What's new in CLZ Comics? (page 23)
At the moment our entire web-team, 3 developers, is working full-time on our Connect editions. And it shows: lot of improvements and small tweaks are being released in rapid succession.
An overview of last week’s updates, now live in your Connect account:
Faster editing
This is a big one, as it makes editing your entries in Connect a lot quicker (and less annoying!).
Previously, after editing an entry, the entire list refreshed which A. was slow and B. caused you to lose your place in the list.
Now, the list does not refresh anymore. After an edit action, the edited item is simply updated with the new field values. Which is super quick and leaves you right where you were before you opened the Edit screen.
NOTE: this change has one implication: If your edit action would cause the item to be sorted in a different place in the list, or even to be moved to a different folder, that will not happen immediately. A simple manual refresh is all it takes in that case.
Updated Statistics screen
We re-wrote the Statistics screen using different charting tools, which makes them look and animate nicer AND solves several browser-specific problems.
Print to PDF enhancements
The new Print to PDF feature can now be used on a selection of items. So just go to Select mode, select some items, then choose Print to PDF in the toolbar top right.
Also, we have added a Margin setting, that lets you control the width of the margins of the generated PDF output.
More column and sort fields
We are regularly receiving requests for more fields to be available as column and sort fields. If technically feasible, we are adding these as we go. Some recent additions:
- Comics: Release Date and Cover Price are now available as column fields.
- Comics: Read It is now available in the Field Defaults settings.
- Movies: Director and Format are now sortable fields.
- Movies: Title Sort is now available as an Export field.
- Games: Genre is now available as a sort field.
This update to the CLZ Comics app for Android brings user interface improvements to the Add Comics screen:
- All panels are now resizable (list, details, camera)
- When adding a comic that is already on your wish list, the app now lets you change its status to “In Collection”.
- Adding By Barcode:
- Camera scanner is now integrated in Add screen, not a separate screen
- Tap the keyboard icon in the camera panel to enter a barcode manually
- Barcode queue is now remembered between sessions
- Press and hold to delete a barcode from the queue
- Adding By Title:
- Expand comic issues list using “V” icons on the right
- Comic not found? Easy add it manually using the special entry in the results list
New in the CLZ Cloud viewer and Comic Connect: a Print to PDF feature!
Generate a PDF file from your comic list, ideal for printing.
New in 4.5.2:
- New Details View templates which are easier on the eye:
- Clear Light template
- Clear Dark template
Fixed:
- iPad: WANT-HAVE header was not correctly updated when changing Series folder.
- Improved “tap” area of hamburger menu so you can back out of a folder more easily.
A huge v4.5 update for the CLZ Comics app is now available.
And prepare to be shocked 🙂 (in a good way, don’t worry):
The app looks completely different now, with a cleaner brighter look and an improved user interface.
What’s new in CLZ Comics 4.5 for iOS?
- A completely new look, that is cleaner and brighter.
- The choice between two skins/themes: Light & Dark.
- No bottom toolbar means more screen space for your comic collection.
- Big floating blue ‘+’ button on bottom right for adding new comics.
- Access all other features and tools from ‘hamburger’ menu top left.
- Access all view settings from menu top right.
- Quickly switch between All / In Collection / Wish List at the top.
How to update your CLZ Comics app to version 4.5:
- On your device, open the App Store app.
- On the bottom, switch to the Updates tab.
- Find the CLZ Games entry and tap “UPDATE” on the right.
Do you like the new look?
Then please let the world know by posting a nice review in the App Store!
Important: this is the FINAL iOS 7 compatible version.
Support for iOS 7 will be dropped for future versions.
Fixed:
- iOS 7: Crash in Add screen when opening the Add by Barcode tab.
Coming up: Fresh look and layout
Please look forward to the next build coming up in a couple weeks with a complete new fresh look and layout!
Whilst we make daily backups for you on our own servers, you can now create your own backup of your Connect database and download it to your computer!
If you ever make a big mistake and lose valuable data, you can upload a previously downloaded backup file and restore it to your current database.
Import any Text or .CSV file into your collection
You can now import any text file (.txt) or comma separated value file (.csv) into your collection on Connect using the new import page in your Connect account.
With this new import tool you are able to quickly import a list of comics from for instance an existing collection you may have in a spreadsheet or different software. All you have to do is export those comics from your other software to a text or CSV file and follow the steps on the new Import page in your Connect account.
v4.3.10: Fixed an issue where “deletion changes” sometimes didn’t sync
Fixed:
- Local comic deletes sometimes not synchronized to the CLZ Cloud
Fixed:
- Crashing merge dialog in the manage pick list screen on Android 6.0+ devices
- Facebook sign up button not working
- Formatting of cover price in the details view
- Retention of the scroll position in the issue list view on phone sized devices
- Reverting of custom uploaded cover when syncing an update
- Crash in the edit screen after pressing the next/previous comic button
New:
- New Folder options: format, store, age, color, country, crossover, edition, genre, language, story arc.
- Edit screen is now split into two tabs (Main / Personal).
- After editing/removing a comic, the app now remembers the list’s scroll position.
