What's new in Movie Collector? 2018

Pending our discussion with IMDb, it was necessary to update Movie Collector for Windows with the following changes:

• The program does not download/update IMDb Ratings or IMDb links anymore.
• All occurrences of the “IMDb” name and logo have been removed.

We hope to reach an agreement with IMDb soon, so that we can re-enable the above features.
Our apologies for the inconvenience.

Pending our discussion with IMDb, it was necessary to update Movie Collector for Mac with the following changes:

• The program does not download/update IMDb Ratings or IMDb links anymore.
• All occurrences of the “IMDb” name and logo have been removed.

We hope to reach an agreement with IMDb soon, so that we can re-enable the above features.
Our apologies for the inconvenience.

Stability

We have fixed various stability issues in the program to get rid of some more access violation errors that were happening for a couple of users. We also fixed a problem where “File > Open Database” didn’t refresh the main screen to show the opened file.

• Got rid of some Access Violation errors
• “File / Open database” could show an empty screen

32-bit and 64-bit option

We’ve found that when running our program in 64-bit mode, some 3rd party external devices will not work or talk to the program such as:

• TWAIN image scanners
• Some barcode scanners
• Webcams (for barcode scanning)

If you run into issues where you your TWAIN image scanner, or your barcode scanner won’t connect or work, this is usually caused by the drivers of these devices which are not 64-bit compatible, and thus can’t talk to your Collectorz program.

We’re trying to look for a way to make them talk to the 64-bit version, but for now, to work around this, redownload the software from your CLZ Account page and during installation choose to install the 32-bit version!

DPI fix for Add Movies screen

The new “Add as Single Movie” or “Add [x] Movies” buttons for box sets weren’t scaling correctly on screens with high DPI settings. Fixed now!

We noticed a small issue in the new Flex detail templates where plot descriptions could be cut off wrong. Fixed in this latest build.

We also fixed a rare problem that could throw a “List index out of bounds” error on certain popups.

Fixed:

• “Clean” templates were missing
• Adding movies from files didn’t refresh the movie list correctly

Movie Collector version 19 has arrived! Here’s what’s new:

• Manage multiple “collections” within one database file
• Automatic Cloud-syncing of your own “custom” images
• A new super-adaptive “Flex” template for the Details Panel
• 64-bit version for 64-bit Windows versions
• Add Box Sets as a single database entry
• Image Viewer window now automatically resizes while browsing images

Read on for the full details:

Read more

Some of you reported some issues in the Edit Screens in Movie Collector using macOS Mojave, which have now been addressed and fixed!

Fixes:

• Searching for a actor or crew wasn’t working (dropdown wasn’t opening to show all options)
• The dropdown to choose a role for a crew member wasn’t working
• Dragging and dropping of images on the template or edit screen didn’t do anything

We still had a couple of persistent Access Violation and List Index Out of Bounds errors happening in the Add Movies screen. We managed to capture them and the Add Screen should be more stable now.

We also fixed a problem with the quick search in the main screen that could throw an error.

Should you still get such errors, please contact us and let us know!

We’ve changed some code in various screens to make the program more stable and even less prone to random Access Violations.

After many support conversations with helpful users, we finally found out what the problem was: a dodgy 3rd party HTTPS component.
So we have now completely replaced that component with a better, more modern one, which seems to have resolved all Access Violation problems.

Fixed:

• Stability: Took care of Access Violation errors that could pop up because of the old HTTPS component
• Add screen: “Change Cover” could break the preview panel

Fixed:

• Update from Core for movies wasn’t downloading new details

There was a bug in the latest version of Movie Collector that caused a problem in uploading custom covers. All fixed now!

Fixed:

• “Upload Cover” functionality didn’t work
• More stability in the Add and Find Cover screens

Update from Core for movies that are part of a box set now also downloads a front cover if it’s missing (and we have it in the online database).

New:

• Update from Core now also downloads front covers for box sets
• Added Date now syncs with CLZ Cloud

Fixed:

• After adding by Title or by Barcode you couldn’t edit the price fields for your newly added movie
• Add Screen: “Report missing movie” is now available from the right click menu

We received reports that the Find Cover screen was giving quite a few “image could not be loaded” errors lately, and we’ve found an issue in the program that caused this. We’ve fixed this and you should be able to load almost any image you find now.

