What's new in CLZ Movies? (page 6)

By popular demand, we have added 10 more editable fields to CLZ Movies. Two completely new fields (Is TV Series and Box Set) and 8 fields that were already available as automatic Core fields but are now fully editable:

Completely New Fields:

• Is TV Series (Yes/No). For your entries, indicate whether these are movies or TV series. Use Is TV Series folders to split them in the main list. This is a new field. Default values for your entries have been set using our Core central database, but you may want to run though your list to check and correct as needed.
• Box Set. Enter a box set title in your movies to make them part of a box set. You can see the box set information at the top of the details panel for each of the movies inside that box set. Also available as a folder option.

Fields that are now fully editable:

• Release Date. Previous only available as Release Year, this is now a full date field.
• Runtime. Previously set automatically, now fully editable.
• IMDb Number. Previously set automatically, now fully editable.
• IMDb Rating. Previously set automatically, now fully editable.
• Audience Rating. Previously set automatically, now fully editable. Also available as a folder option.
• Region. Previously set automatically, now fully editable. Allows multiple values. Also available as a folder option.
• Studio. Previously set automatically, now fully editable. Allows multiple values. Also available as a folder option.
• Distributor. Previously set automatically, now fully editable. Also available as a folder option.

But wait, that’s not all: All the above fields now also sync to and from the CLZ Cloud!

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 4.11 CLZ Movies 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 CLZ Movies app only communicates with those secure entry points.

For your privacy and security, we strongly recommend updating your app to v4.11.

Fixed:

• Last update made some settings disappear in the settings screen. They are back now.
• Added bottom margin to the add auto screen on iPhone X to make the add button more reachable
• The sync screen wasn’t logging local deletes.

A cool user interface update for your Movie Connect software today, in which we makes it easier to select movies and easier to perform batch actions on the selected movies.

Select using checkboxes

To select movies, just click the checkboxes on the left of each movie entry in the list. Checkboxes are also available in Card View and Images View, just hover your mouse over an item.

No more need to go into “Select Mode” first. The Select Mode is automatically activated as soon as you checkbox the first movie, clearly indicated by the blue Batch Action Bar that replace the regular toolbar.

Batch Action Bar

While in Select Mode, the blue Batch Action Bar is visible, always showing you the number of selected movies. Also:

• Use the “Select all” checkbox to select all movies in the current list in one go
• Use the “x Cancel” button on the right to leave Select Mode
• And of course, use any of the action buttons (Edit, Delete, Print, Export, Duplicate and Loan) to perform an action on the selection movies

You can now loan movies in Movie Connect: just find and select a movie (or select multiple with the Select tool), and click the “Loan” button at the top!

Loan Manager

Click the menu top left, and then Loan Manager to access the new Loan Manager where you can see all your loaned out items, and directly return them. Alternatively you can also use CLZ Barry to scan a barcode of a movie, find it in your outstanding loans, and return it.

In the Loan Manager, you can click on a loaned item to modify the loan date, due date, return date, loaner and notes about the loan.

Print current loans to PDF

You can print out all your current loans to a PDF file by clicking the Print to PDF button in the Loan Manager screen.

Alternatively, you can select a loaner from the dropdown menu there, and only print out his/her current loans to a PDF file!

New:

• Loan movies by selecting a couple in your list, or by viewing the details of a movie, and then click “Loan” at the top.
• Return movies straight from the loan manager or by scanning their barcodes with CLZ Barry.
• Check outstanding loans and loan history in the Loan Manager.
• Edit outstanding or returned loans by clicking on them.
• Print out current loans to a PDF file

Coming up:

We will be adding the syncing of loan information to Movie Collector for Windows and macOS, and CLZ Movies for iOS and Android.

New for the Add Movies screen:

• Add button is now bigger and easier to spot (some new users missed the little round “+”).
• Add button now “remembers” your collection vs. wish list selection. No need to pick from the Collection/Wish List popup menu every time you add anymore.
• Remove from queue button is now bigger and easier to spot. Tap and hold on a barcode in the queue to select barcodes you want to remove.

Fixed:

• Accented characters in sortnames/titles were sorted incorrectly.
• Main screen: the over-sensitive quickscroll bar in the thumbnail view has been fixed.
• Edit: ‘Done’- button doest not scroll from screen on manual scroll.
• Edit: New ‘Unsaved changes’ dialog.
• Cloud sync: Sync reporting ‘invalid xml’ in rare cases.

