What's new in CLZ Comics?
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 Comics 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 and Most Valuable top lists
- Have/Want summaries: On Order issues are now indicated with a *
v9.8 Subscribe to CovrPrice as an In-App purchase, straight from the CLZ app
An important update for your CLZ Comics app today, in which we make it much easier to subscribe to CovrPrice and get comic values in your CLZ app.
In short: you can now subscribe to CovrPrice straight from the CLZ app, as in In-App-Purchase! And when you do, it is linked up and active immediately, just use Update Values and you’re set.
Thank you all for the feedback on last week’s version 9.7 of the CLZ Comics app! Most users absolutely loved the update, but there was some negative feedback too, by email, on our Club CLZ forum and in the CLZ Comics group on Facebook.
So in today’s 9.7.3 update, we are addressing most of the complaints and suggestions.
v9.7: Various improvements for Add Comics, Statistics and Main screen
Today, a big v9.7 update for your CLZ Comics, with a couple of new features and lots of small improvements all over the app, including a resolution for something that has annoyed many users for over 23 years!
Here’s what’s new:
- Add Comics screen:
- New “Hide Owned” toggle on Series tab, for hiding all issues that you already own
- New snappy “Confirm” popups replace the old and slow Preview pages
- New look for issue cards on Issue tab
- Statistics screen:
- Removed the “Comics by Creator” top list, and replaced it with:
- New Top Artists list, that includes all artist type roles
- New Top Writers list, that includes all writer type roles
- Main screen:
- List and Card View now include the Variant Description for each comic
- Several layout improvements to the comic details page
- New folder options “All Artists” and “All Writers”
In today’s Comic Connect update, two changes that will save you a lot of typing when adding new comics by Issue or by Series. Also, we added support for the new CGCxJSA label for slabs.
- New “Search for…” suggestions when adding comics by Series
- New “Search for…” suggestions when adding comics by Issue
- Support for the new “CGC x JSA Authentic Autograph” Label Type
In today’s update for your CLZ Comics app, two changes that will save you a lot of typing when adding new comics by Issue or by Series. Also, we added support for the new CGCxJSA label for slabs.
- New “Search for…” suggestions when adding comics by Series
- New “Search for…” suggestions when adding comics by Issue
- Support for the new “CGC x JSA Authentic Autograph” Label Type
Version 9.5 is here, an update with one change that is hardly even visible in the app, but with big advantages.
For v9.5, we have enhanced the camera barcode scanner to better deal with barcodes that have a 2 digit or 5 digit “extension”. (As you may know, scanning this barcode extension is essential, as that part tells the app what the issue number and variant is!)
Today is New Comic Book Day, so the perfect day to release CLZ Comics 9.4 with our new NCBD feature!
“NCBD” is what was previously called “Pull List”, but we figured that the name NCBD was a better fit of what the feature does, especially after today’s complete re-design.
Here’s what’s new:
- In the Add Comics screen, the fourth tab is now called “NCDB” (previously “Pull List”)
- Navigate over weeks with next/previous arrows, or tap for a dropdown
- Release list now directly shows the issues, as a Card View with big images
- Tap an issue to see all its variants
- New: filter by “#1’s” to show all #1 issues (so all new series)
- Sort issue list by Popularity or Alphabetically
To try the new NCDB tool for yourself, open the Add Comics screen, then choose the 4th tab called “NBCD”!
CLZ Comics is now free to use up to 250 comic books, for as long as you like.
This “Free Mode” includes access to all functionality, including CLZ Cloud syncing (for online backups and transferring data between devices).
Got more than 250 comics? Then subscribe (US $20 per year or US $2 per month) and add as many comics as you need. Of course, feel free to try the app with 250 comics first!
A common situation for most users of the Comic Connect web-app: finding a specific issue in your comic database. Up till now, the way to do this was: first find the series (using the search box top right, or the search box above the series folder list), then just scroll down the issue list to find the issue you were looking for. It worked, but could take some time, especially for series with lots of issues.
So to avoid the annoying scrolling part, we created a new “Jump to Issue” feature (aka “the sniper button”)
v9.2: Improved “Updated Values” screen, after updating from CovrPrice
CLZ Comics 9.2 is live and this one is for the CovrPrice subscribers!
After using the “Update Values” tool from the menu, to update the values from CovrPrice, the apps shows you a report of which values have change and by how much. For today’s v9.2 update, we re-designed this report and added some new features:
- Tap a comic to pop up a screen with the full comic details
- Now sort your list by the Value Change or by the Value itself
- Filter the list by Collection Status, e.g. to show In Collection comics only
- The list now includes Variant Descriptions!
- Finally: a completely redesign of the list entries to make it more readable
Another update for the Comic Connect web-based software. This time we added more fields to the popular Edit Multiple tool (also known as the Batch Editing tool). That is, the tool that lets you make changes to multiple comics in one go.
Are you ready for some nice Comic Connect updates? Stay tuned in the next couple of weeks, as multiple improvements and new features are coming up. Today is the first one, a special addition for CovrPrice subscribers:
Value Totals for any issue list
A common request from CovrPrice subscribers has been: How can I see the total value for a Series? Or per Storage Box? Or per Publisher?
So here’s our solution: a CovrPrice value total is now always showing at the top, next to the issue counter!