We also changed some background code in the Add Screen to make the program more stable.

Fixed:

• Find Cover screen: now allows more images to be shown and downloaded
• Add screen: Fixed a couple of Access Violation errors
• Add screen: Fixed a false “Barcode already in queue” error

Box Set covers now also sync down to your Windows computer should you have added them with Movie Connect or your mobile device. Update from Core will also download a box set cover if the box set was originally added from our online database.

Fixes:

• Edit Screen: Year dropdown for dates would scroll all the way to the top, now uses current year.
• Edit Screen: Date Pickers would sometimes not be able to pick today’s date if next/previous was used.
• Edit Screen: User Defined Fields: Date Picker button was in the wrong place
• Some cosmetic improvements in various screens.

On older macOS versions (10.7, 10.8 and 10.9) the Add Movies screen popup and the Manage Pick Lists screen weren’t working. We fixed that in this maintenance build (but if you can, we do recommend updating to the latest macOS 🙂 ).

Small maintenance build for Movie Collector today, the price fields in the Edit Movie screen weren’t working correctly and clicking through to another movie in a box set was broken in some cases. All fixed now!

Fixed:

• Price fields weren’t working correctly
• Clicking through to another movie inside a box set wasn’t working in images, coverflow and cards view

New: Automatically add multi-movie box sets:

During 2017, our content managers worked for months to enhance our Core online movie database with movie list information for thousands of multi-movie box sets.

As of today, Movie Collector for macOS can use this new Core data: Just use the enhanced Add Movies screen to find a box set, either by title or by barcode, and our Core “knows” which movies are in the box.

See it in action:

Find and add box sets by barcode

Scan a box-set barcode and Core will show you which movies it contains. Click “Add movie” at the bottom right and all contained movies will be added to your database, automatically linked by a box set entry.

Find and add box sets by title

Alternatively, use the Title tab and enable the new Box Set search to find box sets by their title.

Note: the new Movies, TV Series and Box Sets switches now let you search each of these three Core section separately OR combined.
AND: The switches also operate on the Search-As-You-Type suggestions, for even quicker searching and adding!

New box set panel on movie details page, with movie list!

A nice new box set panel at the top of the movie details for each of the contained movies. Now showing the list of the contained movies, in the correct order, AND with clickable links to go straight to the other movies in the set!

Change the order of movies in a box set

At the bottom of the list of movies you will find a link to “change order of movies…” to modify the order in which the movies are displayed in the details page.

New in the Add Movies from CLZ Core screen:

The Add Movies Automatically screen is now called “Add Movies from CLZ Core” and it includes quite a few improvements to make it both easier-to-use and easier-on-the-eye:

• Big blue buttons for the main actions, Searching and Adding, can’t miss ’em 🙂
• Checkboxes to turn on Movies, TV Series and/or Box Set searching
• Automatic Preview, just select a result (no more need for double clicking)
• Use the popup in the “Add” button to change it to add to “Collection” or “Wish List”

New: Movies vs TV Series

You can find a new “Is TV Series” checkbox in your Edit Movie screen. If you folder on this field you will get a “Yes” and “No” folder, so you can quickly split your collection into TV Series and Movies!

Click the folder dropdown to select or create your “Is TV Series” setting:

We got a couple of reports about an error happening with the new security build which has been addressed in 18.4.2.

A BIG update for your Movie Collector software today, with an important change:

Secure HTTPS connections, for your security and privacy

As indicated in our GDPR email from a couple of weeks ago, we are updating our software and services, to be more secure and to better protect your privacy.

Starting with version 18.4, Movie Collector now uses secure HTTPS connections for all communications with our servers:

• for logging in with your username and password
• for syncing your data with CLZ Cloud
• for sending your searches to Core.

To make this possible, we have created new secure “entry points” on our servers, that are only allowing secure HTTPS connections. The new Movie Collector software only communicates with those secure entry points.

For your privacy and security, we strongly recommend updating to version 18.4.

We fixed an issue in two panel mode where, on start-up, the items in your database sometimes wouldn’t show up correctly.

Fixed:

• Main Screen: The width of the columns wasn’t remembered correctly sometimes.

