What's new in CLZ Music? (page 3)

A big update for your CLZ Music app!
This time we added a new feature, that will save you lots of time:

New Pre-fill screen that pops up when adding albums

When adding an album to your database using the Add Albums screen, it will now pop-up a new screen called “Pre-fill album details, letting you set various fields right then and there.

Fields available in the Pre-fill screen:

• Location
• Owner
• Purchase Date
• Purchase Store
• Purchase Price
• Quantity
• Tags

No more need to edit your added albums afterwards!

(BTW: of course, using the new Pre-fill screen is optional. If you don’t want to use it, just uncheck the “Show Pre-fill screen” toggle at thet bottom. You can always re-enable it through the app’s Settings screen.)

Also new:

• All Collection Status options are now available under the Add button in the Add Screen.
• New look and layout of Field Defaults screen.

A big update for your CLZ Music app!
This time we added a new feature, that will save you lots of time:

New Pre-fill screen that pops up when adding albums

When adding an album to your database using the Add Albums screen, it will now pop-up a new screen called “Pre-fill album details, letting you set various fields right then and there.

Fields available in the Pre-fill screen:

• Location
• Owner
• Purchase Date
• Purchase Store
• Purchase Price
• Quantity
• Tags

No more need to edit your added albums afterwards!

(BTW: of course, using the new Pre-fill screen is optional. If you don’t want to use it, just uncheck the “Show Pre-fill screen” toggle at thet bottom. You can always re-enable it through the app’s Settings screen.)

Also new:

• All Collection Status options are now available under the Add button in the Add Screen.
• New look and layout of Field Defaults screen.

Another big update for your Music Connect software.
This time we added a new feature, that will save you lots of time:

New Pre-fill screen that pops up when adding albums

When adding an album to your database using the Add Albums screen, it will now pop-up a new screen called “Pre-fill album details, letting you set various fields right then and there.

Fields available in the Pre-fill screen:

• Location
• Owner
• Purchase Date
• Purchase Store
• Purchase Price
• Quantity
• Tags

No more need to edit your added albums afterwards!

Here it is, version 6.0 of the CLZ Music mobile app!
In this major update, we finally bring you THE most requested feature: being able to Edit Multiple Albums in one go. But there’s more, as we took this opportunity to completely re-design the Edit Album screen and to implement super useful Crop and Rotate tools for album cover images.

Here’s the full list of what’s new in version 6.0:

NEW: Edit Multiple Albums in one go!

Finally make changes to multiple (or all) album entries in one go.
Here’s how:

• Tap and hold on an album in the list to enter Select Mode
• Now tap more albums to select them.
• Tap the menu button on the bottom right and choose “Edit [x] Albums”.
• In the screen tap appears, select which fields you want to edit.
  
  (Tips: use the search box to find fields, tap the heart icons to set Favorite fields)

• Tap Edit at the top right.
• Now set values, or leave fields gray to clear them.
• Tap Done at the top right to save the changes to the selected albums.

Warning: the Edit Multiple feature is a very useful and powerful features, but… remember what Uncle Ben said: With great power comes great responsibility!

IMPROVED: Edit Album screen

A new look for all edit boxes and a more compact layout, making it much easier to edit your album entries, without scrolling through long lists of fields.

• The cover image is now on its own tab, so the main tab starts with the most important edit fields at the top.
• Fields are now laid out side-by-side, making it easier to edit all fields without endless scrolling.
• More compact look and user interface for all text edit fields.
• More compact display and editing of multi-value pick list fields like Authors, Genres, Subjects and Tags.
• Date fields: enter year, month day manually or use calendar icon to use date setter popup.

NEW: Built-in Crop and Rotate tool for cover images

In the Edit Album screen the Cover is now on its own tab, with new Crop and Rotate tools for instant rotating and cropping of self-made cover photos or downloaded images.

IMPROVED: Folder Field selection screen

Yep, another update of this screen, to make it fully consistent with the Select Edit Fields screen.
It now includes a search box at the top for quickly finding the field you want, plus the ability to create your own Favorites (just tap the heart icons).

