Book classification fields in Book Collector

I use Book Collector from Collectorz.com to catalog my books. When entering books into the Book Collector database, I like to include the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) number, Library of Congress Control Number, and Library of Congress Classification if those are available. When you enter a new book into the database, you can have the program search for an existing entry for the book from its enormous online database of books by clicking on the plus sign (+) at the top, left-hand part of the Book Collector window, which will then allow you to search by International Standard Book Number (ISBN), Author/Title, or LCCN. If the book is found, you can then choose to add its entry to your own collection or your wish list. Occasionally, I've found an LCCN listed in the LoC Control Number book, as is the case for Lost Treasures of American History by W.C. Jameson, but when I search the Library of Congress database for information associated with that LCCN, such as the LOC classification, I find that no record is returned.

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Changing the default value for "Read It" in Book Collector

After I updated Book Collector, the book management database from Collectorz.com that I use to track my book collection, from 21.0 build 3 to 21.1 build 1 today, I noticed that books I entered afterwards were being assigned a value of "Yes" for "Read It" by default—that value appears under the "Personal" fields for a book entry. I was able to change the default value to "No" by clicking on Tools on the main menu, selecting "Field Defaults" and changing the "Times Read" value from "1" to "0"; after I made that change new books I entered were given a "Read It" value of "No" by default.

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Deleting entries from Book Collector CLZ Cloud account

The March 4, 2021 version of Book Collector, version 21.0.3, allows you to remove all entries from the CLZ Cloud account from within the program. I needed to do that because the cloud account contained entries from my wife's book database that would be added to my database if I synched the accounts—I wanted to keep the two book lists separate. The steps for wiping the copy of the database stored in the CLZ cloud from the Windows version of the program are listed below:

1. Within the Book Collector program, click on Clz Cloud on the menu bar at the top of the program window.
2. Select Synchronize.
3. Click on View my collection in CLZ Cloud if you wish to view the books stored in the copy of the database in the CLZ Cloud in a webpage in your default browser before deleting everything in that version, then click on the Clear CLZ Cloud button at the bottom of the program window to remove all book entries from the version of the database stored in the cloud.
4. You should then see zero cloud changes to be downloaded.

   

   If you wish to then synchronize your local copy of the database to a copy stored in the cloud, you can click on Sync Changes. When you do so you should see "sending items to cloud." Be prepared to wait a few minutes for the synchronization operation to complete if you have a large number of books in your Book Collector database. You will see the number of "Adds/Edits" decrease to zero as books are uploaded. When the process is complete you will see the message "Finished syncing changes. Would you like to view your collection in CLZ Cloud?"

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Book Collector lock file

When I opened Book Collector version 20.5.2 today, I saw the message "Failed to open database, because your license key (xxxxxxxxxxxx) is already in use on computer "YYYYYYYY" by another user (zzzzzz). Do you wish to unlock your database file and open it here?" I could choose "yes" or "no" with the "no" answer opening Book Collector with a new empty book database. The computer the message referenced was the one on which I was currently trying to open the program. Since the system I was using had crashed earlier in the day, I realized that Book Collector was likely finding a lock file that would be deleted when the program is closed normally. I saw a file with the name I had given to my book collection, but with a .bkclck filename extension in the directory where I stored the book database. When I opened the file I saw the file conained only one line:

<lockinfo><writable><client pcname="YYYYYYYY" name="5c22840efc7a3db854c44b0b780f8abc" key="xxxxxxxxxxxx" username="zzzzzzzz"/></writable></lockinfo>

In cases where Book Collector was not closed normally, you can either choose "yes" at the prompt or delete the .bkclck file before opening Book Collector as its presence is what causes the message to appear.

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Book Collector - Adding an author or publisher image

If you are using Book Collector to track your book collection and wish to add a photograph of an author to the information about the author, you may be able to do so by taking the following steps:

1. Download the image of the author. If you wish, you can place the image in the location where book cover images are stored, i.e. the images directory beneath the Book Collector directory where you store the book database.
2. If you are editing an entry for a book by the author, you can right-click on the icon of three horizontal bars to the left of the author's name while editing the book entry and select "Edit this author entry." Or from the main Book Collector window, you can select "Edit" then "Manage Pick Lists" to select the author picklist where you can select the relevant author—you can double-click on the author entry then to edit it.
3. In the Edit Author window, click on the Images tab.
4. For the "Template Image" field, browse to where you downloaded the image of the author. Once you have selected the image, click on OK. Leave the "Image (will be scaled to 16x16)" field blank. You can then close the entry where you are editing the author's information. When viewing the entry for a book by the author from the book list in the home screen for Book Collector, you should then see a small thumbnail picture of the author.

If you don't have an image, but want to add a picture to the author's entry, check to see if there is a Wikipedia entry for the author or if the author has a website.