Fixes:

• Several Access Violation errors in the main screen.
• List View: Double clicking on checks would make list unresponsive.
• Edit Screen: Using Next/Prev would cause strange effects with checkboxes in main screen.
• Main Screen: The “keep filter active” checkbox and “Reset Filter” button were hidden.

A couple of weeks ago, our CLZ Cloud (and Movie Connect) has been updated with 9 more fields and loan information. Today’s version 18.3 now supports the syncing of all these new fields and your loan information to and from the CLZ Cloud!

Added for syncing:

• Full Release Date (previously, only the year was synced)
• Runtime
• IMDb Number
• IMDb Rating
• Audience Rating
• Region
• Studio
• Distributor
• Box Set
• Loans

Heads up: after updating to version 18.3, the software will automatically mark most of your movies as “changed”, to force the upload of your data for the new fields to the CLZ Cloud.

These fields also all sync to the latest iOS and Android versions!

Fixed:

• Behaviour: The setting for ‘Let selection “Follow” the Edited Movie’ didn’t work.
• An access violation could occur when double clicking on the checkboxes.
• The details panel could not be resized correctly sometimes.
• Edit Multiple movies would sometimes not activate due to an issue with counting the selected movies.
  

A BIG update for your Movie Collector software today, with two important changes:

1. Secure HTTPS connections, for your security and privacy

As indicated in our recent GDPR email, we are updating our software and services, to be more secure and to better protect your privacy.

Starting with version 18.2, Movie Collector now uses secure HTTPS connections for all communications with our servers:

• for logging in with your username and password
• for syncing your data with CLZ Cloud
• for sending your searches to Core.

To make this possible, we have created new secure “entry points” on our servers, that are only allowing secure HTTPS connections. The new Movie Collector software only communicates with those secure entry points.

For your privacy and security, we strongly recommend updating to version 18.2.

2. More sync fields

Last week, our CLZ Cloud (and Movie Connect) has been updated with 9 more fields and loan information. Today’s version 18.2 now supports the syncing of all these new fields and your loan information to and from the CLZ Cloud!

Added for syncing:

• Full Release Date (previously, only the year was synced)
• Runtime
• IMDb Number
• IMDb Rating
• Audience Rating
• Region
• Studio
• Distributor
• Box Set
• Loans

Heads up: after updating to version 18.2, the software will automatically mark most of your movies as “changed”, to force the upload of your data for the new fields to the CLZ Cloud.

BTW: Updates for the CLZ Movies mobile apps are coming up soon, so that you can fully sync the above new fields from desktop to mobile and vice versa.

Fixed:

• Preferences: Ignore Sort Title Setting was ignored
• Add Movies Files: Batch add checked for movie files was not working

Fixed:

• The Unrecognized Barcode popup gave an error
• Added movies weren’t correctly cleared from the barcode queue after adding them sometimes

Movie Collector offers powerful batch commands, for performing actions on multiple movies in one go, e.g. editing, removing or updating from Core.
However, we are finding that many users have never use these these batch actions, either because they are not aware of their existence or because they don’t know how to actually select multiple movies (by Shift or Ctrl-clicking).

In today’s update we addressed these issues:

New Selection Checkboxes in the List View, for easy selection of multiple movies

The List View now features checkboxes on the left. Use the checkboxes to easily select multiple movies, no Shift or Ctrl-clicking needed. Of course the classic Shift/Ctrl-clicking still works too, this is just an extra method.

Don’t need the checkboxes? You can hide them using Tools / Options / Customization.

A new Action Bar with batch actions

As soon as multiple movies are selected (that is, more than 1), a new Action Bar appears above the list. It shows how many are selected, plus offers buttons for the most popular batch actions.

Also new: Action Bar above Details Panel

At the same time, we also added a new Action Bar above the details panel, for quick access to commands operating on the selected movie.

TIP: The commands in this new Action Bar have been removed from the main toolbar, to make that one a bit cleaner. However, if you are upgrading from an older version, it will remember your toolbar. To get the new clean main toolbar, choose View / Toolbars / Reset.

Don’t need or want this new bar? You can hide it using Tools / Options / Customization.

