What's new in Movie Collector? 2018

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:

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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

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:

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.

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

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.

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.

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 🙂

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.