Fixed:
- After editing a comic, the changed values were not immediately visible in the list.
- Alphabet sections in list were broken after “X”.
- Adding by Barcode: barcodes can now be entered with voice dictation.
- Crash in the in-app-purchase screen.
- ‘Show all’ folder item was missing in empty folders on tablet devices.
If you are adding most of your comics “By Title”, then this will be a huge time-saver.
Here’s how the new “Search-As-You-Type” feature works:
- In the Add Comics Automatically screen, just start typing the first letters of the series title you want to add issues for.
- While typing, a drop-down list will appear, instantly showing the five most popular series that match, including the date range, the number of issues contained and a small thumbnail image.
- For popular series, it usually takes only 2 or 3 letters before it shows up. For older or less popular series, type a few more letters.
- Once you see your series appear, use the arrow keys to select it, then hit Enter.
- Then under Search Results, that exact series will be listed, with its’ issue list.
Important: this is an *extra* tool, that makes it easier and faster to add popular series.
Just hit Enter or choose “Show all results for “..” to see the full search results.
Searching your comic collection in Comic Connect or the CLZ Cloud viewer is now much faster.
However, to achieve this performance improvement, we have had to limit the searching to:
- Series Name
- Title
- Barcode
Previously the search feature also searched creator and character names, but this turned out to cause server performance problems when searching large databases. That is, with the search engine we are now using.
We are currently working on the implementation of a different, much faster search engine, which may enable creator/character searching again in the future.
A huge v4.3 update for your CLZ Comics mobile app is now available.
In this update, we complete re-designed the Add Comics screen, to make it clearer, easier-to-user and to help you add comics more efficiently.
What’s new in the Add Comics screen?
- Switch between By Title and By Barcode using tabs at the top
(Add Manually is now a separate screen, under Tools menu) - All panels are now resizable (list, details, camera)
- Add button is now at bottom right (blue circle with “+” icon)
- Adding By Title:
- Suggestions appear in a drop-down while you type a title
- Adding By Barcode:
- Camera scanner is now integrated in Add screen, not a separate screen
- Tap the keyboard icon in the camera panel to enter a barcode manually
- Delete barcodes from queue by swiping from right to left
- Barcode queue is now remembered between sessions
Do you already have a list of your movies, books, cds, comics or games? E.g. entered in a spread-sheet program, or created using a different cataloging tool, then exported to CSV?
Cool, you can now easily get that list into your Collectorz.com program (desktop, mobile or Connect). Just use our new flexible import tool to import your existing list into the CLZ Cloud. This will make your list instantly available in Connect. Or sync to the mobile app or desktop software using the CLZ Cloud syncing.
As most of you know, at Collectorz.com we take Customer Support very seriously. We’re always here to answer your questions or to help with any problems you may have encountered with our cataloging tools.
To further streamline CLZ Support, Sven, one of our web-developers, has created a new Collectorz.com Help Center, at Help.CLZ.com
New:
- Split edit screen, easily switch between main and personal fields
Fixed:
- App respects the system screen orientation lock
- Background color for the searchbar on certain Lollipop tablet devices
- Long loading in manage pick list screen
Big launch this week, our new Collectorz.com Shop is live at Shop.CLZ.com !
Bernard, Sven, AJ and I (Alwin) have been working on this for quite a while, doing many iterations, to make the new shop super-clear and easy to navigate, even on mobile devices.
This new shop replaces both the shop/buy pages of the collectorz.com website and the shop of the My.CLZ.com website. Both websites now link to the new Shop.CLZ.com.
- Fixed app closing on CLZ Account registration
New:
- Fixed flickering in navigation/toolbar in the main list on phone
- New Search engine for adding comics By Title:
- Better and cleaner search results.
- Much faster, almost instant results.
- New layout for the comic lists
We added folder options in this build for a couple of fields we didn’t have them for yet. Should be a pretty complete list by now! Also added a nice “out of sync” mark to let you know when the collection is out of sync.
New:
- Added Folder options for:
- format
- store
- age
- color
- country
- crossover
- edition
- genre
- language
- story arc
- CLZ Cloud Sync button now indicates “out of sync” status using red exclamation mark
- App now automatically restores the Unlock Full App in-app purchase
Fixed:
- Fixed hardware keyboard enter not working in tablet search field
- Fixed quick search suggesting returning a blank screen on a single issue search result
New: “Search-As-You-Type” suggestions when adding comics by title. While enter a title to search for, a drop-down list will appear, showing the five most popular series that match. If you see the series you were looking for, just tap to select it.
Fixed:
- Screen rotation throughout the app
- Improved scrolling smoothness in the series list
- Have/wish lists are back in the series list
Fixed:
- Field Defaults were not immediately stored after closing the screen
- Syncing screen: Sometimes the sync button was wrongly disabled
- iPhone: Main Screen: crash when touching the row with total comics
New search engine for adding comics By Title:
- Better and cleaner search results.
- Much faster, almost instant results.
New data entry interface for date fields:
- Allows manual entry of year/month/day
- Allow “partial dates”, e.g. just year and month
- Open the calendar tool with the calendar button.