You can use similar steps to add an image for a publisher's entry in the database.

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Book Collector database disappeared

I use the Collectorz.com book database software to manage my book collection. I hadn't updated the database for several months, but I had purchased some books recently and wanted to add those books to the database. When I opened the Book Collector program (version 16.4.3), it automatically opened the last book database I had open, which was one that I use to track books my wife and I have purchased as gifts for a friend who also enjoys reading, so I don't buy the same ones again in the future. But when I tried to find the database in which I store information for my own books, I couldn't find it. When I clicked on File and selected Open Database in the program and navigated to a folder where I thought that database was stored, the program didn't show the database at that location. When I navigated to that directory with the Windows File Explorer, I didn't see any files with a .bkc extension, which is the filename extension used by the Book Collector database program. Collectorz.com also provides comic, game, movie, and music database programs.

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Book Collector Missing Images

After upgrading Book Collector from Collectorz.com to version 9.0.6, I found that images on detail pages for some templates were missing when I used an existing book database on a shared network drive.. E.g., images for "hardback", "paperback", and "English".

Inside Book Collector, I clicked on Tools, Maintenance, Update File Links, which showed me that the program was expecting to find missing files in the C:\Users\Administrator\Documents\Book Collector\Images\Listitemimages directory.

There was no Listitemimages directory beneath the Book Collector\Images directory on the network shared folder where I had the book database, so I copied the Listitemimages directory from the user folder, i.e., the C:\Users\Administrator\Documents Book Coletor\Images\Listitemimages\ folder underneath that location.

I had already updated the location for image and template files by selecting Tools, Optins, and changing the location for User Templates Folder and then clicking on the Images tab and modifying the values for Default Folder for Image Files and Default Folder for Thumbnail Files to point to the Templates and Images subdirectories on the shared network location, so I closed Book Collector and reoopened it to see if that would cause the missing images to now appear. They didn't, so I clicked on Tools, Maintenance, and Update File Links again. When the Update File Links window opened, I clicked on the Update button. I saw a window stating "This will update 76 file paths. Are you sure?" I clicked on Yes, but 0 files were updated, so I highlighted all of the misssing files in the Update File Links window by clicking on the top one, then scrolling to the bottom and clicking on the bottom file while holding down the shift key. Then with all of the files highlighted, I clicked on the Automatic button. A window opened allowing me to browse to the Listitemimages subdirectory I created at the shared network folder location. I then clicked on OK. I then saw the new location appear in the New Folder column in the Update File Links window for most, but not all of the files. E.g., there was nothing listed in the New Folder column for files associated with languages. I then clicked on the Update button. I was notified that "42 of the 76 files have been updated." I clicked on OK then Close.

After closing and reopening Book Collector 9.0.6, I saw there was now a small image representing "hardback" and "paperback", depending on the book, but there was still a missing image for "English".

So I went through the same process as before for updating the file links. Again, I browsed to the Listitemimages directory. This time Book Collector showed an entry under New Folder for most, but not all, of the remaining missing files when I selected all of the files, browsed to the Listitemimages subdirectory and clicked on Automatic. I clicked on Update and saw "This will update 34 file paths. Are you sure?" I clicked on Yes and saw "26 files have been updated." I clicked on OK and then Close. The image for English then appeared.

I then went through the same Update File Links process as before. This time all but 2 of the missing files were found, though I was browsing to the exact location as before when Book Collector had not found them. When I clicked on Update this time, I was informed that 6 of the 8 missing files had been updated.

I then repeated the Update File Links process once more. This time the remaining two missing files were found. It's weird how Book Collector couldn't find them all in one pass, but required me to repeat the process multiple times, though each time I was browsing to the same location.

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Collectorz Movie Database Locked

I installed the 9.0.6 version of Movie Collector from Collectorz.com . When I attempted to open an existing movie database with it, I saw the following message:

Collectorz.com Movie Collector 9.0
Opening the database in Read-Only mode, because another user (Jane) on computer "Tarzan" is currently using this database in Writable mode. [ OK ]

Because Movie Collector thought the database was already in use it opened it in read-only mode.

The database was located on a shared network drive, but when I checked the mentioned computer and all other computers on the LAN, I did not find any running Movie Collector. I found a jane_movies.mvclck database file in the same directory as the database jane_movies. I opened that file with Notepad and saw the following:

<lockinfo><writable><client pcname="TARZAN" name="Jane Doe" key="196876543211" username="Jane"/></writable><readonly/></lockinfo>

I closed Movie Collector and deleted the .mvclck file. I was then able to open the database with Movie Collector in write mode.

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Movie Collector 6.4.1 Customization

I installed Movie Collector™ on my wife's new laptop today. Since we want all systems in the household to use a common movie database, I configured it to use a database stored on a shared network folder.

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