Feature Suggestions (Jump to Issue, Truncated Notes, etc.)

[Kenneth Horneman]

Hi,

I don't know if you prefer feature suggestions for the mobile app to go here or in the main feature suggestions forum, but I'm glad to move this posting if desired. I use the mobile app a lot and have several suggestions.

1. Add the ability to jump to a particular issue number when viewing a series. Scrolling down to the current issues of Action Comics, or to, for example, Issue 1200 of Four Color Comics is really annoying, especially as only 50 entries at a time are loaded. I've tried entering the issue number in the search field, but that has several problems. First, you have to type the full name of the series exactly as it appears (e.g. "Amazing Spider-Man, The (Series 1) 300"), second this pops you straight into the issue number, so you have to go back and put in a new number if you want to get to another issue, and third and most importantly, you don't get to see how many issues you own when you go straight into an issue number. This last is also a problem when you're doing barcode scanning, that you don't get to see how many issues you already own.

2. The most important information, at least in my view, is the picture (to verify that I have the right variant), the number of issues I already own and the value. The picture is always available both when viewing the series list and when viewing individual issues. However, the other two are more of a problem. As mentioned in item 1, the quantity owned is only shown in the series view, and therefore can't be seen when pulling up an individual issue directly from a barcode scan or from the search field. And there isn't anyway to get from the individual issue page to the series page for that issue. Conversely, the value is only available on the issue page, so you have to click each issue from the series page to see the value. Furthermore, the value often can't be seen due to the lengthy notes associated with the issue. As there is no scroll bar for the notes, the only one I've found to see the value in those cases is to long click in the notes area to open up "copy" selectors, then drag one of them down until the value shows up. My own preference would be for the value to show up on the series list screen where the quantity shows and for the quantity owned to also show up on the individual comic page.

3. As far as I know, there's no way to see the purchases you've just entered. I am often entering a lot of comics and am unsure if I entered a particular one. Since the quantities don't update immediately on the app, and the purchases aren't visible anywhere, the only recourse is to load the purchases into the desktop app, then compare the current quantities to some report which hopefully I generated just before loading the purchases. Yes, it would be really nice to be able to see a report of recent purchases loaded in the desktop app. On the mobile app, it would be great to be able to see and edit "pending" quantities.

4. Item Lookup improvements. Item look ups can still be difficult at times. One thing that would be really helpful is to show the series years or at least the first year in the series search results list. I am often trying to add, for example, Punisher #6 and don't know which series it's from, but I do know what year. Currently I have to just start randomly choosing series numbers, opening them up, clicking on the first comic on the series to look at the publication year and then decide if that sounds about right for the issue I'm actually looking to add. The other improvement I would love to see would be able to put in partial search strings to find series faster. comicbookrealm.com has a pretty awesome search capability in this regard. You can type in "unc x" or "amaz spi" or "ult fan" or whatever and it does what you would want it too. 

 

I probably have some more suggestions for both the mobile app and the desktop app, but these are the ones that would help the most.

Thanks,

Kenny