Book Collector is the book edition of the Collectorz.com line of collection managers. Book Collector lets you organize your book collection; it supports book in various formats (hardcover, paperback, magazines, etc.). It has online querying functionality, which lets you add books by retrieving their details from the Internet.
The books in the database are displayed in a flexible, Explorer-like screen, letting you group, sort and filter the data in every possible way. It has a very comprehensive set of fields for both books and sections (which may be stories, chapters or articles), including user-defined fields, enabling you to catalogue all information you want. Lists of books or sections can be printed in two different user configurable reports or exported to delimited text files and HTML tables.
For information about purchasing your own Book Collector license, read Ordering Book Collector.
The information in Book Collector is stored in a database. A Book Collector database is a file with a .BKC extension. You can create new databases and open other databases from the File menu, using the New and Open items. This way you can keep multiple databases and switch between them. For normal use, however, you only create a new database once and just use this database for entering all your books.
The default folder for storing Book Collector databases is the "Data" folder, which is located in the folder where you installed the program. You can of course open databases from other folders. Double clicking a .BKC file will automatically start Book Collector with that file.
The first time Book Collector is started, it will automatically open the included demo database. This database is provided to give new users a quick overview of the features of the program. IMPORTANT: Do not use this database for your own data. The demo database is removed when you uninstall Book Collector and may be overwritten if your re-install or update it. Always create a new database (File | New) before adding your own books.
A Book Collector database is a one-file database, so backing up your data is very simple: just copy the database file to your backup medium (floppy disk, Zip-disk, tape, etc...). But please note that the cover pictures are not stored inside the database file. These are stored as separate files on your harddisk, the database only stores references to these files. So you might want to backup the contents of the Images folder too. See File Fields for more info.
Multiple Book Collector databases can be merged by opening one of them and importing the other one into the first one. See Importing from Other Book Collector databases for more info.
The Book Collector main screen has been designed to work like the Windows Explorer. There are some differences but the principle is the same. The left side of the screen shows a "tree", the right side shows a "list". The list always shows the "contents" or "sub-items" of the selected item in the tree.
Tree (Book View and Contents View)
The tree on the left shows a structured view of your database. The top item in the tree represents the database itself, whereas the items below it represent the books and contents in the database, possibly grouped in folders (e.g. Author folders). The tree can be in two views: Book View and Contents View:
In Book View the tree shows books, grouped by the selected Folder Field. Expanding a book will reveal the contents of the book, if it has any.
In Contents View however, the tree shows and groups individual sections, independent of the book they are on. This view allows you to find stories in your collection without knowing exactly in which book they occur.
The layout of the main screen can be changed by dragging the divider between the tree and the list and the divider between the list and the Details View. The center parts of the dividers ((the parts with the small arrows on it) are small "buttons" that can be used to hide a section completely, click it again to make the section reappear. Note that you cannot drag the divider there.
List
The list fills the right side of the main screen. It always shows the contents (if any) of the selected item in the tree on the left. For example, if the selected item is a book, then the list will shows the contents of that book.
The list can display its items in two ways, Icons/Thumbnails and Details. If Icons/Thumbnails is selected, the list shows a large icon for each item in the list, with only the title of the item below it. When the list shows books, the icons will be small representations (thumbnails) of the book covers (if included in the database). This can give a nice overview of your book collection. If Details is selected then the list shows the items in multiple columns, each column displaying a different field of the item.
Many Book Collector functions operate on the contents of this list. For example, you can export all items in the list, or print all items in the list.
When the list shows Details it consists of multiple columns for multiple fields. You can choose which fields to display as columns by right clicking on the list and selecting Columns. This opens the Field Selection screen. On the left it shows all available fields, on the right the selected fields, in the order that they will appear as columns. Fields can be selected by dragging them from left to right or by double-clicking available fields. You can remove fields by dragging them back to the left.
The order of the selected fields can be changed by dragging them to their new position. You can also change the order of columns in the main screen list itself, just drag the column header to the new position.
