What's new in CLZ Games? (page 8)
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 Lists 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.
New:
- CLZ Cloud database detection for empty databases
- Out of sync notification on the sync button
- Improved restoring of in app purchase
- Added folder support for: multiplayer mode, edition and hardware type
Fixed:
- Fixed hardware keyboard enter not working in tablet search field
New: “Search-As-You-Type” suggestions when adding games by title. While enter a title to search for, a drop-down list will appear, showing the five most popular games that match. If you see the game you were looking for, just tap to select it.
Fixed:
- Screen rotation throughout the app
- Database totals counting hardware as games
A huge v4.3 update for your CLZ Games 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. Here’s what’s new:
What’s new in CLZ Games 4.3 for Android?
- New “Material”-based interface, with two skins/themes: Light & Dark.
(The app now starts in the Light skin. If you prefer the Dark look, just use the View menu top right) - Big floating blue “+” button for adding games.
- Access all other features and tools from “hamburger” menu top left.
- Clear and easy switch between All / In Collection / Wish List at the top.
- Access all other view options from menu on top right.
- Add screen: tabs at the top to switch between By Title and By Barcode modes.
- Add Manually is now a separate menu item in the menu on the left.
- Redesigned book list entries.
- Old Import from Game Collector has been moved to Settings screen!
“Export to Text”, a feature previously only available to Connect subscribers, has now also been added to the CLZ Cloud viewer.
We figured that exporting to a text file, e.g. a CSV for Excel, should be available to any user, whether they own Connect, the desktop software or a CLZ mobile app.
You can find the Export to Text feature by visiting your own collection in the CLZ Cloud viewer, clicking the little “wrench” icon top right, then selecting Export.
Enjoy!
Version 4.2 adds a couple of improvements and tools that are essential for users who are doing most of their editing on the mobile apps:
- New “Manage Pick Lists” screen (under new Tools menu).
This new screen lets you take control of your pick lists, that is book Authors, music Artists, comic Series, Publishers, Formats, Genres, Subjects, etc… Use it to:- Fix typos in names.
- Remove unused entries.
- Merge duplicate entries.
- Edit screen improvements:
- New “value picker” screen for pick list fields, like Authors, Artists, Series, Genres, Subjects, etc… Just tap the field, pick a value from the pick list that appears and done. No more need to type the first few letters of a value (we all hate typing on mobile devices, don’t we?)
- Tap the pencil icons to directly edit names of pick list entries.
- Tap the pencil icon for Artists, Authors and Series to directly edit Names *and* SortNames.
- New “Manage Pick Lists” tool for editing and merging Platforms, Genres, Formats etc…
- Edit screen: Now edit the names of Platforms, Formats, etc…
- Edit screen: New “value picker” screen for quickly filling fields like Platform and Publisher.
- New Tools menu, with Manage Pick Lists, Field Defaults and Empty Database tools.
New:
- Settings / Field Defaults: choose field values that will be set for each new entry automatically.
- Edit screen improvements:
- Improved layout to make it easier on the eye
- New “Select Value” screen for easier entry of pick list fields (e.g. Artist, Format, Genre, etc…)
- Cancel and Done buttons have been moved to the top bar.
- New Delete button at the bottom.
We have completely rewritten our Core for Games search engine, that is, the online code that gives you results when you search our Core by Title in your Add screen.
The new search engines will provide better search results that are more “to-the-point” and less “fuzzy”. Also, results will be returned much faster.
Previously, the Connect free 30-day trial limited trial users to 100 items in their database.
To allow full evaluation of our Connect software during the trial, we have removed this database limit. The free 30-day trial now lets you add, import or sync as many items as you want.
Enjoy!
CLZ Games is now free to download, with a database limit of 100 games. Unlock higher database limits using In App Purchases.
If you purchased CLZ Games *before* the 4.0 release, then the 4.0 version will be automatically unlocked to an *unlimited* database size. You do NOT need to pay again 🙂
If, for whatever reason, this didn’t work for you, then just CONTACT US and and we’ll unlock it manually, free of charge!
New:
- Easily switch between Add methods (Platform & Title / Barcode / Manual).
- Re-designed search results with included cover images.
- Now add directly from results using quick-add buttons
(no more need to open the Preview Screen). - New black style for Preview Screen.
- Add by Barcode now automatically opens Camera Scan screen.
It’s been a long time in the making, but it’s finally here:
CLZ Games 4.0 for iOS!
