What's new in CLZ Books? (page 11)
In today’s update for the CLZ Books app, we have made further tweaks to the Add Books from CLZ Core screen, to make it clearer than previous versions:
- Slightly smaller font for the book title, so that longer titles fit better.
- Color high-lighting: Books already ‘on wish list’ now have an orange title, books already “in collection” show up with a blue title.
Fixes in this update:
- After changing the sort order the list could sometimes scroll to a random position.
- Small CLZ Cloud Sync tweaks.
- After restarting the app it would sometimes repeatedly scroll to the last added book.
- After manually typing a barcode in the add by barcode screen you weren’t able to search another one.
In today’s update for the CLZ Books app, we have made further tweaks to the Add Books from CLZ Core screen, to make it clearer and (hopefully) more stable than previous versions:
- Slightly smaller font for the book title, so that longer titles fit better.
- Color high-lighting: Books already ‘on wish list’ now have an orange title, books already “in collection” show up with a blue title.
- Improved scroll behaviour.
Fixes in this update:
- Full screen cover scroller on iPhone/iPod devices was not properly updating its title bar
New
- Optimized layout of main screen on 10.5 and 12.9 inch iPads
- Optimized the performance of the main screen thumbnail view
- Fresh placeholder cover images
Fixed
- Black bars showing on 10.5 and 12.9 inch iPads
- Add screen: ISBN button wasn’t working correctly
- Disappearing floating add button when switching from list to thumbnail view
Fixed:
- Crash in add screen on devices running iOS10 or lower
New:
- Redesigned Selection Mode
- Tap and hold on a book to select it, select as many books as you like (or select all, using the “Select All” top right).
- Then use the blue action button to perform an action on the selected books (Remove / Update from CLZ Core).
Fixed:
- Crash when saving a cover image to the camera roll
- Odd scrolling behavior when scanning book ISBNs in the barcode scanning screen
- Stuck keyboard after searching in main list
- Autocorrect was enabled for the main list search bar
- Small iOS11-related UI glitches
Now live, a new design and layout for the book detail page in both Book Connect and the free CLZ Cloud viewer.
Some highlights of the new look:
- bigger cover image
- backdrop (can be switched off in your settings)
- circular author pictures
- more logical layout and placement of all fields
Screen shot:
All Connect apps: Manage Pick Lists, edit, merge and remove pick list entries.
A Manage Pick Lists screen is now available in Connect!
Finally, you can easily manage your pick lists for Artists, Authors, Series, Genres, Formats, etc… To edit your sort names, merge duplicate entries or remove entries.
The new Manage Pick Lists screen can be found in the Tools menu top right (the wrench icon).
Fixed:
- Missing app icons for 12.9 inch iPad
Fixed:
- ”Show more” buttons weren’t working in the iPhone versions of the Symbols/Bookshelf detail templates
- The on-screen keyboard was covering the lower input fields in the edit/add manually screens
This update converts your database
In order for this update to work, your database has to be converted once. This happens automatically after starting the app for the first time after updating and can take a couple of minutes depending on the size of your database (amount of books) and the speed of your iPhone or iPad. This could take a couple of minutes on slower devices or with very large databases (5000 or more books).
New:
- CLZ Cloud syncing: Added loan fields to the sync.
- Edit Book: Autocorrect now works on the plot and notes fields.
- New folder option: You can now group your books by reading year. To do this, tap the menu button top right, then “Folders”, then tap “Reading Year”.
Coming up:
- A loan manager to loan and return books.
Fixed:
- Loan information could be cleared during an upsync of a loaned book if that book was recently edited on your device.
New:
- Added loan fields to the CLZ Cloud sync.
Fixed:
- After tapping the “Not Found?” button to add a book anyway, the app could crash on adding an author.
Coming up:
- A loan manager to loan and return books.
New:
- New fields you can now sort your books on:
- Country
- Format
- Language
- Publisher
New fields for Edit Multiple
We’ve expanded the amount of fields you can edit in the Edit Multiple screen.
Improved interface
We’ve made it more clear how you can clear information from specific fields for all selected items you’re editing. Use the X button to clear a field for all selected items.
Using “Edit Multiple”
Quick reminder how to use Edit Multiple: Click the “Select” button at the top of your Connect page, select a couple of items, and click “Edit” (again, at the top).
Be advised that changes you make here affect all selected items, and can not be reverted once done!
New:
- Added a new “All Books” folder with a back button to go back to your folders
Fixed:
- Barcode queue was lost when a crash occurred in the Add from CLZ Core screen.
- The “move to wish list” functionality in the Add from CLZ Core screen was not working.
New in Book Connect: Loan/Return books and a Loan Manager feature!
You can now loan books in Book Connect: just find and select a book (or select multiple with the Select tool), and click the “Loan” button at the top!
Loan Manager
Click the wrench icon, top right, and then Loan Manager to access the new Loan Manager where you can see all your loaned out items, and directly return them. Alternatively you can also use CLZ Barry to scan an ISBN of a book, find it in your outstanding loans, and return it.
In the Loan Manager, you can click on a loaned item to modify the loan date, due date, return date, loaner and notes about the loan.
New:
- Loan books by selecting a couple in your list, or by viewing the details of a book, and then click “Loan” at the top.
- Return books straight from the loan manager or by scanning their ISBN barcodes with CLZ Barry.
- Check outstanding loans and loan history in the Loan Manager.
- Edit outstanding or returned loans by clicking on them.
All loan information can also be synced to Book Collector for Windows. We will also be adding the syncing of loan information to CLZ Books for iOS and Android and Book Collector for Mac.
New:
- Added a new “All Books” folder with a back button to go back to your folders
New:
- After adding/editing a book, the app will now always find and show your last added book in your main screen.
- Main screen will now always remember navigation state, even after device reboot.
Fixed:
- Add auto screen not obeying the device’s rotation lock.
Book Connect and the CLZ Cloud for books have just been improved to better handle the sort names for your authors.
Plus, you can now actually edit your author entries to change the sort name and have more control over how your books are sorted!
Here’s what’s new:
- The cloud storage has been changed to allow each user to have their own sort names for their author entries (previously, author sort names were used from the Core).
- This also means that Author Sort Names now sync better between the desktop and mobile software.
- For Book Connect and CLZ Cloud, it fixes sorting differences between the folder panel and the book list panel.
- In Book Connect, you can edit your author entries (including their sort name) from the Edit Book screen and also straight from their entry in the author folder panel (using the little pencil icon, see screen shot below)
With all the sharing features we’re building we’ve now added a way for you to set a default view for your friends so they can browse your collection the way you want them to.
To set a default view for your friends:
Go to your CLZ Cloud / Connect page, login at the top right and set the columns, sorting and folder view you wish your friends see when they browse your collection.
Once you’re happy with the setup, choose Settings from the “wrench” icon menu top right. Then click the blue button “Set current view as default view” and you’re done! Anyone viewing your collection for the first time will now get the view you’ve just set for them.
You can now quickly share your entire collection or one single item in your collection with anyone using the Share button at the top of your collection. You can share your collection or single item on Facebook, Twitter, via email or just copy a direct link using the Share icon top right.
Go to your cloud page, login at the top right, and use the Share icon at the top to begin:
Share entire collection
For your entire collection, make sure you’re on your Cloud / Connect page with all your items in view and then click the Share icon top right:
Share one single item
For one single item, click the item in your collection and then click the Share button at the top:
Fixed:
- iPhone: After editing a book, the “Add button” became an “Edit button”.
- iPhone: After editing a book, the app went back to the list view instead of the details view.
This is a new way to show your collection list to specific people, without making it Public. Just set your Cloud Visibility to Private, hiding it from public view, then generate a secret Private Cloud Sharing link. Send this link to your friends and only they will be able to see your collection. Best of both worlds!
To change our Cloud Visibility, go to your cloud page, login at the top right, then choose Settings from the “wrench” icon menu.
Previously, the search feature in the cloud viewer took you to a separate page showing the search results.
Now, the search is fully integrated into the regular collection viewer. Which means that you can now search, then further drill down using folders and/or the alphabet bar. Super handy, especially for large collections.
New:
- Add Books from CLZ Core: New skinned preview templates.
- After adding/editing a book, the app will now always find and show your last added book in your main screen.
- If you log in to your CLZ Account on a new or empty device, the app will now ask you if you wish to download your books from CLZ Cloud.
- Added skinning to Sign up/Log in/In App Purchase screens.
Fixed:
- After each CLZ Cloud sync the “Quick Search” and “Collection Status Filter” was cleared.
- When a custom cover was downloaded via CLZ Cloud syncing, the thumbnail in the list wasn’t immediately updated.
- When a book was removed, the list would scroll back to the top.
- Various skinning, layout and color fixes.