Which fields are available depends on the contents of the main screen list. If it shows books, you can select book fields here; if it shows stories, you can select both story and book fields.
Simple
The simplest way to sort the list is by clicking on the column header of the field you want to sort on. Click once to sort ascending and again for a descending sort order. This way you can sort on any field that is shown as a column, but only on one field at a time. A small arrow in the column header shows which field is sorted on; it points up for ascending sort order and down for descending sort order.
Advanced
You might also want to sort on multiple fields, for example: First on Genre, within the Genre on Author and within the Author on Title. This is possible by right clicking on the list and selecting Sort Order. This opens the Sort Order screen, which looks a lot like the Field Selection screen.
The list on the left shows the available sort fields, the list on the right shows the selected sort fields. Choose between Ascending and Descending sorting with the selector on the right. The icon before the field shows the current sort direction.
When sorting on multiple fields, the sort arrow appears on the first (and main) sort field.
The tree on the main screen can group the books or contents in folders, representing the values of a specific field (the Folder Field, e.g. Author, Publisher, Genre, etc& ). The Folder Field can be changed using the Folder Fields button above the tree. Which fields are available in the selector depends on the tree being in Book View or Contents View. If the database contains books or contents that do not have a value filled in for the selected Folder Field, they will be placed in a special [None] Folder. For example, when you have not filled in the Genre field for all books and then select Genre as the Folder Field, a [None] folder will appear in the tree, containing all Genre-less books.
You can group on multiple folder fields; the items will first be grouped on the first field and within that field on the second field, and so on.
When you open the Folder selection menu with the toolbar button or with View\Folders on the main menu, there are a number of predefined groupings which are often used. If you want to have another one, choose Custom... to open the Folder Field Selection screen. Here you can list the fields to group on; it works the same as the Column selection screen. Note that only lookup fields are available for grouping.
You can disable the grouping by selecting "No Folders" in the Folder Field selector. The tree then shows its books or contents directly below the collection top item. This can be useful if you want to see a "flat" list of your entire collection.
By default, the tree only shows folders for lookup items that are in use, i.e. only non-empty folders are shown. The Show Empty Folders option (in the View Menu) makes empty folders appear too. This is mainly useful when you want to drag and drop a book or section to another folder while the destination folder is still empty. For example, you are rearranging your books over the genres and have added a few new genres for this. In the default view, you cannot drag books to the new genres because they are empty and thus hidden. By enabling "Show Empty Folders" you can make them appear and drag books in them.
The toolbar is split into a number of parts. The layout of the toolbar can be changed by "picking up" the parts on the small ribbed area on the left side and dragging them. You can also hide parts completely by unchecking them in the toolbar menu (find it in the View menu or right click an empty section of the toolbar). This way you can arrange the toolbar to your own liking. Use the "Reset Toolbar" item in the toolbar menu to go back to the default layout.
The bottom right part of the main screen shows the Details View. This is an HTML formatted view of the currently selected book in your collection. The layout of this view is defined by an XSL template file. Right click the Details View and select 'Template for Details View' to choose a different layout. The Book Collector website has a template gallery where you can find more user-created templates.
It is possible to create new templates or edit existing ones. For more information about this, visit the Template Tutorial on the Collectorz.com website. If you create a cool template, send it to us (support@book.collectorz.com) and we may make it available on the website or maybe even include it in the next release of the program.
The basic way of adding a new book to the collection is to use the Add Book item from the Edit Menu (or the corresponding toolbar or context menu shortcuts). This will open the Book screen showing a new, empty book. Just enter the book info and click OK to add the new book to the database.
Instead of typing all data about a book yourself, you can search online for information and let Book Collector retrieve it for you. Do this by using the "Add by Online Query" function from the Edit menu. You can search on title, author and ISBN number. There are multiple information sources, which you can select or unselect depending on whether you want to use that source.
