For most reporting, the Reports Generator window is the thing to use. Presumably, there are reports that will be generated over and over as a discography is developed. The Reports Generator window will allow creating a template to save the customizations desired for each report that will end up on a web site.
But there are times when a quick, one-off report is needed without the bother of creating a customized template. For this, using the Display Sessions, Display Issues feature or the List menu items that allow for a session report of a composer, artist, or song title is a sensible choice.
Using the Display Sessions Feature
From the Sessions window, any number of sessions can be selected from the sessions list and displayed as a session report. Select the desired entries and use the contextual menu, as shown, to display the selected sessions in a the same format as is used for session reports that are output from the Reports Generator window. The only difference from what is shown in the Display window and what is output from the Reports Generator is that the Display window uses the default CSS formatting – there is very little customization allowed.
Use the Session Filter to narrow down the list to a particular artist, session label, and or range of dates and then do a select all on the list to easily create a session report.
Using the Display Issues Feature
There are two options for displaying issues:
- Display the issues in track list format
- Display a session report for all sessions that contain a performance that is included in the selected issues
The session report feature is especially handy for creating a discography for a multi-cd set that spans a collection of individual cds.
Select the issues to be displayed and use the contextual menu in the Issues window to get either report.
Options in the Display Window
For most purposes, viewing a displayed report at the time of generation is all that is needed. But, there are 3 options for saving the output. Use the Options menu in the lower right of the Display window to get the choices.
Saving just the report output as HTML to the clipboard
This is useful for inserting the output to an already created web page.
Saving the report output as a fully formatted web page to the clipboard
This will allow saving the page for later viewing – either on your website or simply in your web browser served from your hard drive.
Printing the display
It’s recommended to use the Print to PDF feature for this, but for those that still think paper is the “bees knees”, knock yourself out…
List Menu Selections for Special Session Reports
Using the List menu, session reports can be generated for any one song, composer, or person. Use the Songs, Composers, or Personnel window to make a selection. Then use the List menu to generate the report.
These reports are generated as HTML and placed in the BRIAN reports folder as designated in the Preferences window. If the computer is setup to display web pages using a default browser, the generated report will be shown automatically. Otherwise, you will need to manually select the HTML file for display in your browser.
It is planned to change this feature to allow multiple selections of songs, composers, or persons for the report and also use the Display window for displaying the output. Stay tuned…