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[Quinton Hebenstreit]

Itcan be used to create any type of manual, user guide or handbook. Our clients use it for software manuals, user guide for electronics, employee handbooks, etc... Created manuals are instantly online, either public or password protected, and included an optional download link for a PDF version.

Manula is web-based software, meaning that the software is running on our servers and your data stored on our servers. You can use Manula by logging into our site with your web-browser, no need to install software on your own computer. We manage the software for you, install updates, back up your data, etc...

The development of the Manula system started early 2012 and the product was launched in February 2013.

Currently, well over 250 companies are subscribed to one of Manula's paid plans. Who are the people behind Manula.com? Manula is one of the projects of Bitz & Pixelz, the Amsterdam-based software development company founded by Alwin Hoogerdijk. Bitz & Pixelz (B&P) was founded in April 2000, and currently consist of 11 people: 6 developers, 2 support people, 2 content managers and Alwin running it all. The first (and still the biggest) B&P project is Collectorz.com, a series of collection database programs aimed at home users, for cataloging their personal collection of movies, books, music, comics and/or video games.

Collectorz.com's software is available online, on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android.

Alwin Hoogerdijk is personally handling all communication with our customers, including all support tickets. This way, Alwin gets direct feedback on how users are using the software, what they're looking for in terms of future features and what problems they run into.

A few years ago, we were fed up with the clumsiness of Windows help files included in the installers of our software. If you're a software developer, you know how it goes: your new software version is ready for release and you're eager to get it out there. So bringing the manual up-to-date with your new features often takes a back seat. Sometimes you whip up some new topics quickly, sometimes you just skip that part completely.

And then, the software is released, with the less-than-optimal manual included in the installer. So even if you do improve the new topics later, you will have to build and release a new version of your software and installer to get the updated manual in the hands of your users.

At Collectorz.com, this awkward process just didn't work anymore and resulted in our manuals always being outdated. So I figured: what if we could maintain and update our manuals without releasing a new version of the software or its' installer? That would let us start with some quick basic topics, then go all-the-way after the software release and even tweak the topic contents based on user feedback.

Of course, the obvious solution was to have our manuals online.

So I started looking for a tool to create online help files. But not a desktop program that exports to HTML, no, I wanted an online tool, a web-application to create and maintain user guides online. In other words a content management tool for online manuals.

And strangely enough, at the time (I am talking early 2009 here) I could find no such thing.

Simply dubbed "the CLZ Manual Admin", it started out as a very basic in-house tool, completely focused on our products and the way we like to do things at Collectorz.com, cutting corners where possible. But already including some smart methods for sharing topics between manuals (essential for efficiently maintaining the manuals for 9 different but similar Windows and Mac products). Later, based on feedback from our in-house support guys, we added tracking features to measure topic popularity and thumbs up/down ratings for keeping track of topic quality.

Of course, these support guys, who maintain our CLZ manuals, had more ideas for enhancements and new features. But instead of hacking them into the existing tool, we decided to start from scratch and turn this in-house tool into a real product. An application suited for use by other software developers and basically everyone who needs to create and maintain manuals online. Manula was born.

Currently, Collectorz.com is still one of the most active Manula "customers", with 19 manuals online. As we're using Manula on an almost daily basis, most of Manula's new features and improvements originate from the minds of our own in-house support team.

At Collectorz.com (CLZ) we create and sell cataloging solutions for collectors of movies, books, music, comic books and video games. Our software is available for 5 different platforms: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and web, all syncing data through our own CLZ Cloud cloud-storage system.

Our customers are home users, some of them casual computer or mobile users, some tech-savvy computer geeks.

All customer support is handled by email, using Zendesk, 7 days a week. We do not offer phone support, for various reasons (efficiency, timezones, ability to consult with programmers, etc...). We receive between 60 and 80 new tickets per day. With running conversations included, that means over 100 tickets must be answered to each and every day.

Most tickets are handled by 2 team members, but if necessary all CLZ team members pitch in, through their own Zendesk account. For example, developers investigating bug reports, content managers dealing with content related questions, etc...

For our products, we are getting a lot of similar support questions. Some are account-related ("I can't login", "lost my license key", etc..), some about using the software ("how do I ..."), others related to common problems or bugs.

Of course we try to prevent these recurring questions by improving our site, product and manuals, but still... most of the daily tickets are frequently asked questions....

PasteAway helps us to maintain a repository of response templates for these common questions. After that, the PasteAway clients make pasting these templates into our email replies super quick and easy. Some of us use the Zendesk app, others use the Windows and Mac clients so that they can use the same templates when answering questions on our user forum, on Facebook, Twitter, etc...

However, where PasteAway really shines, is the sharing of templates between team members. We continuously tweak and tune our canned responses (to make them clearer, fix typos, etc...) and PasteAway makes sure that once a template is modified, all team members are instantly getting the updated version. Our online template repository really is a constantly evolving knowledge base, managed and used by the entire team.

Well, before we found PasteAway, we tried a lot of other solutions:

Local clipboard and text expander tools: nice and fast, but no easy way to share templates between team members.

An online wiki: this solved the sharing, but we lost the quick pasting offered by a clipboard. Also managing the clips was a nightmare.

Evernote: good sharing, easily manageable, but again: no easy pasting of templates.

PasteAway is the perfect mix: a cloud-based shared template repository, easily managed by multiple team members, combined with quick and easy pasting into Zendesk tickets or any other text box using the native Windows and Mac clients.

I think that this view is a little too cluttered for my tastes, but some may like the individual backdrops. I choose to go the minimalist route and simply have the main information displayed (run time, director, actors, etc.) with no backdrops.

Another nice thing about the software, which other cataloging software packages may also do, is that it can organize your collection by genre. Not only that, but it will sort by just about any criteria, including theatrical release date, Blu-ray release date, distributor, studio, personal star ratings and so on.

The software also has a bug involving cover art. Sometimes, images that I found online would disappear once I reopened the program. The database is usually good about finding cover art, but a few covers that I added by myself simply no longer existed the moment that I went back into the program.

Collectorz also has some other programs that are pretty cool, including Book Collector, Music Collector and Game Collector. They all have similar interfaces, so if you want a database program for those, and want everything to look uniform, Movie Collector is a great option.

I use My Movies Collection Management on PC and My Movies Pro on Android. They sync to a server so you only have to manage one or the other. Works perfectly for what I need and does far more than I plan to ever use.

* about the backdrops in the Details Panel: most users *love* this. The introduction of the automatic downloading of backdrop art in version 8 was a huge hit.

But I can understand it looks a little cluttered for some users. If so, just switch to one of the other V8 template styles without a backdrop. They are a little easier on the eye ?

* about the barcode scanners: if you find our recommend scanners too pricey, just get any other barcode scanner that is a HID device (most are). All of them work with our software out-of-the-box, because they just emulate keyboard input.

You can also use any other barcode scanner app that can send barcodes from your mobile app to your desktop computer (not all do, but some can). Still, CLZ Barry (our own scanner app) is best integrated with our desktop software and our own online media databases (comes in handy for getting a preview of the scanned movie right after scanning)

* about disappearing cover art: never heard about that problem before. Maybe you linked to cover images in a temp folder that got cleaned by Windows? I recommend always letting the program copy the image to its own Image Folder. That will make sure the images stay linked.

Concluding: it looks like most of your annoyances are with the data from our central online movie database. Thank you very much for your feedback on that. I will discuss these issues with our content managers, see if we can work on them ASAP.

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