When a search has found results, you can select one or more of the results to be added to the database. However, you can only select one result per information source. The selected results will be merged into one new book in the collection. Note that the merging takes place sequentially: first all fields from the the first result are added, then the second result is used to fill in any fields that are still empty, and so on.
If you want to change the order in which the online sources are searched, use the 'Up' and 'Down' buttons.
When you check the 'Add Another' option, the Online Query screen stays open after you press the 'Add' button instead of returning you to the main screen. This is useful when you want to add multiple books in one go.
When you check the 'Edit Result' option, the Edit Book screen is opened after you press the 'Add' button, so that you can review the new book and make changes if you want.
If you have a CueCat barcode scanner, you can use it to fill in the ISBN field. When swiping a barcode while you're in the main screen of Book Collector, the collection is searched for the scanned ISBN code. If it's found, that entry will be opened for editing. If it's not found, the Add by Online Query screen is opened and the ISBN code filled in. Note: you do not need to install the CueCat drivers to use it with Book Collector.
The retrieval of information is done with Perl scripts; you can change these scripts to improve them, or retrieve more fields. If you want more information about writing scripts, please contact us at support@book.collectorz.com
The Duplicate Book function (Edit menu) can be used to make a copy of the currently selected book and add it to the collection. This can speed up data entry if you have multiple editions of the same book.
If you want to make changes to an existing Book Collector entry, select it in the main screen and use the Edit Book command (Edit menu) to open it in the Book screen.
Another simple way of changing the value of lookup fields is the use of Drag and Drop in the main screen. If you drag an book from one folder to another the corresponding lookup field will automatically be changed. For example, if you drag an book from the genre folder "Horror" to the genre folder "Mystery", the genre field of the book will be automatically changed accordingly.
Use the Remove Book function (Edit menu) to remove the currently selected book(s) from the database. By default, Book Collector asks for your confirmation before really removing the book(s). You can turn off these confirmations on the first tab-page of the Preferences screen (choose Settings | Preferences).
Most fields are self-explanatory, but some might need some special attention:
For a number of Book and Contents fields, it is very likely that they will have the same value for multiple books and contents in your book collection. The Author and the Genre fields are good examples of this. For these fields Book Collector provides so-called "lookup lists", lists that contain all previously entered field values.
This has a number of advantages:
For most items in the lookup lists you can enter a Display Name, First Name, Last Name and a "The" field. The Display Name is required (it cannot be left empty) and is used when the item is displayed on screen or on reports. Typically the Display Name is filled with names like "Stephen King". The First Name, Last Name and "The" fields are used by Book Collector to generate a Sort Name that will be used for sorting. Examples: "Stephen King" will have "King" as the Last Name and "Stephen" as the First Name. The generated Sort Name will then be "King, Stephen". "The Netherlands" will have "Netherlands" as the Last Name and "The" in the "The" part, resulting in "Netherlands, The" as the Sort Name.
You can edit the name parts of a lookup item from the Edit Lookup List screen, which is opened from the Lists Menu. This screen also shows the generated Sort Names.
Selecting an existing item: You can enter or change the value of lookup field, e.g. author, by opening the dropdown list and selecting an item. An even easier way to select an existing item from the list is to start typing the first few letters in the box. Book Collector will find the first item that matches these letters and will complete the item. If it's not the item you were looking for, just type on. Note that the dropdown lists in the Edit screens always show the Sort Names of the lookup items. So you have to type the first letters of the Sort Name to find an item.
Another simple way of changing the value of lookup fields is the use of Drag and Drop in the main screen. If you drag a book from one folder to another the corresponding lookup field will automatically be changed. For example, if you drag a book from the genre folder "Horror" to the genre folder "Mystery", the genre field of the book will automatically change accordingly.
