What's new in CLZ Books Mobile? (page 2)
Here’s my second “v9 feature hilite” email, about another area of improvement in last week’s CLZ Books 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 improvements we did to the Add Books screen:
Last week’s CLZ Books 9.0 update was 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.
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
What’s New:
- New “Delete CLZ Account” option in 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
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
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
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
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)
New:
- Added in-app getting started tips for new users (tap “dismiss” to dismiss)
Fixed:
- Fixed: adding items did not work for users that were not logged in
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.
Fixed:
- Adding: the app could crash while adding a book
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
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
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.
Fixed
- The “All” button did not work when selecting books
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.
New:
- Folders: You can now group on Original Publication Year
- Menu now shows last “Sync with CLZ Cloud” date
- Improved messaging for subscription status
Fixed:
- Sorting on issue number wasn’t always working
- Details page of book wasn’t always updating correctly when editing “in template”
- After searching in your own collection by scanning an ISBN, the result will now show instantly
Changed:
- Improved messaging for subscription status
Fixed and improved:
- ISBN Barcode scanning on iPhone 14 Pro is now FIXED (by using macro lens)
- ISBN Barcode scanning on iPhone 13 Pro now also uses macro lens
- Collection Status colors now also visible in Card View
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