Here it is, version 6.0 of the CLZ Music mobile app!
In this major update, we finally bring you THE most requested feature: being able to Edit Multiple Albums in one go. But there’s more, as we took this opportunity to completely re-design the Edit Album screen and to implement super useful Crop and Rotate tools for album cover images.

Here’s the full list of what’s new in version 6.0:

NEW: Edit Multiple Albums in one go!

Finally make changes to multiple (or all) album entries in one go.
Here’s how:

• Tap and hold on a album in the list to enter Select Mode
• Now tap more albums to select them.
• Tap the menu button on the bottom right and choose “Edit [x] Albums”.
• In the screen tap appears, select which fields you want to edit.
  
  (Tips: use the search box to find fields, tap the star icons to set Favorite fields)

• Tap Edit at the top right.
• Now set values, or leave fields gray to clear them.
• Tap Done at the top right to save the changes to the selected albums.

Warning: the Edit Multiple feature is a very useful and powerful features, but… remember what Uncle Ben said: With great power comes great responsibility!

IMPROVED: Edit Album screen

A new look for all edit boxes and a more compact layout, making it much easier to edit your album entries, without scrolling through long lists of fields.

• The cover image is now on its own tab, so the main tab starts with the most important edit fields at the top.
• Fields are now laid out side-by-side, making it easier to edit all fields without endless scrolling.
• More compact look and user interface for all text edit fields.
• More compact display and editing of multi-value pick list fields like Authors, Genres, Subjects and Tags.
• Date fields: enter year, month day manually or use calendar icon to use date setter popup.

NEW: Built-in Crop and Rotate tool for cover images

In the Edit Album screen the Cover is now on its own tab, with new Crop and Rotate tools for instant rotating and cropping of self-made cover photos or downloaded images.

IMPROVED: Folder Field selection screen

Yep, another update of this screen, to make it fully consistent with the Select Edit Fields screen.
It now includes a search box at the top for quickly finding the field you want, plus the ability to create your own Favorites (just tap the star icons).

Last week we implemented several small improvements to the Connect software, based on suggestions (and complaints) from you all, our loyal users:

Configurable Date Format for Edit screen

Two months ago, we introduced a Date Format setting to control how dates are displayed throughout the Connect software. But the date editors in the Edit screen still always used “yyyy-mm-dd” as the format. Which could be confusing to some users.

So in the Settings screen, under Editing, we have now introduced a new setting, specifically for controlling the order of the year, month and day boxes in the Edit screen:

New “Year” options for folders, colums and sorting

Some dates were already available as Year-only options for folders, columns and sorting (like Release Year, Publication Year, etc…), but we have now updated the available options to include ALL date fields as Year-only options, for example:

• Added Year
• Purchase Year
• Seen it Year
• Read it Year

Improved Auto-Capitalization feature

Small tweak for the Auto-Capitalization tools: it now correctly auto-caps letters that follow a parenthesis, bracket, square bracket, single quote or double quote.

More Totals in Statistics screens

The Statistics screen has been updated with more Totals at the top, e.g. for Purchase Price, Current Value.

Version 6.0 is coming up for all five CLZ mobile apps:
CLZ Books, CLZ Music, CLZ Movies, CLZ Comics and CLZ Games (probably in that order).

For “Vee Six” we decided to finally implement THE most commonly requested feature:

Editing Multiple entries in one go! (aka: Batch Editing)

At the same time, v6 will come with completely re-designed Edit screens. Check out some sneak preview screenshot below. More information about app-specific v6 features and improvements will follow later!

Finally: Edit Multiple entries in one go!

This has been the most common feature request for many years: How can I edit (or clear) the Grade/Location/Owner/etc… for many of my database entries in one go?

And in v6, it will finally be possible:

• Just select the entries you want to edit (using tap and hold), and choose Edit from the menu.
• Then select which fields you want to edit (or clear).
• Finally, set the values you want to set and click Done.