Creating a new item: The simplest way to create a new lookup item is to type its name in text edit box. These items are automatically added to the lookup list when the screen is closed with the OK button (when you choose Cancel, the lookup list additions are cancelled too!). You can also create a new item by clicking the '...' button while the text edit box is empty. This will open the Add Lookup Item screen where you can fill in the item's Display Name and other fields. The advantage of this method is that you can directly fill in the rest of the lookup item details, like the First Name, Last Name, etc... You can also do this later by using the Edit Lookup Lists screen (see below).
Editing existing items: The "..." button can be used to edit the currently selected lookup item (the one that is shown in the text edit box). The button opens the Edit Lookup Item screen, where you can change the item's details, like First Name and Last Name. You can also edit lookup items from the Edit Lookup Lists screen (see below).
You can add, edit and remove items from the lookup lists in the Lookup Lists screen, which can opened using the items in the Lists menu, or by selecting a folder in the main screen and then choosing "Manage List" from the right mouse button menu.
The Lookup Lists screen
All lookup lists can be maintained in this one screen. Use the List menu-button at the top of the screen to select the field whose lookup list you want to edit. The list shows Display Name, First Name, Last Name, "The", the generated Sort Name and a Usage counter for all items in the list.
Editing items: Double click an item in the list (or click the Edit button) to modify the item. The Display Name is required for all items.
The Edit screen (the screen that opens after clicking the Add or Edit Button) has two "Generate" buttons that make it easier to fill in the Display Name and the First, Last and "The" parts. They allow you to generate the Display Name from name parts and vice versa. After using these buttons, always check the result. They work correctly for standard names such as "Stephen King" or "The Netherlands", but may give strange results in other cases.
Removing Items: You can remove items from the list by selecting one or more items and then using the Remove button. Note that you can only remove items which are not used in any books or sections in the database (i.e. items that have a zero in the Used column). If you try to remove an item that is still in use, Book Collector will tell you which book is using the item. You can also use the "Select Unused" button to let Book Collector automatically select all items that are not in use. Just use the Remove button afterwards to remove all selected items.
Adding Items: In this screen you can also add items to a lookup list. The Add button will let you create a new lookup item in the Edit screen. But the easiest way to create new lookup items is to type them in the corresponding fields while entering or editing Books and sections. They will be automatically added to the list.
Merging Items: The Merge feature allows you to combine (merge) multiple lookup items into one item. You might want to do this when your list contains duplicate items that only differ in spelling. Simply removing the extra items is not always possible, they may still be used in books or sections. In those cases you can use the Merge function to merge the extra items into the one item that you want to keep. When doing this, the extra items are removed from the list and all books and sections that referred to those items will be automatically updated to make them refer to the one remaining item.
So how does it work? Merging is done using the Merge List at the bottom of the Edit Lookup List screen. First add the "extra" items (the items you want to remove) to the Merge List. Do this by selecting them in the lookup list and clicking the Add to Merge List button (the Down Arrow). When ready, select the item in the lookup list that you want to Merge to (the item you want to keep) and click the Merge To button (the Up Arrow).
For example, to merge the "U.S.A." item into the "USA" item: select "U.S.A.", click the Down Arrow, select "USA", and click the Up Arrow.
To clear the Merge list without merging any items, press the Clear Merge List button (the garbage can icon).
The Cover fields are special fields, because the actual data is not stored inside the Book Collector database file. The database only stores a reference to a file somewhere on your computer. This reference is always an absolute path.
Cover pictures are shown in the main screen when the corresponding book or contents is selected. If the covers do not show up (anymore), please check that the files they are pointing to do still exist. If the files are located in a different folder, use Edit\Maintenance\Update Image Links to correct the filepaths.
You can use the Index field to store an index value for each book in your database. For example, if you have twenty books you can give them the index values 1 thru 20. The Index field is a numeric field (i.e. it can only contain numbers).
Instead of manually entering an Index for each new book, Book Collector can do it for you. The auto-increment feature automatically assigns a new index value to each book when you create it. To enable this option, select the General tab of the Settings | Preferences dialog and check 'Auto Increment Index'.