If you’re a new user or thinking of moving your collection from the program “DVD Profiler” to Movie Connect, good news: we’ve just added a new “DVD Profiler” import tool in Movie Connect!

You can find the “DVD Profiler” import tool under the menu top left, then choose “Import Data”.

If you’re a new user or thinking of moving your collection from the program “Delicious Library” to Connect, good news: we’ve just added a new “Delicious Library” import tool in Connect!

You can find the “Delicious Library” import tool under the menu top left, then choose “Import Data”.

New for the Add Movies screen:

• Add button is now bigger and easier to spot (some new users missed the little round “+”).
• Add button now “remembers” your collection vs. wish list selection. No need to pick from the Collection/Wish List popup menu every time you add anymore.

Fixed:

• Details view: In-template editing of seen-it status was broken.
• Adding a movie would clear the collection status filter in the main screen.
• The sorting option screen would sometimes not fully show the chosen sort option when opened.
• iPad: Main screen: the details view did not refresh after changing the details template.
• iPad: Main screen: the ‘edit my rating’ pop up was rotated when in landscape mode.

By popular demand, we have added 9 more editable fields to Movie Connect. One a completely new field (Is TV Series) and 8 fields that were already available as automatic Core fields but are now fully editable:

• Is TV Series (Yes/No). For your entries, indicate whether these are movies or TV series. Use Is TV Series folders to split them in the main list. This is a new field. Default values for your entries have been set using our Core central database, but you may want to run though your list to check and correct as needed.
• Release Date. Previous only available as Release Year, this is now a full date field.
• Runtime. Previously set automatically, now fully editable.
• IMDb Number. Previously set automatically, now fully editable.
• IMDb Rating. Previously set automatically, now fully editable.
• Audience Rating. Previously set automatically, now fully editable. Also available as a folder option.
• Region. Previously set automatically, now fully editable. Allows multiple values. Also available as a folder option.
• Studio. Previously set automatically, now fully editable. Allows multiple values. Also available as a folder option.
• Distributor. Previously set automatically, now fully editable. Also available as a folder option.

To make room for all the new fields in the Edit Movie screen, we introduced a new “Edition” tab and moved all edition-specific fields there (including the Format and Barcode fields):

We’ve added new fields to sort on to change the order in which your movies are displayed in your list. Your movie list will adapt to sort and show the field you’re sorting on. On top of that we’ve redesigned the Select Sort Order screen to make it more clear what you’re choosing.

Open the Select Sort Order screen by tapping the menu top right, then tap “Sort order”.

All available sort fields:

• Title
• Release Date
• Format, then Title (New!)
• Runtime
• IMDb Rating
• Order of Entry (New!)
• Viewing Date (New!)
• My Rating (New!)
• Purchase Date (New!)
• Purchase Price (New!)
• Current Value (New!)
• Quantity (New!)
• Index
• Storage Device (New!)

All fields can be sorted either ascending or descending. Tap the field you wish to sort on, then tap “Apply” to confirm.

A small user interface tweak today:
The Add Movies screen is now a pop-up screen that lays over your movie list.
(previously it was a separate full screen page)

Looks cooler, feels more “snappy” and while adding movies, you can actually see the new additions appear in your movie list in the background!

If you’re a new user or thinking of moving your collection from the program “My Movies” to Movie Connect, good news: we’ve just added a new “My Movies” import tool in Movie Connect!

You can find the “My Movies” import tool under the menu top left, then choose “Import Data”.

Import from “My Movies”:

If you’re a new user or thinking of moving your collection from the program CATVids to Movie Connect, good news: we’ve just added a new CATVids import tool in Movie Connect!

You can find the CATVids import tool under the menu top left, then choose “Import Data”.

Import from CATVids:

Persistent barcode queue

Barcodes scanned on the add page are now remembered! This means you can scan your barcodes into the add queue, leave the page, return later and still add the barcodes you scanned.

If you wish to remove barcodes from your queue, use the Edit button top right of the list of barcodes!

You were already able to group your movies on various fields such as Format or Director, and we’ve now expanded those options with Actor and Producer!

Log in to your Connect account and click the folder icon top left of the page, then select Actor or Producer.

