What's new in CLZ Books Mobile?
CLZ Books version 10 is here! And this big update is all about adding books by ISBN.
Here’s what’s new in the Add Books screen:
- Scan screen now also “reads” actual ISBN numbers using OCR
- New scanning feedback shows where it “sees” a barcode or ISBN number
- Now quickly detects ISBN barcodes and ISBN number in entire scan screen
- Faster online ISBN lookups for most ISBNs
- New “Type ISBN” tab: enter ISBNs manually, use external barcode scanner
Sneak Preview: CLZ Books 10.0 – Add books by reading ISBN numbers with OCR
A big v10.0 update is coming up for your CLZ Books app within 2 weeks, so here’s a Sneak Preview!
CLZ Book 10.0 will bring a vast improvement to the Add Books by ISBN feature!
Previously the scan screen could only scan ISBN barcodes, but v10 will also “read” ISBN numbers that are printed on the book using OCR (Optical Character Recognition).
We have changed our company name!
We were previously called “Collectorz.com”, but as everyone called us “CLZ”, we figured, let’s go with the flow and officially rename the company to just “CLZ”!
But that’s not all. This week also brings:
- a new company logo and styling
- a completely new website at clz.com (previously www.collectorz.com)
- new names for our web-based software, previously called Connect, now simply CLZ Comics Web, CLZ Movies Web, CLZ Games Web, etc…
- new app icons for all CLZ apps!
A nice update for CLZ Books again, in which we did improvements to several areas of the app.
- Re-design of the Sort Order screen
- New Date and Month folder options for all date fields
- Statistics: new look for Most Recent lists
CLZ Books is now free to use up to 100 books, for as long as you like.
This “Free Mode” includes access to all functionality, including CLZ Cloud syncing (for online backups and transferring data between devices).
Got more than 100 books? Then subscribe (US $15 per year) and add as many books as you need. Of course, feel free to try the app with 100 books first!
A big update v9.0 update for your CLZ Books 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
- Adding Books: quick “Confirm” pop-ups, instead of full screen Preview pages
- Add by ISBN: Better screens for dealing with “ISBN not found” situations
- Add by ISBN: Faster camera barcode scanner for scanning ISBN barcodes
- New setting “Show Read-It” for showing/hiding Read-It eye icons from list and details
A lot of the questions we get about CLZ Books can usually be answered with:
“Just use Manage Pick Lists”
Renaming Locations, Merging duplicate genres, fixing author sort problems, fixing typos in author names, 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.
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 book (e.g. Purchase Price or Quantity), then forget to CLEAR it for the next books they add. Causing lots of books 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.
New:
- Added in-app getting started tips for new users (tap “dismiss” to dismiss)
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-book “Demo Mode” for new users
For new users who just downloaded the app, we introduced a new “Demo Mode” that lets you add 5 books 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.
A huge update for your CLZ Books mobile app today, which introduces a powerful feature for browsing and filtering your book collection: using multiple levels of folders.
Previously, it was only possible to use one level, so either Author folders OR Publisher folders OR Subject folders OR Location folders, etc… But starting with this version, you can combine folder options, so for instance, use Publisher folders, then within each publisher folder have Author folders.
Here it is, the big 8.0 release of your CLZ Books app, in which we add SEVEN new data fields.
All fields were added based on feedback from you all, the users of the app.
Four of these fields were already available in the Book Collector desktop software and can now finally be synced through the CLZ Cloud to the CLZ Books mobile app (Cover Artist, Foreword Author, Ghostwriter and Box Set).
The other three fields are completely new to all 3 of our book cataloging solutions (Signed By, Dust Jacket and Number Line).
BTW: similar updates have also been released for the Book Collector desktop software and the Book Connect web-based software, so all 7 fields now nicely sync between all of them.
Another big update for your CLZ Books app, in which we introduce a new view for your book collection. But there’s more:
- New “Card View”
- Selecting books now also possible in Card View and Images View
- Floating “Add Books” button (the big blue “+”) now auto-hides
Initially, when we created the mobile apps, we deliberately decided to leave out the back cover images, for performance, storage and bandwidth reasons. But with today’s fast internet speeds and fast devices with large storage.. it is time to change our minds!
Read more
In this update, no new features, just a nice improvement that makes existing functionality a bit better.
All actions in the app that can take a bit longer are now showing a nice progress bar!
This gives you some idea how long the action will take.
Also, the new Cancel button lets you stop actions, e.g. if you see it will take too long to do at this time.