Sometimes you may want to change the index values. For example when books are deleted, a gap will be created in the index sequence. In such a case, you can select Edit | Assign Index... to renumber your books so that the indexes match again. When you select this menu option, a field selection screen will be shown where you can indicate which sort order must be used to assign the index values. For example, when you select the Title field, the books with a title starting with "A" will get a lower index than titles starting with "B".
In Collection: Book Collector not only lets you catalogue all books in your collection, it also lets you catalogue books you do NOT have (yet). This is what the In Collection field is for. Set it to Yes if you have the Book in your collection, set it to No it you do not. By default Book Collector shows "In Collection indicators" on the left of the book icons in the tree. You can hide these using the "Show In Collection Indicator in Tree" setting on the General tab page of the Preferences screen.
Date fields: Dates can be entered in three parts: year, month and day. You can leave the day and month blank, if you do not want to enter them - or you don't know them :) Blank values will be sorted at the beginning - e.g. "1998" will be sorted before "November 1998". You cannot select date fields as folder fields, but you can select the year part: for each date field there is a corresponding year lookup field that you can group on. E.g., the Purchase Date field has a Purchase Year linked to it.
LCCN: The Library of Congress Catalog Number (LCCN) is the index of a book in the Library of Congress.
Dewey: The Dewey decimal classification is a system for grouping books by subject. It is used mostly by libraries for organizing their collections.
A number of fields are both Book fields AND Contents fields (e.g. Author, Genre, etc) These fields have a special property: they automatically "inherit" the value of their "parent" item. This means that if these fields are left empty they automatically show the value of their parent item in lists and reports.
So, for example, when an book contains sections by one author only, you only have to fill in the Book author field. All sections of that book will automatically show the book author in lists and reports.
All field names in Book Collector can be changed to your own liking. For example, if you only have magazines, you might want to change the "series" field to "magazine title". Or you might want to translate all field names to your own language.
Changing field names is done in the Field Names screen (Settings | Field Names). This screen shows the original field names in the right column. The field names in the left column can be changed (use the Rename button or F2). These names will be used everywhere in the Book Collector interface, and in reports.
User-Defined fields
Book Collector also has a number of user-defined fields. These are fields that have no specific function yet. You can use these fields for any extra information you want to store, but for which Book Collector has no special field. To use these fields, just change the field names in the Field Definition screen. In both the Edit Book and Edit section screens the User Defined fields can be found on the last tab-page.
For Books there are four user-defined fields, two standard text fields (User Text 1 and User Text 2) and two lookup fields (User Lookup 1 and User Lookup 2).
For stories Book Collector also has two standard text field and two lookup fields.
Defining short-cut keys
The field names from the Field Names screen are also used as field labels in the Edit Book and Edit section screen. To make it possible to quickly navigate between fields in these screens, you can define a short-cut key for each field. As you may know, a short-cut key is indicated by underlining the appropriate letter in the field label. You can underline a letter of a field name by placing an ampersand (&) character before the letter. So, for example, if you want Alt-T to be the short-cut key for jumping to the Title field, change the Title field name to "&Title". The ampersand characters will appear only in the Field Definitions screen. Also, the line under the character will only appear in the Edit Book and Edit section screens.
To make entering information in Book Collector even quicker, you can define default values for a number of fields. Every time a new Book is created these fields are already pre-filled with the default values.
Field default values can be set in the Field Defaults screen (Settings | Field Defaults).
The simplest way to find an book or story you are looking for is the using the incremental search feature. First sort the list on the field you want to search on, then start typing the first letter of the value you are looking for. While you type the selection will jump to the first item that matches.
For example, say you are looking for an book with a specific title. First set the Folder Field Selector to "No Folders", to make the list show all books. Then sort the list on Title (either ascending or descending). Now start typing the first letters of the title and the book will be selected.