Selecting a folder option:

Grouping your movies on Actor:

Last week we updated the field selection popup for Connect and CLZ Cloud, and this week we bring that same field selection popup to your “Export to Text” and “Print to PDF” pages.

The update also includes an update Preview box for Export to Text, and an updated way for dragging/dropping fields for your columns or sort order.

Open up your Export to Text or Print to PDF screen via the menu top left in Connect.

New field selection popup:

Updated “Export to Text” page:

With new preview panel:

Updated “Print to PDF” page:

The ability to select your own Columns for the List View is an important customization feature of Movie Connect. The same holds for selecting the Sort Order fields.

However, the “field selection” screens for doing these customizations were a bit outdated and finding a field could be tricky. So we decided to re-imagine the field selection screens to make them easier to understand, easier to use and better to use on mobile devices too.

Redesigned Field Selection screen:

• Available fields are now grouped, like the tabs in the Edit screen.
• Easily find the field you want with the search box top left.
• Use checkboxes on the left to select fields.
• Use the “x” button on the right to remove fields.
• Drag and drop fields on the right side to change the order.
• For sorting: use the ASC/DESC button to change the sort direction of that particular field.
• Works great on both your desktop and mobile browsers!

Select Columns screen:

Select Sort Order screen:

We’ve added new fields to sort on to change the order in which your movies are displayed in your list. Your movie list will adapt to sort and show the field you’re sorting on. On top of that we’ve redesigned the Select Sort Order screen to make it more clear what you’re choosing.

Open the Select Sort Order screen by tapping the menu top right, then tap “Sort order”.

All available sort fields:

• Title
• Release Date
• Format, then Title (New!)
• Runtime
• IMDb Rating
• Order of Entry (New!)
• Viewing Date (New!)
• My Rating (New!)
• Purchase Date (New!)
• Purchase Price (New!)
• Current Value (New!)
• Quantity (New!)
• Index
• Storage Device (New!)

All fields can be sorted either ascending or descending. Tap the field you wish to sort on, then tap “Apply” to confirm.

Quick Search: Search-As-You-Type suggestions

Instantly find and select a particular movie :

• In the Quick Search box, just start typing the first few letters of the movie title you are looking for.
• While typing, a drop-down list will appear, showing the first five matching movies.
  (for most movies, it only takes 2 or 3 letters before it shows up.)
• Once you see the movie you were looking for, tap it to bring up its detail page
• TIP: Tap the search button on the keyboard or tap “View All Results” to perform the normal search.

Quick Search now searches more fields

Now also searches in:

• Plot
• Episode Titles for TV series
• Notes
• Tags
• Series

Full list of fields that are now searched:

• Title
• Title Extension
• Original Title
• Barcode
• Actors
• Directors
• Writers
• Producers
• Plot
• Episode Titles for TV series
• Notes
• Tags
• Series

Fixed:

• Crash within a few seconds of opening the app.
• Crash when pressing ‘Change account info’ in the sync screen.

Live today in your Movie Connect software: a completely re-designed Edit Movie screen with an improved look, layout and usability!

New look and layout

We’ve moved some fields around and to have them grouped and placed more logically. You’ll notice that we’ve also updated the look of certain buttons so it’s all easier on the eye, and there’s only one big blue important “OK” button to save your changes.

Updated dropdown and pick list fields

The pick list fields have been updated so they’ll only show options from your own collection instead of all available options in our online database. This makes it a lot faster to quickly pick something from a pick list that you used before!

You can just start typing to filter to the pick list entry you want to use, or open up the dropdown to scroll and pick.

Multi value pick list fields such as the Genre field, have a blue plus button to pick a genre from your genre list. Click it, and either start typing or just pick a genre from the list.

New Pick List fields

We’ve updated the following fields from plain text fields to “pick list” fields. This means that those fields now have a dropdown which you can click to quickly pick an existing pick list entry for that field.

The following fields haven been updated from plain text to pick list fields:

• Location
• Condition
• Purchase Store
• Storage Device
• Owner

These field now all have a dropdown to pick an entry. You can also type into them to search or create a new entry for that field.

Panel with personal fields on all tabs

At the bottom of the edit screen we added a “sticky” panel that you can see on all edit tabs. This panel contains some of your most important personal fields so you can always edit them quickly.

