Present an example database for classical music.

Send me a message with your e-mail address.
I can provide a very heavily modified example database with classical entries.

I'm also interested in your template can you post it here on the forum?

Me too
Jean

Hi guys

I'm not at my CATraxx PC at present, but I'll attend to the issue later tonight.

Providing a template for my database is one thing, but I feel it's a lot easier to see how I use it if there's some data in there. I got a PM request from Doug last night asking for a copy as well, and I sent him a zipped database via http://www.filemail.com. It was about 7-8MB - I'm not sure if that's OK by forum space limits for uploading here.

The other thing is I've not only modified the database itself (custom fields, forms, views etc), I've also edited the explorer templates. Many of these changes have been to incorporate improvements and ideas from Fredrik (of course), Doug, Hamsen, Jeff, LotsOCDs etc. Standing on the shoulders of giants indeed. However some of these are my own impoverished attempts at making browsing more composer- and work-centric. So, as well as the database structure (and data) you really need my templates. Unzip these in to a spare folder somewhere and then point CATraxx towards using that folder for the templates. You can easily switch back to your own templates folder at the end.

So, either let me have your separate e-mails in a PM and I'll happily use filemail to distribute the results. Or else if someone wants to donate access to a common fileshare URL I'll upload the files there for everyone to grab whenever they wish.

(I'd emphasise that this is not a finished perfect 'product' - it's a work in progress. Maybe I'd be better writing a short guide to my thinking that led to arranging things this way and how to use it.)

Regards

Ken

Change of plan, prompted by a suggestion from LotsOCds (Dave).
I didn't realise I was only scratching the surface of my DropBox account by sharing files with myself (different computers). Dave pointed out I could let the general public in on the deal for some data and still keep my own files separate.

So the two zip files with the database and the templates are now available here -
KAMClassicalExample
KAMTemplates

Good luck everyone. Any comments, queries, suggestions for improvements, etc all welcome.

Ken

2 words Ken... YOU ROCK!

Oh wait 2 more... THANK YOU!

djrm

@ Ken

Great, thank you !

Jean

Just a few further comments ...

I've tried installing this set of files on a completely fresh PC just to see what the information as you guys would be seeing it. I was slightly surprised at the colours and fonts in the explorer views. I have used <right-click> OPTIONS to set the scheme I wanted and I didn't appreciate that wasn't saved anywhere in the data I posted. For example some of the links in AlbumBrowse, especially for Various Artists albums, are almost indistinguishable from standard text. Please feel free to adjust locally to suit your preference.
Similarly, depending on your Windows fonts you may find that some of the forms have words chopped off or odd spacings. Just adjust the choice of font or size to fit.
(Ooops, yes, I should know better. Strictly speaking a 'font' includes the definition of size. The actual characters - glyphs, anyone? - are the 'typeface'. The combination of a typeface plus size, etc is what constitutes a 'font'.)

Also, if I were starting from scratch I'd now make the track-level fields for catalogue, and opus etc look-ups. It is essential in my way of working to have consistent catalogue numbers, otherwise links to find all instances of a given work by catalogue number won't work. So BWV 1014 (with one space) is not the same as BWV 1014 (with two spaces). A look-up won't actually prevent inconsistent data, but it reduces the likelihood of error and makes subsequent checking and correction much easier.

Finally I just spotted that the two versions of Nielsen's 3rd Symphony in my database had been given completely different catalaogue numbers! How could I? Of course, as you all knew, the Fog Schousboe catalogue number for the "Sinfonia espansiva" should be FS 60, not FS 29 as I had in one version. Any idiot knows FS 29 is the second symphony!

Regards

Ken

Here is an alternative system that seems to be gaining traction as more people have to create rational de facto music catalogs to use their digital audio servers.

http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/ClassicalStyleGuide

I set up my classical catraxx under a similar system -- based on composer rather than artist, but using the virtually unlimted available fields offered by catraxx rather than shoehorning multiple types of data into a single field). It works well. If anyone would like to see it, send me a PM and I'll email it to you.