What's new in CLZ Books Mobile?
Live today: a huge v10.2 update for your CLZ Books mobile app, with one big new feature:
Automatic book values
You can now get get values for your books from CLZ Core, based on average prices on various online used book stores. Values are automatically filled in when you Add Books from Core.
To get values for your existing books, use Update Values from the menu.
You can also use this, e.g. weekly, to get updates for the values.
Update Values in menu:
Update Values Report:
The book values are shown in the book details screen, near the top.
You can edit value related fields on the new “Value” tab in the Edit Book screen:
The Value is also shown in the List View:
Finally, view value statistics and most valuable book lists in the Statistics screen:
Other changes:
- The old “Current Value” field has been renamed to “My Value” and lets you either OVERRIDE the automatically provided value. Or just fill in a value for books that did not get an automatic value.
- Get automatic retail prices in the Retail Price field (previously named “Cover Price”).
- Optionally use the Retail Price as a “fallback value”, when an automatic Value is not available.
- Sort your book list by Value
What to expect for your book collection?
The values are based on average selling prices of books on several used book sites on the internet. This system is purely based on ISBN lookups and average ALL prices for the same ISBN.
This means that the system does not take into account the condition and completeness of your copy. The value will be “just” an average of all available copies.
Also: with close to 40 million books in our CLZ Core database, we will not be able to provide a value for all books in your collection. In particular, books without ISBN will not get values.
Currently, our Core and Cloud statistics show that CLZ Books users will get a value for around 83% of their books, on average.
Your mileage may vary of course. For example, if you own mostly mainstream US books with ISBN, your percentage may be closer to 90%. On the other hand, if you own mostly antique books, or only books in the Polish language, your coverage will probably be much lower.
The coverage of books with a value may slightly improve over time, as we are still gathering value information for less popular books.
Important: getting values from Core requires an actual subscription for the app
Yep, Values from Core is the first “premium” feature for CLZ Books!
To use the feature, you need to have an actual subscription for the app. If you are still using the app in “grandfathered status”, you will not have access to the values feature.
The solution is simple though 🙂 Start subscribing to the app today.
Just open the menu, then tap the “Subscribe Now” link under “Subscription Status”.
Got any questions? Check the manual!
We’ve updated the manual with instructions and an FAQ. Check it out:
CLZ Books iOS / CLZ Books Android
Coming up soon, yet another huge update for your CLZ Books app! This is something we have been working on for many months. And now we are finally so close to release that I can disclose what is coming up:
New in CLZ Book 10.2: Automatic book values and retail prices!
With this new update, our CLZ Core online book database will provide book value/pricing information for used books, plus retail prices.
In more details, this is what will be new in version 10.2:
- Get values for your books, based on average selling prices of the books on various online used book stores.
- The old “Current Value” field will be renamed to “My Value” and will let you either OVERRIDE the automatically provided value, or just fill in a value for books that did not get an automatic value.
- Get automatic retail prices in the Retail Price field (previously named “Cover Price”).
- Use the new Update Values screen to regularly update your book entries with up-to-date Value and Retail Price information.
- Optionally use the Retail Price as a “fallback value”, when an automatic Value is not available.
- See Value statistics and totals in the Statistics screen
- Sort your book list by Value
Will I get values for all my books?
With close to 40 million books in our CLZ Core database, we will not be able to provide a value for all books in your collection. In particular, books without ISBN will not get values, as our value system is purely based on ISBN lookups.
Currently, our Core and Cloud statistics show that CLZ Books users will get a value for around 83% of their books, on average. Your mileage may vary, for example, if you own mostly mainstream US books with ISBN, your percentage may be closer to 90%. If you own mostly antique books, or only books in the Polish language, your coverage will probably be much lower.
The coverage of books with a value may slightly improve over time, as we are still gathering value information for less popular books.
Automatic values will be a premium feature, available for subscribers only
The “Automatic Values” feature will be the first “premium” online feature for CLZ Books. This means that it will only be available for users with an active paid subscription.
In particular, this means that this feature will not be available for users who are still using the app in “grandfathered” mode (as they purchased the app before it became a subscription app). Of course, grandfathered users who DO want access to this feature are welcome to get a paid CLZ Books subscription)
ETA ??
Coming up within a few weeks. I will send out a Sneak Preview email with more screenshots once we are closer to the final user interface.
Fixed:
- The bottom collection tabs were invisible
What’s New:
- Optimized startup process for a quicker launch
- Improved Sync with CLZ Cloud: Smoother and faster, especially with image downloads
Fixed:
- Problems could occur when updating to new app version with an incorrect login
- Rare crash when showing keyboard in Add by Title/Author
This is a recommended security update:
- 2FA support: if you have 2FA enabled on your CLZ Account, the app will now ask you for the 2FA authenticator code when you log in to the app
- Several other changes to better secure your account
- New “Change email address” link in the CLZ Account screen
Fixed on Android:
- On startup, the collection tab-bar on startup could be blocked by Android navigation bar
- Dark mode: buttons on ISBN keypad were invisible- Dark mode: buttons on ISBN keypad were invisible
Fixed:
- Adding books by ISBN: on some devices the barcode queue (still) didn’t appear
New: “edge-to-edge” support for Android 15. This means that all screens will now use the entire vertical space. This gives you more screen real estate to (for instance) view more of your book list in your main screen!
Fixed:
- Photo / image picker wasn’t able to access all images on the device
- Side menu: Refreshed background colors at the top
- Details panel: Updated placeholder cover for books without a cover
Fixed:
- Tablet: Barcode scanning didn’t work while in landscape orientation
- Switching between folders would not always refresh the list correctly
- Adding books by ISBN: on some devices the barcode queue didn’t appear
- Side menu: Refreshed background colors at the top
- Details panel: Updated placeholder cover for items without a cover
Fixed in Add Books:
- Type ISBN: Problems when copy/pasting ISBNs with spaces, dashes, enters, etc. inside them
Fixed in Add Books:
- Scan ISBN:
- A crash could occur during scanning of ISBNs
- Crash if user did not grant camera permissions
- Crash on devices without a camera
- Type ISBN:
- “Invalid ISBN” error when copy/pasting ISBNs with spaces, dashes, enters, etc.
- A double keyboard could appear when switching between CLZ Books and other apps
Fixed:
- Add Books: Type ISBN: Paste wasn’t working
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’ve fixed various crashes that happened throughout the app that.. shouldn’t happen anymore with this new version 🙂
We recommend you update your app A.S.A.P. Your app may have updated itself already (check the menu top left, the version number is at the top). If it hasn’t updated itself yet, here’s how to force the update:
- On your device, open the Play Store app.
- Search “CLZ” and select your CLZ app.
- Tap “Update” to update the app.
Fixed:
- Add Manually screen didn’t show all tabs
- Fixed various crashes
- Small tweaks to the app icon
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
Fixed:
- Edit screen: After cropping a cover, the app would sometimes still show the non-cropped version in the edit screen
New:
- Better indication and handling of “subscription expired” status
New:
- Better indication and handling of “subscription expired” status
Fixed:
- For items with very big images, the Edit screen could crash
The app now has a “free 7-day trial” again.
No more 100 item “free mode” or “free trial”. We did our best to make it work, but it just didn’t. So we’re back to the old tried and tested “7-day trial” system 🙂
(Don’t worry, if you already started your free mode, it will keep working.)
Updated:
- Add Books by Author and Title: after adding a book, the cursor will be put back in the search box straight away so you can immediately start your next search
Fixed for iOS:
- Statistics: In some cases the order under “most recent” could be wrong
Updated:
- Free Mode is now called Free Trial (still works the same way)