Book Collector allows you to "filter" the items that are displayed in the main screen, making it only show a subset of the database, instead of the entire database. For example, you might want to see only your hardcovers and not the books with other formats. Or you might want to list all stories that have "cheese" in their title. This is possible using Filters.
To define a filter, choose Search | Set Filter, which opens the Filter screen. The Add Field button shows a list of fields that can be filtered on. Note that different fields are available in Book View and Contents View.
To define a filter on a field, choose Add Field, select the field, then type a value in the 2nd column in the list. Lookup fields have dropdown lists to make it easier to enter relevant values.
For example, to find all sections with the word "cheese" in the title, switch to Section View, open the Filter screen and type "cheese" in the Title field. Note that Book Collector does not only show the sections that have "cheese" AS the title, but all sections that have "cheese" IN the title.
You can also define a filter consisting of multiple filter fields, just enter filter values in multiple fields. If you fill multiple fields you have to specify how to combine the filter conditions with the Combination selector. Choose AND if you want to see all items that satisfy ALL conditions, choose OR if you want to see all items that satisfy one or more conditions. Check the "Case sensitive matching" checkbox to make the filter case-sensitive (causing it to take note of upper case and lower case).
You can quickly enable and disable a filter with the Filter On/Off menu item or toolbar button.
You can start adding books by clicking the large Add Books button on the left of the toolbar, by choosing Add Books from the Edit menu or by using the [Ins] key on your keyboard.
There are two screens for adding books: the Add Book Wizard screen and the Add Books (Advanced Mode) screen. We recommend to use the Wizard screen at least a few times before switching to the Advanced Mode. This will help you understand the way books are added by combining information from multiple sources. You can always switch between the two modes by using the Wizard Mode and Advanced Mode buttons.
Search by Author/Title
Searching by Author and Title works great on most info sources. When searching by Author and Title, Info Sources are more likely to return multiple results, so it may take a little more time to find the correct result for each info source, if any.
Search by ISBN
The Amazon Info Sources can be searched by ISBN (barcode). This often results in good exact search results.
Search by Author/Title
Just type the Author name and book Title in the boxes.
Search by ISBN
You can either type the ISBN in the box, or use your barcode scanner to enter the barcode of the book.
Use the Preview panel to take a closer look at the results, this will help you make your decision. To preview a result, click the link in the Preview panel, double click a result or right click a result and choose "View Result".
If none of the results is correct, select the [None] item.
The list at the top is the Search Queue, a list of searches for book information. Each item in the list represents exactly one book. If you click an item in the list, the area below the list will show the results that were found in the Info Sources for that particular search.
You can add searches to the Search Queue using the 2 tabpages in the top part of the screen, which represent the 2 search methods described in section 6.2.1. After you have added one or more searches to the Search Queue, click the Search button to start the search. Right click an item in the Queue and choose Search Selected to start the search for the selected item(s) only.
When the search has completed, select the correct results like described in section 6.2.5 and click Add to create books and add them to your database, one book for each item in the Search Queue. The Add button operates on ALL search items in the queue. If you prefer to add books one by one, you can do this by selecting a search item, then choosing "Add Selected" from the right mouse click menu.
Searching Info Sources and selecting the correct results is done the same way as in Add mode. When you're done selecting the correct results, choose Update to update your books with the new information.
Note: the Update feature never overwrites existing information, it only adds information. In other words, it only fills fields that are still empty in your existing books.
In the Print screen, select 'All Books' to print all books in the collection, or use 'Selected Books' to print only those items that have been selected in the list on the main screen.
The layout of the printed report is defined by a "print template". You can print a simple list of items using the Custom List Template setting, or use other print layouts by Selecting a Template from the list.
Custom List Template
Select Template
It is possible to create new templates or edit existing ones. For more information about this, visit the Template Tutorial on the Collectorz.com website. If you create a cool template, send it to us (support@book.collectorz.com) and we may make it available on the website or maybe even include it in the next release of the program.