Based on your comments we fixed some scaling problems and added a “Today” button in the new date pickers as it was missing from the new one. Full list of changes below:

New(ish)

• Datepickers: (Re)Added a today button

Fixed:

• Edit Screen: Edit Episode: font was to small
• Filters: boolean fields would flip (yes -> no) when upgrading from 18.0.x to 18.1.x
• Add Screen: Format icons the cells are now scaled correctly
• Image popups now scale according to your DPI settings
• Fixed some display issues in the Quick Search popup top right on screens with higher DPI settings
• More small DPI scaling fixes for other screens and popups

New: Changed timing of “Report missing barcode” popup:

The missing barcode popup now pops up when you click on a “not found” result instead of interfering while you’re still scanning barcodes.

Fixed:

• Edit Screen: the Location field wasn’t displayed correctly.

With super hi-res 4K (or even 5K) screens becoming quite common, more and more people are running Windows with the Font Size (DPI scaling) set to 125% or 150%, to keep text readable. So earlier this year, we released maintenance builds for all Windows editions to fix various layout problems when running Windows with “large fonts”.

Today, with version 18.1 we’re taking the next step: Movie Collector is now fully “DPI Aware”. Starting with this version, if you have increased your font size in Windows, all screen texts will look sharper, less fuzzy, making full use of your hi-res screen.

Old version:

New version:

New collection status icons

We added new collection status icons to the main screen’s list view and card view to make the screen less clogged up and easier on the eye.

Fixed:

• Edit Movie:
  • Index field had a typo
  • Clicking next or previous could create a second + button in the User Defined Fields tab
• Templates:
  • Fixed an issue where the template could become “white” if arrow keys were used on the keyboard.
  • Clicking an image would show a drag/drop menu. The image now opens properly.
  • Metro template didn’t show the movie info of a box set.
• Quick Search: Fixed normalization for quick searches so words with umlauts/accents etc. are now easier to be found.
• Fixed a problem with folder paths for users that have their Documents folder rooted to an external drive (program wouldn’t install properly).
• Link Screen could show “Link Selected” button even if there were no matches.
• Manage Column presets:
  • Clicking in certain parts of the screen could cause Access Violations.
  • Clicking the Edit menu could break the focus in the screen.
• Light Skin: Better visibility for selected items in your lists.
• User Defined Fields: It was possible to create invisible User Defined Fields which would then never show up in the edit screen.
• Add Screen: Scrollbar position wouldn’t update sometimes.

Fixed:

• The Add Movie screen wasn’t able to search a full title or barcode. All good now!

Never a dull moment at the CLZ HQ… Here we were, working on nice improvements for our software, when suddenly… the guys at Apple had a brainwave: In their ultimate wisdom, they decided to start phasing out 32-bit applications.

Since April 12, users of macOS High Sierra are getting a “not optimized for your Mac” warning when they start a 32-bit application. Which includes the Movie Collector software for macOS 🙁

On top of that, Apple have already stopped allowing 32-bit applications in their App Store and rumours are that they may even stop supporting 32-bit applications in a future version of macOS, requiring every application to be 64-bit!

Of course, we were already aware that Apple would be going this route some day; the rumours have been around for quite a while. So we had already been working on a 64-bit version of our software, as a “back-burner project”.

But the introduction of last week’s “not optimized” warnings suddenly made this a high-priority project. So… we dropped everything we were doing and finalized our 64-bit project. And I am happy to report:

A fully 64-bit v18.1 version of Movie Collector is available now!

Not exactly what we were planning to do this month, but hey, this is what the Update Plans are for: your guarantee that we deal with everything the world throws at us 🙂

Fixed:

• Sync with CLZ Cloud:
  • Sometimes the “Local changes to be uploaded” counter didn’t show the correct number.
  • When a cover could not be downloaded during down syncing it would stop and not continue. Now it will continue and show a report of any possible errors that have occurred.
  • Sometimes covers weren’t uploaded when they should have.
  • The error: “This database is different from the one in CLZ Cloud” would show up in rare cases when it shouldn’t.
• Main Screen:
  • There were still some cases where “follow edited item” option was not working.
  • Folder grouping on a credit role would show folders for all credit roles instead of just the one selected.

