steveja7

You have it correct and that has not changed. I try to make things optional for the user when possible. Unfortunately, I spend too little time on the documentation and this causes users to miss some good features. Writing documentation is my least favorite thing to do. :-) Please don't scold me - I realize the problem with this.

Not sure what you are getting at here. BRIAN does have a feature to allow autocomplete for previously entered venues and locations. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your comment.

I can't comment on how you should proceed. This is up to the discographer. There are many other "dilemmas" - YouTube videos, for instance. It is a matter of style. That said, BRIAN can handle it. Just add the DVD as an issue and list the performances from that session.

I recommend starting with a small project to get the feel of it. The Tina Brooks discography will fit the bill. There is a learning curve - discography is not simple. You can contact me here or directly via email anytime with questions. I enjoy supporting my software. There is a contact page on JazzDiscography.com and I respond ASAP. Old and not super intuitive should not be a drawback. I hope I'm not speaking out of turn, but the author of the BRIAN Peggy Lee discography will be the first to admit he is a naif when it comes to computers. But he asks and applies the answers. If you look at his website, every page on that site except for the home page is generated from BRIAN.

Yes, but... the session must be associated with the label. In other words, the label discography will only report sessions that were done under the ownership of the label. So, for instance, you couldn't do a Mosaic discography because Mosaic is not a label that brings musicians into the studio for original recordings. The sessions included in Mosaic issues would not have their name on them.

I am not a discographher - I support discographers. So, I can't speak with experience on the best way to do this. But, you're not the first one to tell me that they'll "eventually enter the data into BRIAN." I always wonder, why not use BRIAN while doing the research, not after. When I first developed BRIAN, that was the primary goal - to assist the research, not make the reports. BRIAN does a lot of things to prevent errors and assist in cross checking information. Why not use that? Unless you don't have a laptop and are tied to a desktop computer, I can't see entering data twice. Again, I'm looking from a distance...

Not to be presumptuous, but the hard work is doing the research. The data entry is simply tedious.

The starter database does not contain session or issue information. BRIAN does have a feature that allows imports of sessions entered by another BRIAN discographer, but you have to ask that discographer to send you the session files. Session exports and imports can only be done one session at a time. It is possible for a discographer to do a wholesale export all the information of an artist. This may come in handy if you were thinking of doing a discography of an artist that collaborated often with another artist that someone already entered in their discography. The exported database would contain all the sessions and issues for the particular artist being exported. Again, this relies on another discographer deciding to share the information. There is no central database of sessions for BRIAN. BRIAN databases cannot be merged.

Since you asked, allow me to toot my own horn here regarding BRIAN. BRIAN does come with a starter database of songs, composers, personnel names, and labels. It is not at all complete - it is the result of entries made by a prolific BRIAN discographer - but it is fairly comprehensive and quite a time saver for most discographers. Output of BRIAN is strictly html based web pages, but these can be easily browsed locally from your computer and printed to pdf via the web browser. The output of the web pages can be .html or .php and they are created in a way so they can be directly uploaded to a website without editing. View the hundreds of discographies displayed on JazzDiscography.com and see what I am talking about. Every one of these discography pages is directly generated by BRIAN. Contact me via the contact page at JazzDiscography.com if you have any questions.

You can find the NKCT sessionography, as copied from the Mosaic set, here: http://www.jazzdiscography.com/Artists/Cole/NKCT.html This was created using my Brian program. Steve Albin

Hi, I'm new to Organissimo. I received an email telling me that there was discussion of my program, Brian, on this forum so I decided to check it out. I see that Brian has been mentioned in this thread, but that is geared toward discography. I have another program, Beyond Category, that is more geared to inventory. It works similar to Brian and has many of the same features. Details can be found at my website, www.jazzdiscography.com. The main point of my post is to let everyone know that I will be happy to support anyone that wants to get started using either of my programs. I admit they are not as intuitive as some simple programs. Part of the reason is that I'm not an expert at developing a user interface. But I think the main reason is that the programs handle a lot of information - these programs are not for a casual user. They are for someone that is detail oriented. OK, your wife may call it anal retentive - but I digress! :-) I have no financial incentive to plug these programs. They are both free for non-commercial use. I wrote them for my own use and enjoy sharing them with others. Steve Albin steveja@jazzdiscography.com