What's new in CLZ Comics? (page 15)
Last week, we released CLZ Comics 5.0, of which the most popular new feature was the new automatic comic values tool.
After the release, we immediately started getting questions from many users “Okay, I see the values now, but where can I see the TOTAL value of my collection”?
Of course, we were way ahead of you! Planned for inclusion in the v5.0 release was a cool new Statistics screen, with charts, totals, everything. Sadly, we had to skip this feature because of time constraints, as we really wanted to make our planned v5 deadline.
However, 10 days later, the Stats screen has been finished now, waiting for you in version 5.0.4!
New Statistics screen
A cool “infographic” style screen showing totals and statistics about your comic collection. Find your biggest series, your most recent purchases, your most valuable comics, the value by series and of course, the total value of your collection.
Fixed:
- Purchase store could display twice in the details template
Fixed:
- Add Screen: Year was missing from Search As You Type results
- Add Screen: Barcode results could sometimes be wrongly highlighted in blue
- Edit Screen: Renamed “Issue Title” to “Title”
- Templates: “Star Rating” and “Read It” controls are back (under Personal)
- Main Screen: The quick search dropdown could get stuck on the screen
- Manage Pick Lists: Genres list was missing
- Manage Pick Lists: Removed “Condition” (now Grade)
- Updated a couple of warning pop-ups
Fixed:
- App could get a crash loop when trying to show an empty series folder.
New:
- New setting to always display grade and/or values in list view
- Added default values for the Grading Company field
Fixed:
- Using “Update Values” could time out
- Add to Collection button would sometimes not show in Add by Barcode screen
- Returned the Edit Series button in the Edit Comic screen
- Multiple Collections: Have/Want summaries now only show for the active collection
- Templates: My Rating was missing (now found under Personal)
Fixed:
- Using “Update Values” could time out
- Add to Collection button would sometimes not show in Add by Barcode screen
- Returned the Edit Series button in the Edit Comic screen
CLZ Comics 5.0: Automatic values, more fields, multiple collections and more
It’s finally here, CLZ Comics 5.0. Here’s what’s new in v5:
- CLZ Comics is now a subscription app
Of course, all existing users have been “grandfathered” into a life-time app unlock. - Automatic “slabbed & graded” values from GoCollect
Find the most valuable comics in your collection (premium online service, so requires a subscription). - Lots of new data fields
Grade, Grading Company, Grader Notes, Slabbed vs Raw, Signed By, Is Key Comic, Key Reason, Plot, Nr of Pages, Genres, Country and Language. - Now supports and syncs multiple collections
Create and sync multiple “sub collections” within your database. - Automatic cloud-syncing of your own “custom” images
No more need to manually force “Upload Image to CLZ Cloud”. - Many tweaks to the menu and overall UI
Logo in top bar, clearer Edit/Remove buttons, new Maintenance sub-menu, etc..
CLZ Comics 5.0: Automatic values, more fields, multiple collections and more
It’s finally here, CLZ Comics 5.0. Here’s what’s new in v5:
- CLZ Comics is now a subscription app
Of course, all existing users have been “grandfathered” into a life-time app unlock. - Automatic “slabbed & graded” values from GoCollect
Find the most valuable comics in your collection (premium online service, so requires a subscription). - Lots of new data fields
Grade, Grading Company, Grader Notes, Slabbed vs Raw, Signed By, Is Key Comic, Key Reason, Plot, Nr of Pages, Genres, Country and Language. - Now supports and syncs multiple collections
Create and sync multiple “sub collections” within your database. - Automatic cloud-syncing of your own “custom” images
No more need to manually force “Upload Image to CLZ Cloud”. - Many tweaks to the menu and overall UI
Logo in top bar, clearer Edit/Remove buttons, new Maintenance sub-menu, etc..
Yep, it is finally coming: CLZ Comics 5.0, for both iOS and Android!
ETA: we are currently aiming for Tuesday September 10, but no promises!
Here’s what will be new in Vee Five:
- CLZ Comics will become a subscription app
That is, for new users. Existing users will of course be “grandfathered. - Automatic “slabbed & graded” values from GoCollect
Find the most valuable comics in your collection (premium feature, so requires a subscription). - Lots of new value-related fields
Grade, Grading Company, Grader Notes, Slabbed vs Raw, Signed By, Is Key Comic (yes/no) and Key Reason. - More fields now editable and syncing to/from CLZ Cloud
New editable fields: Plot, Nr of Pages, Genres, Country and Language. - Now supports and syncs multiple collections
Create and sync multiple “sub collections” within your database. - Automatic cloud-syncing of your own “custom” images
No more need to manually force “Upload Image to CLZ Cloud”.
Today, a subtle addition to your Comic Connect software, but one that can save you a lot of time if you’re always adding your comics by barcode:
A new “Add [..] to Collection” button under the add queue, that lets you add all scanned comics in one go. No more need to click the little “+” buttons for each entry.
Yes, it is finally happening! After being a daily feature request for many years, our comic database tools are finally going to deliver comic values, thanks to our new collaboration with the popular GoCollect.com comic book price guide.
And the cloud-based Comic Connect software is the first to get this cool new feature!
New in today’s Comic Connect update:
- Get comic values from Core, powered by GoCollect.com
Find out which are the most valuable comics in your collection. Just set a Grade for your comics, then Update Values from GoCollect based on that grade.
Finally, view Value Stats in the updated Statistics screens. - Lots of new editable fields:
Many new value related fields are now available. Grade, Slabbed vs Raw, Grading Company, Grader Notes, Signed By, Is Key Comic (yes/no) and Key Reason.