The Custom List Template feature lets you print a simple list of your items, with a configurable field set. Use the Edit button to change the template settings. You can choose the fields that appear as columns in the list, you can set the Report Title, choose the Font, include a date and enable/disable Row Shading.
When you use the Custom List Template feature, the program automatically generates a "print template" and uses it directly. If you want to keep this layout for later use, check the "Save in Template List" checkbox and the generated template will appear in the Select Template list with the Description you entered.
Book Collector comes with a number of ready to use print templates. More user defined templates can be found in our online Template Gallery.
You can select one of the included templates by choosing the "Select Template" setting and then selecting a template from the dropdown list. (Hint: you can preview a template by clicking the Preview button).
Use the Print Preview button to open the Print Preview window; it shows the first couple of pages of the document as they will be printed. In the Print Preview screen, use the toolbar at the top to navigate through the pages, zoom in or out, print the document or return to the Print Collection dialog with the Close button.
The Sort Order button allows you to set the sort order in which the records should be printed.
The Printer Setup button allows you to change the properties of the printer like paper size, landscape/portrait printing and margins. You can also change the selected printer with the 'Printer...' button.
The built-in Loan Management system allows you to keep section of books you loan to friends, family, etc... Use the commands in the Loans menu or the Loans toolbar to register books begin loaned, returned books or to open the Loan Manager screen Choose Loan Book to registered a book as being loaned. The Loan Item screen appears, where you can enter who borrows the book. You can also change the Loan Date and the Due Date (both filled in automatically). Use the Loan Setting screen (in the Loans menu) to change the default loan period.
8 Loan Management
8.1 Loan a Book
8.2 Return a Book
The Return Book command is for registering that a loaned book has been returned to you. The Return Loaned Item screen appears. You may change the Return Data here (but it is filled automatically). Click OK and you're done.
8.3 Manage Loans
The Manage Loans screen gives you an overview of loaned books. You can choose to see only Outstanding Loans, only Overdue Loans, or All Loans (a complete history of loans). You can also change the properties of the loans from here (double click the books in the list).
You can "merge" two different Book Collector database by opening one of them and importing the other one into the first one. This is done using the Import Other Book Collector database command in the File Menu.
The Lookup Lists of the two databases are merged by comparing the Sort Names of the lookup items: two lookup items with the same Sort Names are merged to one item. The books themselves are not checked for duplicates; all items are imported.
You might want to use data from Book Collector in other applications, like MS Excel or MS Access. This can be done by exporting data from Book Collector to a format readable by other applications. The Export to Text function writes Book Collector data to an ASCII (standard text) file, one item per line, enclosing all fields with a text qualifier character and separating the fields with a delimiter character. This format can be easily imported by most applications.
The Export to ASCII screen is opened from the File | Export To | Text menu.
The name of the destination file can be typed in the Destination File textbox or selected in a standard file dialog by clicking the Browse button.
You can set whether to export the entire collection by selecting All Books, or you can export only the records that are currently selected in the main screen by selecting Selected Books. The number in brackets indicates how many records will be exported.
Use the Export Fields button to add or remove fields from the list with the Field Selection screen.
Use the Sort Fields button to set or change the order in which the records are exported.
Use the radio buttons to select the delimiter, text qualifier and line break replacement to be used for the export. The delimiter is the character that will be exported between the fields (sometime also called the field separator). The text qualifier is the character that encloses all fields in the export. The line break replacement is used for keeping records on one line; otherwise line breaks would cause the item to continue on the next line, which usually is not what you want in ASCII exporting. These are the choices available:
Check the "Include Field Names on First Row" checkbox allows to make Book Collector include an extra first row in the export file that holds the field names. A number of applications (like MS Excel and MS Access) can use this information.
The Export to HTML function creates HTML pages of your books, for use on your homepage or website. You can create one index page listing all books (with one row per book), and you can also create detail pages with one page per book. Image- and hyperlinks are automatically generated to function correctly.
