I am one of those people who prefers the Windows + Mobile versions of the products. This topic is aimed at like-minded users.
My Music Collection in Windows makes a great deal of use of Track View, and contains a lot of information (Composer, Composition) at Track or Header level only.
The trouble with this is that this information does not sync to Connect / Cloud / Mobile, so that these products are less useful than they might be, as some data is lost.
Some time ago I made some half-hearted attempt to fix up the data so that it might work with Connect, but I could never create anything close to my original system, which was as near perfect as one could wish.
In the light of Alwin’s statement (Collector desktop vs Connect web-based) that the future of Collectorz is with Connect, and that Windows will slowly drift off into the sunset, I decided to have another go at making my data Connect compatible, but this time, instead of trying to create something which is perfect but diffucult and time consuming to implement, rather to go with the flow, and create something which is as good as possible within the constraints of Connect. What a revelation.
Since I was dealing with Classical Music, I simply copied the Composers and Compositions to Album level. Multidisc albums I often split into single discs, sometimes joining them together as a box set, and a few other things of little interest here.
Now everything works really well.
in Album View in Windows, as well as Connect and Mobile, I can list albums by Genre/Composer, which I couldn’t do before. It is not quite as good as the track view, but I would still rate as 95%.
Getting rid of multidisc albums means I can store more images (front and back cover per disc)
Adding new albums is far, far easier, as I can rely on the Core data, and have to do far less editing
Because of the way “inheritance” of the data works, this new information does not affect Track View or Templates in any way.
As well as Mobile now working really well, I now am not worried if the Windows product is dropped, and I have to move to Connect. I am not going to do this for some time, as I want to keep all my existing data, and also I want to be able to tweak things so that I know everything is as good as possible - but I am ready.
The point of this post really is to suggest to other Windows users that it is worth testing things out with Connect (or Cloud and Mobile) to see what may or may not be lost, and what you might need to do differently, and if there are any changes that need to be made to your data, to start making those changes now, at your leisure, rather than leaving everything to the last minute. And you might be pleasantly surprised, as I was, that dropping features from Windows is not nearly as bad as it seems, and may in some ways be benefical.
I gave Connect a try some times ago. Since I have some special issues, Connect makes things more complicated. For an example: I export from the windows app a csv file for printing labels. In the desktop app, you can choose charset. Not in the Web Version. There it is always UTF-8. I know, this is the more modern way, but my label software does simply not understand it. So i have to export, import to an editor an resave as ANSI. This is maximum annoying.
Then the custom fields never made it to connect. Also maximum annoying.
Then scrolling in the web app is…
Then to transform my collection to the web app I need plenty of time, with no custom fields. So I have to pay the price for the windows app AND for Connect…
Sorry, the “transition” form Desktop to Web is a big fail for me because the usability and features are far from being equal at the moment.
I don’t use the Web product either, so I cannot comment on some of your points but
(1) There is no need to pay for both products. Simply keep your subscription to Windows and use the Web version in View mode. You can then see what problems you might encounter, IF the Windows product is dropped. For me the main point is that by doing what I did I can get the Windows and the Mobile (Android) version working together to my satisfaction.
2) UDFs are probably coming later this year to the Web version, though no one had mentioned if they will be available in the mobile version.
I am sticking with Windows + Android for as long as possible, because I see this as the best combination. But I am ready for the transition to Web if this is forced on me, by which time it should be an even better product than it is today.
Interesting idea to go with the flow as much as possible. Couple of years ago I went into the same direction. I am a user of the Movie applications.
All kinds of custom stuff I store in the User Defined Fields. Stuff I was really missing on the mobile apps I moved to Tags. On the mobile app you can filter on those tags so it can replace a lot of custom fields in my case.
I try to use as many defaults as possible, but I am using a lot of stuff this is currently missing in the cloud and mobile app. A list:
User Defined Fields. A lot of stuff doesn’t fit in any other field. Repurposing other fields is also not possible. Some examples:
Specs verified (did I verify all technical specs)
Because I can only store 1 list of technical specs I cannot store the specs for the 4K disc seperate from the Blu-ray. So I added 5 fields: Immersive Sound UHD, Immersive Sound HD, Dutch Subs UHD, Dutch Subs and Dutch Subs 3D. Could by moved to Tags, but it is not really workable.
Resolution Native 4K, Upscaled 4K, etc (This could be moved to Tags)
Framerate
Video Codec
HDR Only 1 format is not enough. I want to select more then 1 at the same time. Sometimes it has Dolby Vision AND HDR10+. In the real world it is almost always HDR10 and Dolby Vision when there is more than 1.
Market / Cover Language really hard for me to find a proper solution. I use it to see where a release was released
Fake Barcode. For boxsets I ofter link the discs to barcodes of the seperate releases. When I do this I mark those entries.
Orignal Audience Rating. In case I mess up all ratings by the update functionality. Now I can easily fix it.
Protection For example AACS 2.0 MKB version 77. Don’t ask me why, but I store this information.
Region: if it is a release that is not region 2 or B compatible I store it seperatly. Yes we have the standard Region field in CLZ and yes I can filter on it with the filters. But a lot of specs are still missing in my database, so when it is not Region B compatible I save it. Only a couple of entries.
I use the filtering feature of the desktop app quite often to:
Find Blu-ray’s without a purchase price
Find movies that are not linked to a specific release with Core (CLZ Media ID = 0)
I search on parts of the Barcode the quickly find movies of the same Distributor. Each distributor uses it own barcode ranges. Because I still have to add a lot of specs I can find the movies which are quickly done.
Custom Icons for Store and Format (where there are no icons, otherwise default icons)
I save the Audience Rating of the release, not what it currently is for my country. Sometimes even for The Netherlands the information coming from CLZ is different from what is on the cover.
Storing purchase price on box-set level
Exporting to CSV. I build my own small application that does some extra analysis on my database. I tried the Web export, but it is painfully slow and manual labor to put the file in the right location. With Desktop: export and it will be placed on the same location as before. I do some extra analysis to see how much money I spent on movies each month and each year. So I have some control on how much I buy. I also display what the average price per movie is per month and per year.
And as final peace of information I did some stuff to detect which movies are part of the IMDb top 250 list. Detect which left the list and which entered the list. Then I manually add or remove a tag in the desktop application.
Nice to read how other collectors are using the software. Everybody does it differently. Cool
Thanks for the post, i hadn’t heard the announcement about Windows being put the way side. Makes me rethink the time and effort of adding detailed cast info for TV episodes