Other new fields: Back Cover, Plot, Nr of Pages, Genres, Country and Language.
We are seeing more and more users switching to our software, leaving a competitor product or their own Excel solution behind. So our import tools are getting more and more important.
Therefore, we have spent some time making our Import from CSV/TXT screen a bit more easier to use.
The most important part of importing a CSV file is of course the mapping of your fields to our fields. Sadly we cannot make this part fully automatic, but we DID make it a lot easier!
After uploading your file, the contents is shown in the Preview. Now to map your fields to ours, just click the column headers in the Preview and from the popup select which of our fields you want to import that column to. Super easy, super quick.
Enjoy!
Based on user feedback we found out users were looking for and expecting a tool to find duplicate entries in their collection. Some way to find out if you’ve accidentally added multiple versions of the same comic, but perhaps with a different extension.
After quite a few requests and discussions with users about this, to find out how they got duplicates and what they would expect from such a Duplicate Finder tool, it’s here today: Find Duplicate entries in your collection!
New: Find Duplicate Comics
Open the menu top left and select Find Duplicates to begin.
Then select which field to find duplicates on. You can find duplicates based on:
- Series & Issue
- Series, Issue & Extension
- UPC (Barcode)
- Index
Click “Find Duplicates” and see what it comes up with. Use the blue “Keep” button to keep a group of duplicates, or use the red “Remove” button to remove a duplicate!
If you click “Remove all duplicates automatically”, it will remove all duplicate entries and will only keep 1 single entry (the oldest one) in your collection.
Tip: use the columns button, top right, to set up the columns you’d like to see!
Another big step forward for our cloud-based Connect software, making it even more customizable:
The columns in List View are now resizable. That is, you can now change the width of the columns by simply dragging the dividers between the column headers. Hover your mouse over the divider and it will turn blue, then drag it make the column wider or narrower.
TIP: double click the divider to make the column auto-size to its’ current content!
See it in action:
Do you prefer the automatic column widths, the way it was before? No problem, just go to the Settings screen and enable the “Size columns automatically” settings.
The automatic downloading of SortNames for Series has been broken for a while, causing series like “The Amazing Spider-man” to sort under “T” instead of under “A”.
This has now been fixed!
For existing problem series in your database, just use Manage Pick Lists from the menu to correct the SortNames manually.
You can now manage multiple sub-collections within one account. The collections will appear as little tabs at the bottom (e.g. like in Excel), so that you can easily switch between them.
Create and manage collections
Open the menu top left and click “Manage Collections” to:
- Create new collections
- Rename existing collections
- Remove collections
- Change their order (drag and drop)
Note: the CLZ mobile app currently does not support multiple collections yet (coming soon!). For now, you CAN sync multiple collections to the mobile app, but they will appear mixed together, as ONE database.
New: Notes as a column
The Notes field can now be added as a column in List View:
(example screenshot from Movie Connect)
New:
- The resizable panels in the add screen now have the same design as the ones in the main screen.
Fixed:
- iPad: Wrong initial panel layout in the main screen when the app is started in landscape mode.
Fixed:
- Add Screen: previews of results could sometimes not be loaded.
A useful update of your app today, that is, if you are using the app on an iPad:
All panels in the main screen (folders, list and details) are now resizable using draggable separators between the panels, so that you can customize the layout to your own liking.
- All panels in the main screen (folders, list and details) are now resizable using draggable separators between the panels, so that you can customize the layout to your own liking.
- The resizable panels in the Add screen have been updated to use the nicer look of the draggable separators.
New: quick search box in the Folder Panel!
Another useful addition to your software today, as we added a Quick Search box in your folder panel.
Especially useful for those long folder lists, e.g. when using Series as the folder field. Just type a few letters of the series title and the folder list will instantly “filter down” to the matching series, while you type!
See it in action:
A nice time-saving feature was added to your Comic Connect software today:
Next / Previous buttons in the Edit Comic screen
These buttons let you go through your comic list to make changes, while staying in the Edit Comic screen. Just use the Next or Previous button on the bottom left.
While doing so, the screen will keep you on the same tab and same field, making it super-easy to make changes to same field(s) for multiple comics.
New: Redesigned app icon
We designed new icons that give new users a better indication of what the app actually does (as opposed to just a different color CLZ logo), but still obviously belong together, when shown together.
Fixed:
- List did not scroll to top when the status bar was tapped
- App could crash on startup in rare cases
A small UI tweak today, made necessary because of the growing number of field options for the folder panel: the folder field menu is now grouped into 4 categories.
This should make it easier to find the field you are looking for.
New: Redesigned app icon
We designed new icons that give new users a better indication of what the app actually does (as opposed to just a different color CLZ logo), but still obviously belong together, when shown together.
And if you have Android 8.0 or higher, we’re also including an “adaptive app icon” as of today which are in line with all your other app icons!
Do you like to customize your software to suit your needs or just your personal taste? Then we have big news for you today, as we have just introduced four “Skin” choices in your Comic Connect software:
- Default (the standard look, as it was before, so dark toolbars, light content)
- Dark (dark toolbars, dark content)
- Light (light toolbars, light content)
- Blue (shades of blue, with yellow highlights)
On top of that, we have given you 3 template style choices for the Comic Details area: Dark, Light and Blue. Either to match your Skin choice, or to mix to up, it’s up to you.
Both the Skin and Template selectors can be found in the Settings screen, under Customization.
Screen shots: