Sunday 3 March 2013

Pittman MusicDB - Getting Started Guide

When you run Pittman MusicDB, you will see a blank table – when you carry out a search any matching records will be displayed here.

At the bottom you will see various buttons for navigating through your search results and highlighting data.



Carrying out a search

To carry out a search, enter a keyword in the search bar at the top of the screen then press enter or click Search.

Additional and specific search options are available from the Find menu.




Adding data to your database

In the Data menu you will find various options for adding information about music tracks to your database.

You can either type in the details manually, or use one of the Import options to add CD track information from the web, import information from a list of MP3 files or import data from a CSV file/spreadsheet.




Highlighting Tracks

You can highlight tracks of interest, e.g. tracks you wish to use, print, etc. by selecting the track and clicking the Highlight button on the bottom toolbar, or right clicking and selecting Highlight from the menu that appears.

In the Find menu select Highlighted Items to view all the items you have highlighted. The File menu contains options for clearing, saving and opening highlighted items.




New, missing and highlighted items

Within your search results, items added to the database within the past fortnight will have a blue row.

Items missing from the music collection will have a red row.

Any item you have highlighted will be a light green colour.




Printing & Exporting Data

From the File menu you will find options to print out your search results. You can also export search results to a CSV file, which can be opened in many spreadsheet applications.




Setting up your database

If you have a database file at another location (e.g. a shared network folder) or would like to change the location of your existing database, you can do this from the software's settings.

From the Settings menu you will also find options to edit your list of stations and to compact and repair your database.




Backing up your database

You should try to make regular backups of your database. You can do this by manually backing up the database, using your own backup software or the option in the Data menu.



Further and more detailed information is available within the User Guide and help file provided with Pittman MusicDB.