The Export to HTML screen is opened from the File | Export To | HTML menu.
The name of the destination folder can be typed in the box or selected in a standard folder selection dialog by clicking the Browse button. All generated HTML files, stylesheets, and images will be placed in this folder (or a subfolder).
You can set whether to export the entire collection by selecting All Books, or you can export only the records that are currently selected in the main screen by selecting Selected Books. The number in brackets indicates how many records will be exported.
Use the Sort Fields button to set or change the order in which the records are exported.
The Export to HTML feature uses XSL templates to define the layout and look of the exported HTML pages. For the Index page, you can export a simple list of items using the Custom List Template setting, or use other list layouts by Selecting a Template from the list.
Custom List Template
The Custom List Template feature lets you export a simple list of your items, with a configurable field set. Use the Edit button to change the template settings. You can choose the fields that appear as columns in the list, you can set the Report Title, choose the Font, include a date and enable/disable Row Shading.
When you use the Custom List Template feature, the program automatically generates a "list template" and uses it directly. If you want to keep this layout for later use, check the "Save in Template List" checkbox and the generated template will appear in the Select Template list with the Description you entered.
Select Template
Book Collector comes with a number of ready to use list templates for the Index page. You can select one of the included templates by choosing the "Select Template" setting and then selecting a template from the dropdown list.
The generated HTML index page is called index.html and is located in the destination folder. If the template uses a CSS stylesheet it will be copied there as well.
Detail pages
Use the 'Create detail pages' checkbox to activate the creation of detail pages. One detail page is generated for every exported book. Select the template you want to use for the detail pages with the 'Template for detail pages' dropdown box. This template describes the layout of the HTML page, and which fields are shown.
The name of the generated page is [id].html, where [id] is the value of the ID field of the album. The pages are located in the 'details' subfolder of the destination folder.
More user defined templates can be found in our online Template Gallery. It is also possible to create new templates or edit existing ones. For more information about this, visit the Template Tutorial on the Collectorz.com website. If you create a cool template, send it to us (support@book.collectorz.com) and we may make it available on the website or maybe even include it in the next release of the program.
Use the 'Create thumbnail images' option to enable the creation of thumbnail images. A thumbnail is a small version of the front cover, and is much faster to download than the actual full-size image. They are mostly used in index pages. The 'thumbnail size' value indicates the size (in pixels) of the thumbnail images.
The name of the generated thumbnail image is [id]t.jpg, where [id] is the value of the ID field of the book. The images are located in the 'images' subfolder of the destination folder.
Note: this option is only available if either the index or details template actually uses the thumbnail images. Otherwise the thumbnails are not generated.
Use the 'Copy cover images to destination folder' to copy the front- and backcovers of the exported books from their original location. This is very useful if you want to publish the contents of the destination folder to a website (or use it anywhere other than your own computer). If the templates support it, the hyperlinks to the images will automatically be adjusted to point to the new relative location, so the links will continue working after uploading.
The name of the copied images is [id]f.jpg (front cover) and [id]b.jpg (back cover), where [id] is the value of the ID field of the book. The images are located in the 'images' subfolder of the destination folder.
Note: this option is only available if either the index or details template actually uses the cover images. Otherwise the images are not copied.
In the following Export to XML dialog, select 'All Books' to export all books in the collection, or select 'Selected books' to export only those books that have been selected in the list on the main screen.
The Destination File indicates where the resulting export file will be created on your computer. The default file extension is .xml. The DTD that is used is fixed, and it is also used by the Export to HTML, Print and Details view XSL stylesheets.
More information about Book Collector can be found in the Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) list. Also try the online versions of this manual and the FAQ list at the Book Collector website: http://www.collectorz.com/book. These may be more up to date than the ones included with the program.
If, after reading this manual and the FAQ list, you still have questions about using Book Collector you can contact us at support@book.collectorz.com.
Book Collector is copyright © 2002 - 2003 Collectorz BV.