Deal with various types of collections. Select items for processing and organize them in a manner identical to that of an SQL database. Perform standard updating, browsing, and maintenance operations, view the files you need and check the auto-cataloging features.
Readerware is intended for organizing your collections. In this respect, it is distributed as a suite supporting three different categories: books, music and video. When you start the tool, you need to say what you want to do. Thus, you can create a completely new database or open an existing one. Likewise, it lets you connect directly to a Readerware server or an external database. Moreover, it is possible to restore a database from a backup file.
There is no much difference between the interfaces for different categories, except for the fields, which are logically not the same for a book, a video or a music album. In this respect, I am glad that the tool lets you keep whatever data you can imagine about one of those products. However, although accessing your collections separately saves some time and makes it simpler to use, there is no way you can jump to a different one from within another.
One of the best advantages of Readerware is that you can save a lot of time if you use the Autocatalog function. Thus, if you feed the app with a list of ISBNs, UPCs or barcode scans, it can connect to various internet databases to download the required information, which is then merged. Unfortunately, the data obtained this way is not always accurate or complete.
In general, Readerware gives you the opportunity to catalog your collections so that you can find the desired book, CD or video more easily. Since there are complaints of its getting incomplete info for some discs mainly, the developers should probably consider other Internet sources. Although there is no free version of this product, it can be tried at no cost. In this respect, it is possible to try or buy the tools for each type of content separately or as a bundle.
v3.1
- There is a new option to display loan information in all searches. You used to have to do a loan search to see what items were checked out, who had them etc. You can now request that Readerware include this information in all searches. Readerware will then include information from the first loan in the search results. Select Preferences->Loans to turn this option on.
- Readerware now selects the contents of a spinner control as soon as you select it. It used to require multiple clicks before you could change a spinner control.
- Keyword searches no longer use wildcards by default. For example a search for WW I would also return books with a keyword of WW II because Readerware was using a wildcard search. Wildcards are now off by default but you can still use them when necessary.
- Readerware now sorts Library of Congress Call Numbers correctly.
- You can now export the new Disk/Volume count fields.
- Readerware will now select the next record in the database after you delete a record. There were some instances where Readerware would select the first record in the database. We now maintain the current position.
- Fixed an exception pasting an image. Readerware scales a large image if it will not fit in the database but there was a problem if the image was still too large after scaling. Readerware now displays an error if this happens.
- Fixed an exception deleting the last disk on an album, i.e. disk 2 of a 2 disk set.
- The time stamp on one of the Readerware database files was not changed at close even though the database was updated. This could cause sync utilities to skip the file.
- An abnormal shutdown of the Readerware client could cause the Readerware server to close the database preventing other users from accessing it. The server database will only be closed when you stop the server.
- Mac OS X applications are now signed with Apple issued certificates. This means that you will no longer have to respond to Gatekeeper dialogs when you first run the programs.
- If you tried to delete a record using the table view but one of the cells was being edited, Readerware could hang. Readerware now ensures all editing is stopped before deleting a record.
- Fixed a problem creating a report in the report writer if your Documents folder was redirected to a network share.