Some screenshots:

(These screenshots have been taken from the iOS edition of CLZ Comics, but the other 9 apps will look very similar):

Edit screen re-design

Also new in v6: completely re-designed Edit screens, to make them clearer, more compact and nicer looking.
No more long lists of fields, one per row. In the new screen, fields are placed side by side where possible, with the Cover on a separate tab. Resulting in a more compact screen, requiring less scrolling. Especially on tablet devices!

Some sneak preview screenshots:

(These screenshots have been taken from the iOS editions of CLZ Books and CLZ Music, but the other 8 apps will look very similar):

At customer support, we were regularly receiving questions about the Edit Multiple screen, so in today’s update we made several changes to make it clearer.

• The checkboxes (for unlocking fields) have been replaced by clearer “lock” icons. Click the lock icon to unlock a field for editing.
• Or, just click on a lock field and you will receive a popup asking you to unlock it.
• An extra notification at the top explaining the unlocking and clearing of fields.
• Save button now indicates the number of albums that are being edited.
• Extra warning when saving “You are about to change data for 4 albums. This can not be undone. Would you like to continue?”

Using “Edit Multiple”

Quick reminder on how to use Edit Multiple:
In the main list, use the checkboxes to select some albums, and click “Edit” in the blue action bar that appears above the list.

Small tweak for your Music Connect software today:
The Alphabet Bar can now be used for Composers too!

One of the most common complaints about the CLZ Music app has always been the lack of support for multi-disc albums. So we finally sat down and designed a good user interface to fix these problems once and for all.

The solution we implemented has two parts:

Add Albums screen: Add as Multi-Disc Album

This lets you add your new multi-disc albums the right way, straight from the Add Albums screen. Just select multiple 1-disc results and add them combined into a multi-disc album.

Merge existing albums into a Multi-Disc Album

This is for existing entries in our app, where the discs of a multi-disc album may be listed as separate albums. You can now combine/merge these into one album with multiple discs. Just tap and hold to select the albums, then select MERGE from the menu button.

Redesigned Select Folder Field screen

Through the years, the number of available folder fields has grown enormously, making the Select Folder Field screen a bit “unwieldy”. We decided to come up with a better solution.

This update includes a re-designed Select Folder Field screen, with all folder options nicely grouped under sensible headers, and the most popular options (Artist, Genre, Format) instantly accessible at the top.

Fixed:

• In the Add from Core screen, when adding an album that is already in your app as ‘On Wish List’ or ‘On Order’, the app will now offer to change its status to ‘In Collection’
• When scanning barcodes the “beep” sound would only sound on the first scan
• Search on own collection could be forgotten during scrolling/browsing your collection
• Field defaults screen could cause a crash

One of the most common complaints about the CLZ Music app has always been the lack of support for multi-disc albums. So we finally sat down and designed a good user interface to fix these problems once and for all.

The solution we implemented has two parts:

Add Albums screen: Add as Multi-Disc Album

This lets you add your new multi-disc albums the right way, straight from the Add Albums screen. Just select multiple 1-disc results and add them combined into a multi-disc album.

Merge existing albums into a Multi-Disc Album

This is for existing entries in our app, where the discs of a multi-disc album may be listed as separate albums. You can now combine/merge these into one album with multiple discs. Just tap and hold to select the albums, then select MERGE from the menu button.

Redesigned Select Folder Field screen

Through the years, the number of available folder fields has grown enormously, making the Select Folder Field screen a bit “unwieldy”. We decided to come up with a better solution.

This update includes a re-designed Select Folder Field screen, with all folder options nicely grouped under sensible headers, and the most popular options (Artist, Genre, Format) instantly accessible at the top.

Fixed:

• Details view didn’t show multiple artists for single tracks
• Edit Screen: disc button could change colors when it shouldn’t

New in the Cover tab of your Edit screen: built-in Crop and Rotate tools for your cover images!

Super useful for fine-tuning images that you uploaded or found through the Find Online tool. You can even Crop/Rotate images that you received from Core, in which case they will be automatically turned into a custom image.