New Find Cover pop-up

The Find Cover pop-up has been updated to the latest version we introduced in the Add Screen. Check it out:

Quick Search: Search-As-You-Type suggestions

Instantly find and select a particular movie :

• In the Quick Search box, just start typing the first few letters of the movie title you are looking for.
• While typing, a drop-down list will appear, showing the first five matching movies.
  (for most movies, it only takes 2 or 3 letters before it shows up.)
• Once you see the movie you were looking for, tap it to bring up its detail page
• TIP: Tap the search button on the keyboard or tap “View All Results” to perform the normal search.

Quick Search now searches more fields

Now also searches in:

• Plot
• Episode Titles for TV series
• Notes
• Tags
• Series

Full list of fields that are now searched:

• Title
• Title Extension
• Original Title
• Barcode
• Actors
• Directors
• Writers
• Producers
• Plot
• Episode Titles for TV series
• Notes
• Tags
• Series

Disable backdrop downloading

Also new: in Settings screen, a new setting “Download backdrop images”. Switch that OFF to disable the downloading of the big backdrop images, to save space on your device.

We have just updated both the Connect web-application and the free CLZ Cloud viewers to make them a lot faster.

• The folder panel now uses “lazy-loading” which makes it load (a lot) faster.
• When selecting a folder, only the list panel is re-loaded, where previously the entire page was refreshed.

The above changes will make browsing your CLZ Cloud or Connect app a lot snappier and will prevent server performance problems (two birds with one stone!).

The performance improvements are especially noticeable for large book, music and comic collections, as these generally have loooonnnngggg lists of author, artist and series folders.

A new v4.8.1 update for your app is available now, with:

Automatic CLZ Cloud syncing

Add or edit movies and your changes will auto-upload to the CLZ Cloud instantly.
Made changes on the desktop or Connect side? Just start the app and changes will download automatically.

Note: Auto-Syncing is switched OFF by default. Switch it ON in the “Sync with CLZ Cloud” screen.

The CLZ Cloud syncing will let you:

1. Sync your data between devices, e.g. between your phone and your tablet. Or from your old phone to your new phone.
2. View your database online using the free CLZ Cloud viewer website.
3. Make an online backup of your data. Better safe than sorry!

Fixed:

• Search cleared when the X button was pushed in the search bar of the main screen.
• Update from Core didn’t update the episode list correctly.

In this “between Christmas and New Year” week, a huge update to the look and feel of our Connect web-based software.

• We removed the tabs at the top that let you switch between the programs, to give you more screen space for the software you are in. (you can still switch using the app-switcher button top right).
• Dark toolbars with white text and buttons everywhere, while keeping your list and details pages light and clear.
• All tools and feature are now accessible from the “hamburger” menu on the top left.
• Your account settings and log out options in a “user menu” on the right.
• TIP: the new look is also available in your free CLZ Cloud viewer!

Now live in your Movie Connect software, a complete re-design of the Add Movies screen, with a new look, easier interface and new features.

Adding Movies by Title

Search by title to see a list of matching movie results, or pick the movie you were looking for directly for the Search-As-You-Type suggestions.
Expand a movie entry to see the available DVD and Blu-ray editions, with small cover thumbnails:

Pick your format straight from this Add screen, no need to edit afterwards:

Not the right cover image? Use the built-in Find Cover tool to pick the correct one.

Adding Movies by Barcode

Scanned barcodes will be automatically added to your queue, with the movie information populating instantly. Use the big blue Add to Collection button at the bottom right to add the selected movie to your database, OR use the little blue “+” buttons to add straight from the queue.

Barcode not found? Use the new Unrecognized Barcode screen to find the movie by title. This will not only let you add the movie anyway, but also helps our Core by adding the barcode to that selected movie.

A new v4.8 update for your app is available now, with:

Automatic CLZ Cloud syncing
Add or edit movies and your changes will auto-upload to the CLZ Cloud instantly.
Made changes on the desktop or Connect side? Just start the app and changes will download automatically.

Note: Auto-Syncing is switched OFF by default. Switch it ON in the “Sync with CLZ Cloud” screen.

Don’t have a CLZ Cloud account yet?
If you don’t have a CLZ Cloud account yet, I strongly recommend signup up for one from the app. Using the CLZ Cloud is completely free!

The CLZ Cloud syncing will let you:

1. Sync your data between devices, e.g. between your phone and your tablet. Or from your old phone to your new phone.
2. View your database online using the free CLZ Cloud viewer website.
3. Make an online backup of your data. Better safe than sorry!