FWIW - For What It's Worth Monthly Price Guide Update

For What It's Worth (FWIW) - the Monthly Price Guide Update

The Update Summary Window displays all the issues that have changed in value or have been added to the database as of the effective date(s) of the price guide(s) being used. Issues that have increased in value this month are bright red. Issues that have increased in value in a previous month are a duller red. Issues that have decreased in value this month are bright blue. Issues that have decreased in value in a prior month are a duller blue.

It is very important that you understand that the update process uses whatever is in this list as it's base. Therefore, if you use the Find Issues window, and select only issues for Amazing Spider-man, and then run the update, it will only update Amazing Spider-man.

By default, the list shows all issues not yet updated. You can run the update as often as you like, and each time, only those issues not yet updated will appear in the list. You can change this by using either the Find button or the Options button.

The update process also keeps a log of all the issues that have been updated, so you can review what's been changed. In the actual application, those fields appear to the right of the display, so you will have to scroll to the right to see that information.

This window works very much like the Summary window in Realms, where you can use the Find button to select issues by any criteria displayed in the list.

To get more information on specific portions of this window, you can scroll down this page, or click on the image above to bring info related to the specific button/field to the top of this frame.

Exit button: By clicking the Exit button you will leave the monthly update process.
Selection criteria - the Find Issues Window: By clicking the Find Issues button you can bring up a window that allows you to display the issues in the update list by almost any selection criteria you set.
Selection criteria - the Find Issues Window: Clicking the Quick Search button brings up the Quick Search window to make it easier to move quickly to various titles. This works exactly the same way as it does in ROW.

Refresh the list: The Refresh button resets the list to the default selection - all issues that have not yet been updated.
Printing your data: You can print whatever data you've selected to display on The Update Summary Window to a printer or a file. You can reconfigure the field order, size, hide fields, etc. Bottom line - you can pretty much look at any information you want any way you want.
Options that affect titles in the list: You can click the Options button to bring up a window that allows you to quickly select whether to show all records, not yet updated records, or only updated records. In addition, you can display non-numeric issues only (like 1/2 issues and variants). These deserve more careful scrutiny because of how the issue numbers may be entered. Also, you can quickly set whether to include all issues, or only issues for a selected month.
Matching Titles - since they may be slightly different in the update database: Because titles can differ even though they refer to the same thing (for example, "Amazing Spider-man" vs "Amazing Spiderman"), the update process needs a way to figure out which titles are really the same.

This is done 2 ways. The very first time you start up the application, it will search for all exact matches, and create linked records for those.

Then, it will display the Match window, where you can link titles together. It is very important, especially the first time that you run the update process, that you take the time to link the titles appropriately, so all your issues are not only updated, but updated properly.

Update Collection: Click this button to actually run the update process. The application will go through all the issues displayed in the Update List, and try to find a matching issue in your collection. If you have the Confirm Each Update checked, each time it finds a match, you'll see the Confirmation window, where you can accept the update, skip it, or cancel the process.; If you have the Confirm option turned off, you will only be asked to confirm updates when the application is not sure about the match, for example, if it finds multiple matches, or non-numeric issues (like 1/2 issues, etc.)

If you have the Skip Multiple Updates option turned on (checked), it will skip those as well. Click here to read details on how this works.

As any matches are updated, the application logs the old information on this database so you can see what has actually been updated.; You can run this option as often as you wish, since it only updates records that have not yet been updated for the current time period.

Stop Update: Once you start the Update process, this button will become enabled. You can then stop the update at any time, simply by clicking on the Stop Update button.


Confirm each update: If you have the Confirm Each Update checked, each time the Update process finds a match, you'll see the Confirmation window, where you can accept the update, skip it, or cancel the process. This is probably a good idea to keep checked initially, just for peace of mind, but it gets tedious pretty quickly.; If you have the Confirm option turned off, you will only be asked to confirm updates when the application is not sure about the match, for example, if it finds multiple matches, or non-numeric issues (like 1/2 issues, etc.

Show Title Details: If you turn the Show Title Details option, each time you click a new row, either here or on the Match window, FWIW will display a pop-up window showing information about the selected title. This should enable you to distinguish between different titles with similar names and/or different volumes of the same title. You can see an example of the information displayed, for "100 Bullets" , in the image above.

List of Issues to be updated: The Update Summary window displays all the issues that that are available for update. By default, it will display all issues that have changed in value and have not yet been updated. However, you can change it to display any sort and selection criteria that you wish. You can resize and/or move any of the columns.