To use the new Crop/Rotate tools, open your Edit screen go to the Cover tab and click the “Crop/Rotate” icon on the top right above the Front or Back cover image:

Then:

• Click the Rotate icon to rotate the image 90 degrees to the right.
• Drag the blue crop rectangle to indicate your desired crop area.
• Click Apply to apply the changes.

In the Add Albums from Core screen, it was already possible to select multiple 1-disc search results and add them together as one multi-disc albums. But, as of today, you can also merge existing albums in your database into a multi-disc album.

Just select them in your list with the checkboxes, then select Merge Albums from the blue Action bar.

See this feature in action here:

Previously, the “Add to …” button in the Add screen let you choose between “Add to Collection” or “Add to Wishlist”. But as of today, you can now choose from ALL possible Collection Status option directly. For instance, this lets you add an item as “On Order” straight from the Add screen!

Now, the possible choices are:

• In Collection
• For Sale
• Wish List
• On Order
• Not In Collection

A big update for Music Connect again, in which we introduce many new settings for further customizing your software to your own liking.
And while we were at it, we updated the Settings screen with clearer grouping and naming of settings.

Here’s what’s new:

Auto Capitalization

This is a completely new feature, for automatically capitalizing your album titles.
Auto capping can be done:

• when adding albums from Core. This is OFF by default as our Core delivers nicely capped album titles in general.
• as you type titles in the Edit and Add Manually screens, very useful when adding albums manually
• by clicking the AutoCap (aA) button above the Title box in the Edit screen

The Settings screen lets you choose between 4 Auto Cap methods:

• First Letter of Each Word with Exceptions
• First letter only with exceptions
• UPPER CASE
• lower case

The Auto Cap Exceptions list comes pre-filled with a sensible list of common exceptions, but is completely user configurable.

Date Format

Choose how date formats are displayed throughout Connect.

Timezone

Choose your own timezone and all Date Added and Date Modified fields will be displayed according to that timezone. (previously these all showed in UTC time)

BTW: also new today: new column options Date/Time Added and Date/Time Modified, for showing the full added and modified timestamps.

Sorting

Four new options that control the sorting and how names and titles are displayed.

• When sorting, ignore sort titles: check this if you prefer to ignore all sort title when sorting and just have the software sort on the regular Title field.
• When sorting, ignore sort names for Artists, Composers and Conductors: check this if you prefer to ignore all sort names when sorting and just have the software sort on the display name field.
• When displaying, show sort title: when sorting by title, showing the actual sort titles that it sorts on can make your list a bit “easier on the eye”.
• When displaying, show sort names Artists, Composers and Conductors: showing the actual sort names for persons can make your list a bit “easier on the eye”.

A very nice cosmetic update for your Connect software today: a new “Shelves View”!

Shelves View is a fourth view for your album list, similar to Cover View, but with your cover images standing on a nice shelves background. You can even choose between 6 different shelf styles using the Shelf Style selector:

• Wood Light
• Wood Dark
• Glass
• Metal
• Carbon
• White

Also new, for both Shelves View and Images View, as “Size Slider” to control the size of the images.

Toolbar tweaks

Because of the introduction of the new view, the Shelf Style selector and the Size Slider, we have also made several changes to the various Connect toolbars:

• A new “View” toolbar right above the list, with 4 buttons for switching between the 4 views (List, Card, Cover and Shelves), the Size Slider and the Style Selector (for Shelves) and finally the Sort Order button (on the far right).
• The new “View” toolbar replaces the “Filter” toolbar that was in that spot.
• The “Filter” toolbar now only appears when a filter is actually active, and now has a pale yellow background to make it super-clear that you are looking at a filtered list.
• The number of albums indicator has been moved (back) to the center of the top toolbar.

Faster CLZ Cloud syncing!

We have made several structural changes to the CLZ Cloud syncing, making it much much faster than before, especially when syncing large amounts of entries up to the CLZ Cloud or down from the CLZ Cloud.

To enjoy the faster syncing, you need to use the actual Sync with CLZ Cloud screen.

(The Auto-Syncing in the background is also slightly faster now, but if you need to sync many entries up or down, please use the Sync with CLZ Cloud screen.)

