A quote from Tony from another post, copied here, as the discussion might take longer …
5.Support for access database or spreadsheets to catalog audio library.
You mean, a “local database” running on the same computer as mAirList? Have you considered iTunes? It’s free, and mAirList can access all of its library, search for song, browse pre-defined playlists etc. Or is there another similar, 3rd party music management software? mAirList has a very modular database interface, I can easily add support for further “database” types. But I won’t create a “local” software myself.
As soon as mAirList 2.0 is released, I will start work on an eldoDB replacement, “mAirListDB”, the new official mAirList database. (Of course, cevou’s similar project, radioDB, will also be supported in future mAirList versions.) However, this will be a distributed system, based on a database management system (probably PostgreSQL), and aimed at being used by multiple users in a network at the same time. Imagine a station’s network with several people maintaining the database, creating playlists, and of course mAirList running in the studio(s), accessing the playlists. And a big file server with all of your audio files.
Of course, all of this could be installed and running on a single PC (even the one mAirList is running on), but that might be a litlle oversized. However, I don’t see the sense in creating a database software that is limited to a single computer.
csv: Agree. This is also very easy to implement. But someone has to define the columns to use. Agree on a “standard” format, and I’ll write an interface to it. Not a big deal.
Access: Disagree. I’m not a big supporter of Microsoft, and I don’t want to encourage anyone to use Microsoft products unless absolutely necessary Access is some sort of lightweight relational database management system. And, from what I know, a quite bad one, in terms of performance and usability. So why not use a real, full-featured and free DBMS - PostgreSQL for example
By the way, I haven’t used MS Office for some five years now. No Access here on my hard disk. So I wouldn’t even be able to find out how to access it from Delphi
Hmm… CSV is a fairly “universal” one, simply because schedulers can import it (Natural Music, for example) - and it can then be imported by Access/Excel and turned into a front-end for “basic” viewing/editing. Incidentally, using MP3Tag (another German wonder), I’ve have my production CDs in CSV format.
I haven’t got MySQL or any of the others working with mAirList (not strictly required by us at present), so I can’t really say how great having a database is - But in networked (multi studios, one station) usage, seeing changes as they are made is quite a handy thing. Mind you, thinking about it - If audio is stored on a central server, there’s no reason why ID3s can’t be used providing the file in question isn’t “on air” at the time.
Access is some sort of lightweight relational database management system. And, from what I know, a quite bad one, in terms of performance and usability. So why not use a