Version 18 is finally here! And it not only bring the promised Auto-Cloud-Syncing, but also many improvements to the main screen, making it both faster and more stable.

NEW: Fully Automatic CLZ Cloud Syncing!

The free CLZ Cloud service is at the center of all our cataloging solutions (desktop, mobile and web), the glue that binds them all together.
Tens of thousands of users are using the CLZ Cloud syncing every day, to transfer data between their desktop, Connect and mobile software, to update their online collection list, or simply for keeping an online backup of their precious database.

Now, it is time to take the CLZ Cloud to the next level, with automatic syncing:
Add or edit movies in Movie Collector and these changes will auto-upload to the CLZ Cloud instantly. Did you make changes using the CLZ Movies mobile app or directly in Movie Connect? Just start your software and changes will download automatically.
No more need to go to the Sync with CLZ Cloud screen, ever.

With “Sync Automatically” switched on…

1. Your online cloud backup is always up-to-date.
2. Your cloud viewer always shows the current state of your collection.
3. All your CLZ tools (desktop, mobile and Connect) will always be in-sync.

Automatic Cloud Syncing is an optional feature, switched OFF by default. If you don’t want to auto-sync, or don’t want to sync with the CLZ Cloud at all, just leave it switched OFF.

Main screen now faster and more stable

In the past few months, we have spent a lot of time rewriting important parts of the main screen. For instance, the code that refreshes the folder panel (which was slow, especially with the “counters” switched on) and also the part that restores your selection in the list after editing. At the same time, we reduced the program’s “memory footprint”, making it more stable overall.

The result is that the program is now a lot more enjoyable to use. It starts quicker, it refreshes much faster (after adding or editing) and switching between folder types is quicker.

The speed-up will be most noticeable on large collections, with thousands of movies. Especially when having LOTS of folders in the folder panel (e.g. Actor folders).

Fixes

• Cloud syncing:
  • After duplicating a movie, the duplicate would not be marked for syncing to cloud.
  • In some situations, a down-sync could update empty fields with data from Core.
  • In some situations, cover images would not upload automatically.
• Main screen:
  • After editing, the edited items would not be selected after refresh.

Fixed:

• Export/Import of a movie that is part of a box set didn’t work properly
• Edit Movie:
  • assigning a box set will now always add this movie as the last movie in that box set
  • clicking OK while uploading cover would cause a crash. Buttons are disabled now during upload.
• Main Screen:
  • using CTRL to deselect items would not update the selected counter at the left bottom
  • showing/hiding the quick filter panel would expose the details view when it was closed
  • when the details view image popup was scrolled down, opening it again would scroll down again
  • quick search suggestions: selecting a suggestion would not clear the previous quick search
  • selecting the window’s “restore” option when running full screen could hang the program in some cases
  • refresh of the statistics view could fall back to the currently active folder instead of selected statistics field
• User Defined Fields: fields with an ampersand (‘&’) in their name weren’t always displayed correctly throughout the program
• Clicking OK/Next/Previous in an edit pick list item screen without editing its details would trigger unnecessary cloud changes
• Using “search” in some file open dialogs for images wouldn’t find .png files
• Syncing with CLZ Cloud: locally inserted items would update empty fields with Core fields after syncing

In this maintenance build, we fixed a long-standing problem:
On Windows systems with the DPI or Font Size set to 125% or 150%, many screens had strange font size and layout problems, particularly visible in the Edit Movie screen, but also affecting other screens.

This has been a particularly tricky problem to fix, but Ronald and AJ jumped into the magical world of Windows display settings and, after a week of cursing and yelling, they have finally been able to fix it. Phew… peace and quiet again.

Various tweaks and fixes, based on your v18 feedback:

Tweaks to the Edit screen:

• Cast and Crew lists: right click to directly access that specific Manage List screen.
• Cast and Crew lists now show a “Sort Name” column again.

Fixes:

• Edit Multiple: boolean fields would be reset to “No”.
• Add from Core: Stopping a running search could cause an Access Violation.
• Main Screen: Selected filter wasn’t restored on starting the program.
• Select Column/Sort/Folder fields: adding/removing a field after changing the order of the fields, would reset that order again.
• Various stability improvements.
• Various fixes to the “Clean” template