New design for Sync with CLZ Cloud screen

While we were at it, we decided to do a quick make-over for the Sync screen, with a new look and layout and a direct link to your CLZ Cloud page online.

Fixed:

• Manually added albums could get an empty RPM

Faster CLZ Cloud syncing!

We have made several structural changes to the CLZ Cloud syncing, making it much much faster than before, especially when syncing large amounts of entries up to the CLZ Cloud or down from the CLZ Cloud.

To enjoy the faster syncing, you need to use the actual Sync with CLZ Cloud screen.

(The Auto-Syncing in the background is also slightly faster now, but if you need to sync many entries up or down, please use the Sync with CLZ Cloud screen.)

New design for Sync with CLZ Cloud screen

While we were at it, we decided to do a quick make-over for the Sync screen, with a new look and layout and a direct link to your CLZ Cloud page online.

Fixed:

• Made the touch area for scrollbars a bit bigger (useful for quick scrolling)

It’s been a bit quiet with Connect updates in the past 2 months, as we have been preparing a *huge* update. BUT it is live now!

All settings are now saved server-side, in your CLZ Cloud

We have taken the advantage of the Connect web-based software to the next level, by storing all your settings on the server side, your CLZ Cloud (instead of in local browser cookies).
So any computer or device you log in to will automatically have the same folder option selected, the same columns selected for the list view, the same sort order, the same layout, etc..

Connect now even stores your Add screen’s barcode queue on the server side, so you scan barcode into the queue on one computer and process the queue later, from any other device.

All your existing settings will be automatically transfered to the server, the first time you login.

BTW: this change finally resolves the problem of losing all settings for users who have their browser configured to remove all cookies on exit.

Create your own Favorites for Columns and Sort Orders

While we were working on the settings, we figured this was a good time to add some more customizability to the Columns and Sort Order features. You can now create and save your own Column and Sort Order settings as Favorites, then easily switch between them.

To create and manage your Favorites, click the Column or Sort Order button and choose Manage Favorites:

Manage Column Favorites:

Manage Sorting Favorites:

An old feature from the Windows and macOS editions, that somehow never made it to Connect: Re-Assigning Index Values. But now it’s available in Connect too!

What are index values?

Connect automatically assigns and increments index numbers to items that you add to your collection. The Index value is assigned when you add an item to the database. The next item you add to your collection will have an index number that is incremented by 1.

Index numbers are only used once. When an item is deleted, the next added item will still increment on the highest index number present in your collection.

New: Re-Assign Index Values:

With the new “Re-Assign Index Values” tool, you can automatically assign new and consecutive index values to all your items, according to a sort order you select, e.g. by Title, Release Year or your own Purchase Date.

To begin, click the menu top left and select “Re-Assign Index Values”. Now choose your desired Sort Order.

Please note that this action can not be undone!

A small update for your CLZ Music app today: When adding albums by Artist/Title, you can now filter the search results to only show a specific format.

After searching for artist/title, tap the new “All Formats” button at the top right and switch it to “Vinyl” to see vinyl results only, or set to “CD” to list CDs only.

In this update we introduce a new quick-search for your folders, sorting your folders by the counters, and more stable cloud syncing through our brand-new dedicated Sync-server.

Quick-search your folders

Grouping in folders is a powerful way to browse and filter your collection. Just group by Artist, or Label, etc… tap a folder and the list will give you all albums for the selected Artist or Label.

However, if your collection spans thousands of albums, that “tap a folder” part is sometimes easier said than done. It may require lots of scrolling in the folder list.

But not anymore! This version introduces a new search box right above the folder list, that lets you instantly search/filter the folder list as you type! Just typing a few letters is often enough to bring the folder you are looking for into view:

Sort folders by count

By default, the folders are sorted alphabetically. But as of today, there is another option: sort your folders by the counter, that is by the number of albums contained.

Sorting by the counters is a nice way to find the most popular Artists, Labels, Genres, etc..

Switch between the Alphabetical and By Count sorting using the sort toggle at the top:

Improved barcode scanning

We have improved the scan engine and gave it a larger “scan area”. This should help scan barcodes faster and easier.