The new progress bars are now shown when:
- Adding multiple books
- Editing multiple books
- Removing multiple books
- Updating from Core
One of the most popular features we added to the CLZ Books app in the past few years is the Pre-fill screen. You know, the screen that pops up when adding new books from Core and lets you “pre-fill” some fields for the new additions, right there and then. Without having to go back and edit the entries afterwards. A big time-saver for most users.
The set of fields that is available on the Pre-fill screen has always been fixed, limited to Location, Owner, Purchase Date/Store/Price, Quantity and Tags.
However, after the release of this feature, we instantly started getting requests for more fields to be added to the Pre-fill screen. Which makes sense, I mean, if you always fill in a field that is not on the Pre-fill screen, you would have to “edit after adding” anyway, rendering the entire Pre-fill screen useless…
So today we are taking the Pre-fill feature to the next level by making the screen completely user-configurable. That is, to allow you to choose your own Pre-fill fields!
And while we were at it, we made some other related improvements. Here’s what’s new in version 7.1:
- User-configurable Pre-fill screen: choose your own fields
- Pre-fill: new for Purchase Date and Reading Date: Use “Today”
- The Pre-fill screen is now also used to set field defaults
A huge 7.0 update for your CLZ Books app is now available, with new features and lots of improvements to existing functionality. All in one go and all based on your feedback!
New in version 7 today:
- Use barcode scanner to search your own database
- New Collection Status: Sold
- New Collection Status icons and colors
- Improved Add Books screen: enlarge thumbs, new beeps, num pad for ISBN entry
- New setting to enable/disable downloading of genres/subjects
- New Favorites section in Manage Pick List screen
- Other small tweaks
New:
Main screen lists now fully support system font sizes, that is, the list rows now automatically become bigger/higher if you have set your device to a larger font size. (previously, some information would be cropped)
Read more
Now available in the App Store, version 6.6 for CLZ Books. In this update, we finally bring the Submit to Core feature to the mobile app, so that you can help improve the Core online book database, by submitting your corrections.
Also new in this update: Select Mode is now easier to activate and the Action menu has a new look.
Enjoy!
Now available in the Play Store, version 6.6 for CLZ Books. In this update, we finally bring the Submit to Core feature to the mobile app, so that you can help improve the Core online book database, by submitting your corrections.
Also new in this update: Select Mode is now easier to activate and the Action menu has a new look.
Enjoy!
It’s been a while since the last CLZ Books update, as our entire mobile team has been working on a big update of our CLZ Music app (the one for CDs and vinyl records).
But we’re back at it for the other CLZ mobile apps, with 3 new features in one go!
- a new “Duplicate Book” tool, for making a full copy an existing book in your database.
- a new “Clear Cloud” button in the Sync screen, for resetting your CLZ Cloud
- a new “Shake to Shuffle” feature, for selecting a random book
It’s been a while since the last CLZ Books update, as our entire mobile team has been working on a big update of our CLZ Music app (the one for CDs and vinyl records).
But we’re back at it for the other CLZ mobile apps, with 3 new features in one go!
- a new “Duplicate Book” tool, for making a full copy an existing book in your database.
- a new “Clear Cloud” button in the Sync screen, for resetting your CLZ Cloud
- a new “Shake to Shuffle” feature, for selecting a random book
Instead of adding more new features, we decided to take a few weeks to work on the look and feel of the app.
In this 6.4 update, we improved the look and layout of the book list and of the book details pages, in both the main screen and the Add screen preview.
On top of that, we finally acted upon a common request from our users: you can now change the size of the thumbnails in the Images View.
Instead of adding more new features, we decided to take a few weeks to work on the look and feel of the app.
In this 6.4 update, we improved the look and layout of the book list and of the book details pages, in both the main screen and the Add screen preview.
On top of that, we finally acted upon a common request from our users: you can now change the size of the thumbnails in the Images View.
A huge update for your CLZ Books app today, which gives you many fields, the ability to add website links to your book entries and finally: a setting for choosing a currency other than USD!
New fields
The following new fields are now available on the Details tab of the Edit screen:
- Printed by
- Printing
- First Edition (yes/no)
- Paper type
- Photographers
- Editors
- Translators
Add web-site links on the Links tab
A new Links tab is now available in the Edit screen, for adding web-site links to your book entries.
Tip: paste a website link in the URL box and the description will be filled in automatically.
Choose your own currency
Use the Settings screen (from the menu top left) to select your preferred currency for the Cover Price, Purchase Price and Current Value fields. Choose from USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD, NZD, CHF, NOK, SEK or DKK.