Apart from several improvements to the Add Game screen (see below), the 4.0 version contains an important change:
CLZ Games for iOS is now free to download
Starting with version 4.0, CLZ Games is free to download and starts with a limit of 100 games.
New: Improved Add Games screen
- Easily switch between Add methods (Platform & Title / Barcode / Manual).
- Re-designed search results with included cover images.
- Now add directly from results using quick-add buttons
(no more need to open the Preview Screen). - New black style for Preview Screen.
- Add by barcode now automatically opens Camera Scan screen.
- Larger Camera Scan screen on iPad.
For better security, we have now moved both the Cloud and Connect websites to the HTTPS protocol, using so-called Extended Validation SSL certificates.
This SSL connection is indicated by the nice “green bar” in your address bar:
In the past 2 weeks, we have moved all 5 online media databases (movies, books, music, comics and games) to 5 new separate database servers.
This week, CLZ web developers Sven and Dion have further optimized these new servers to give you even better performance from Core, especially for title searches that have many results.
The fruits of their labour are now immediately noticeable in the ADD screens of your Connect software. Enjoy!
Today, we have completed the big project of moving our 5 Core and Cloud databases to a new server solution. Previously, everything was running on two high performance dedicated machines: one for all databases and websites, the second for all cover images.
For better performance, stability and scalability, we are now splitting up all services into multiple separate cloud-based solutions:
- 5 separate database servers for all 5 Core+Cloud databases
Status: completed today! - 5 separate storage servers / delivery networks for all cover images.
Status: preparing the switch now. ETA: several weeks. - 1 new fast web server for the Cloud, Core and Connect sites and services.
ETA: within 2 months.
Multiple new field options have been added for the folder panel (for both Connect and the free CLZ Cloud viewers). My favorite new folder option: The Year folder for movies:
The home / hub page of your CLZ Cloud or Connect account now loads a lot faster.
(the 5 separate collection lists are now “lazy-loaded”)
A few weeks ago, we introduced the new Sort Order screen. Today we’re taking the next step: allowing multi-field sorting.
For example, you can now sort your list first by Year, then within the years, by Title.
Just drag multiple fields from the Available panel to the Selected panel, one by one:
New in all five Connect editions: Export your list to a text file, e.g. to CSV format, for importing into spreadsheet programs like Excel, Numbers, etc…
You can either:
- Export your entire database, by choosing Export from the Tools menu.
- Export only a selection. To do this, go to Select Mode, select some items, then click the Export button at the top.
Just over a week ago, we introduced a new design for the Columns screen. Today, we moved the new design over to the Sort Order screen, so that both have a consistent user interface.
Just drag your desired Sort Field to the right, then select Ascending or Descending using the toggle buttons below the field.
Next up: multi-field sorting!
Today, more sort field options have been added to the Sort Order screen of all five Connect and Cloud Viewer editions.
This basically means that from now on, ALL available cloud fields can also be sorted on.
The first version of Connect had a nice A to Z “alphabet bar” at the top, for quickly filtering your list to show only the items starting with a specific letter.
However, in the Two-Point-Oh redesign the wise wizards at the CLZ HQ the alphabet bar was reduced to just a tiny button, with a drop down panel showing all letters. Which of course saves space on the toolbar, in an attempt to make it all fit on smaller tablet and phone screens.
Not a bad idea in itself, but the first letter filtering lost its’ easy of use and accessibility.
So we changed our minds and today we brought back the Alphabet Bar!
It is now available on both the free CLZ Cloud viewers and the Connect software. But: only on bigger screens where it actually fits. On smaller screens, the Alphabet Bar nicely reduces to the tiny button again 🙂
New today, in all Connect apps AND Cloud viewers: a new Column Selection screen for the List View.
This new Columns screen lets you:
- Easily select your preferred columns by dragging fields from the Available Columns area to the Selected Columns area.
- Drag and drop to re-order columns within the Selected area.
Several small fixes today:
- Editing multiple items with really many items selected (say over 1,000) didn’t work.
Now it does. But still, editing many items in one go may be slow. - On large desktop screen, with the browser window set full screen, the infinite scrolling system didn’t work.
It immediately stopped loading after the first set of items was shown. Happened only in Images and Card Views though, in List View all was well. Fixed now. - When changing the sorting by clicking a column header, the sort direction of the previous sort column was used. Now it correctly resets to ascending sorting when changing to a different sort field.