Now uses our brand-new CLZ Cloud Sync-server

Previously one big server was handling the Connect website, the CLZ Cloud website AND the CLZ Cloud syncing from the desktop programs and the mobile apps.
But this week we have set up a brand-new dedicated Sync-server to handle just the CLZ Cloud syncing.

In today’s update, CLZ Music has been updated to sync through this new server, which should result in faster syncing and a more stable syncing experience during high load times (weekends).

In this update we introduce a new quick-search for your folders, sorting your folders by the counters, and more stable cloud syncing through our brand-new dedicated Sync-server.

Quick-search your folders

Grouping in folders is a powerful way to browse and filter your collection. Just group by Artist, or Label, etc… tap a folder and the list will give you all albums for the selected Artist or Label.

However, if your collection spans thousands of albums, that “tap a folder” part is sometimes easier said than done. It may require lots of scrolling in the folder list.

But not anymore! This version introduces a new search box right above the folder list, that lets you instantly search/filter the folder list as you type! Just typing a few letters is often enough to bring the folder you are looking for into view:

Sort folders by count

By default, the folders are sorted alphabetically. But as of today, there is another option: sort your folders by the counter, that is by the number of albums contained.

Sorting by the counters is a nice way to find the most popular Artists, Labels, Genres, etc..

Switch between the Alphabetical and By Count sorting using the sort toggle at the top:

Filter search results on format

When searching by Artist/Title you can now filter the results to only show a specific format. After searching for artist/title, tap the new “All Formats” button to switch the results to “Vinyl” to see all vinyl results!

Improved barcode scanning

We have improved the scan engine and gave it a larger “scan area”. This should help scan barcodes faster and easier.

Now uses our brand-new CLZ Cloud Sync-server

Previously one big server was handling the Connect website, the CLZ Cloud website AND the CLZ Cloud syncing from the desktop programs and the mobile apps.
But this week we have set up a brand-new dedicated Sync-server to handle just the CLZ Cloud syncing.

In today’s update, CLZ Music has been updated to sync through this new server, which should result in faster syncing and a more stable syncing experience during high load times (weekends).

Fixed:

• Field Defaults: It wasn’t possible to set the rating field back to zero.
• Manage Pick Lists: Merging list items caused too many sync changes.

Multiple small tweaks to your Connect software today, improving both the Edit Comic screen and the Add Comics screen.

Editing pick list fields: checkbox multiple values in one go

The Edit screen is where many users are spending most of their time, so we’re always trying to make your editing life faster and easier.
Today, we improved all multi-value pick lists fields (e.g. Artists, Genres, Studios) by letting you add multiple values in one go. In the Select Value screen we have introduced checkboxes now, that let you checkbox multiple values and add them instantly.

This is now available for the following fields:

• Artist
• Composer
• Genres
• Studios
• Extras
• Conductor
• Orchestras
• Tags

Adding Albums by Barcode: instant adding to queue

Previously, when you searched by barcode (either by typing or scanning), the barcode instantly disappeared from the search box, but only appeared in the queue when the search was complete. Also with no “loading” indicator showing in the meantime. Not a problem when searches are instant, but it could lead to confusion in situations where it took a bit longer for the search to complete.

So we got to work and made it better: after hitting search, the barcode now instantly appears in your queue, showing a “Searching” indicator. This gives you instant feedback the barcode was accepted and is searching. Then, when the search has completed, the queue entry is filled in with the album details and cover image.

The above tweak also applies to the opening of the screen while you still had some barcodes in the queue. This saved queue list will now populate faster.

A big update for the CLZ Music app, introducing a new Statistics screen, a cool “infographic” style screen, showing totals and statistics about your music collection.
To open it, just choose “Statistics” from the menu.

In this new screen, you can find:

• The number of albums in your collection, and how many artists.
• How many tracks, and the total runtime.
• A top 5 list of your most recent additions.
• A nice pie chart showing the distribution of your albums over formats (CD, Vinyl, etc.)
• A bar chart of your albums by artist.
• A bar chart of your albums by genre.