Combined with the Folder tool, this gives you values for any sub-selection of your collection you can think of, per Series, or per Storage Box, per Cover Artist, per Grading Company, per Tag, etc…
A big update for your Comic Connect web-based software today, which is all about pick list fields.
Pick list fields (and the pick lists behind them) are an important part of your comic database. These are the fields in the Edit screen that let you pick from a list of possible values, with that list being fully configurable by you the user.
Examples of pick list fields are Storage Box, Owner, Genres and Tags (both multi value pick list fields), but also Series, Series Group and Publisher.
Now, a lot of the questions we usually get about Comic Connect are related to pick list fields and can usually be answered with:
“Just use the Manage Pick Lists screen”
Renaming Storage Boxes, Merging duplicate Series, fixing series sort problems, fixing typos in creator names, etc… it is all done in the Manage Pick Lists (MPL) 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 today’s Connect update, we are making this a lot easier: We have improved the Manage Pick Lists screen itself AND made it more accessible / discoverable:
In short:
- Improved Manage Pick Lists (MPL) screen
- Easy access to the MPL screen right from the folder panel
- Refreshed Edit Comic screen, with better pick list fields and direct MPL access
After the huge version 9.0 update back in November 2023, our mobile team has been focusing on two big v9.0 updates for our CLZ Movies and CLZ Games apps.
But… we’re back working on CLZ Comics now, bringing you a nice v9.1 update, with two often requested features:
- Use Edit Multiple to set Creators and Characters for multiple comics in one go
- Tap a creator name in comic details to instantly see all comics he/she worked on
Next to that, we are working to improving the barcode scanning, this is now live for Android in this update. Coming up for iOS.
Thanks to our translator Peter Stickler, the Connect web-based software is now available in Swedish!
If you are interested in translating Connect to your language, let us know!
The main translations we are looking for at the moment are:
- Norwegian
- Italian
Thanks to our translator Frank Silas Kesia Jensen, the Connect web-based software is now available in Danish!
If you are interested in translating Connect to your language, let us know!
The main translations we are looking for at the moment are:
- Norwegian
- Swedish
- Italian
It is live, a major v9.0 upgrade for our CLZ Comics app. Looking at our history of app updates, I can safely say that this is our biggest update ever! Lots of new features and improvements, all in one go.
There is something for everyone: a big new tool for CovrPrice subscribers, new features for users with multiple collections and finally, something that all users will love and use every day: two new ways to quickly find a specific issue in your app.
Here’s what new in v9:
- New comic value features for CovrPrice subscribers:
- New Check Value screen: look up a CovrPrice value for a comic, without having to add it to your app!
- Value totals at the top of each issue list: see values per Series, or per Storage Box, per Publisher, etc…
- New features for users with multiple collections:
- Collection tabs: easily switch between collections using tabs at the bottom of the screen
- Improved Manage Collections screen
- Two new tools for quickly finding a specific issue:
- Issue Search: use the search box top right to search for a specific issue, e.g. “amazing 362”
- Jump to Issue button (aka, the “sniper” button”): tap, enter issue number, bam you’re there.
- Other:
- Improved main app menu (no more collection entries)
- Maintenance menu: new “Remove all unused pick list entries”
Here’s the latest results from our endeavour to improve the UI/UX of all Connect features and screens. Today, we made further improvements to both the “Manage Collections” tools and the new Edit Multiple tool.
Yes another nice update for CLZ Comics app, version 8.10 already (time to start thinking about calling it version 9!).
In this update:
- Add Comics / Series : better “In Collection” indicators when using Hide Variants mode
- Two improvements to the Search box in main screen
- Lots of fixes for big and small problems that were reported by users
Add Comics : better “In Collection” indicators when using Hide Variants mode
Here’s one brought to our attention by one member in the CLZ Comics group (our friend Xander Frydek):
In the Series tab of the Add Comics screen, I like having my issue list in “Hide Variants” mode. But the problem is, then I cannot see if I already own a variant different from the A variant.
In other words: It only highlights the issue #7 number in blue if I actually own #7A, but NOT if I own #7F for instance.
In this case, can you maybe highlight the issue number in a different way, to indicate you do own that issue?
The Edit Multiple feature is an efficient tool for making changes to multiple (or all) of your database entries in one go. It has been part of the Connect web-based software for many years (since May 2015!). For the CLZ mobile apps, this “batch editing” ability was introduced much later, in July 2020.
However, when we did that, we were forced to completely re-design the feature’s user interface, to make it work well on the small phone screen. And a strange thing happened: the UI/UX we ended up with, turned out be much better than the original Edit Multiple design of the Connect web-based software and the Collector desktop software 🙂
So today, we are bringing that new Edit Multiple setup to the Connect web-based software!
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 (= Storage Box for comics), Owner, Purchase Date/Store/Price, etc…
This Pre-fill screen was introduced in Dec 2020, with a fixed set of fields. Then a year later, in March 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 movie (e.g. Purchase Price or Quantity), then forget to CLEAR it for the next items they add. Causing lots of items to be added with that same field set incorrectly.
So today, we are making another tweak to the Pre-fill screen:
A small but useful update for your Comic Connect software:
- Filter your series folder panel by Completed status
This was already available in the CLZ Comics mobile app, but it now possible in the Comic Connect software too.
Just tap the checklist icon at the top and choose “Show completed” to only show all series that have been marked as Completed.