tool.
  Easily pick a cover images from internet search results for the ISBN.

• Two extra fields: Publisher and Year.
• Author box now has drop-down with your Author list for easy entry of existing author names.

Fixed:

• Dragging and dropping cover images did not work for HTTPS URLs.
• Person grids: problems adding authors when multiple authors exists with the same display name.

New

• Link/Update Books now also supports the “Unrecognized ISBN” screen
• Quick search now also supports Regular Expressions. Enter “matches:” followed by regular expression in the quick search box.

• In Add Books Automatically, when an ISBN is not recognized, a new “Unrecognized ISBN” screen will appear.
• In this screen, just type the Author and the Title, then click Add Book.
• This will:
  1. Instantly add the ISBN/Author/Title entry to our Core online book database.
  2. Add the book to your own database with ISBN, Author and Title filled in AND linked to the new Core entry.

In other words, this new screen not only helps you in adding unrecognized books,
but it also helps your fellow Book Collector users by adding the missing ISBN to the CLZ Core.

( BTW: this screen replaces the “Report Missing ISBN to Core” web-form. Of course, you can still provide more info for the added ISBN using the Submit to Core button in the Edit Book screen. )