The idea behind lookup fields is to save user keystrokes and take advantage of the relational nature of the database. Often times, when entering data in a field, you are really selecting data already entered into the database. For instance, the song field on the Performances tab of the Sessions window will only accept songs titles already data entered in the Songs/Personnel/Labels window. When a user types a song title in that field, BRIAN will use what is typed in the field to “lookup” the song already entered on the database and get that information.
Lookup Fields are identified in windows as the ones that have their identifying label underlined. There are some fields in windows that are lookup fields only when the window is in read mode and some that are lookup fields only when the window is in edit mode. Look for the underline in the label to know when a field is behaving as a lookup field.
Entering data with a lookup field
The following example demonstrates the use of the label name lookup field on the Sessions window. For the sake of space, we are only showing the top portion of the Sessions window.
The first illustration shows an in progress edit of the session with the label field blank and ready for typing.
The next illustration shows the user has typed in 2 characters, “ca”. This causes a drop down list to appear containing any label that begins with the first 2 letters of “ca”. Of course, there are many that begin with “ca”, but the list only shows the first 5.
If the user needs to use the Capitol label, then he enters more characters to narrow the list. The next illustration show what happens when one additional character, “p”, is entered. At this point, the user can select Capitol from the list.
Below shows what the window will look like after Capitol is selected. Remember, entries cannot be fully typed into a lookup field, they can only be selected from a list. In this case, if the needed label was not found in the lookup list, the user would then need to go to the Labels tab of the Songs/Personnel/Labels window and enter a new label into the database.
Search Options for Lookup Fields
By default, lookup fields search the target by matching the entered string with the beginning of the target string. Starting with BRIAN 10.7.3, you can toggle the option for each lookup field to search either from the start of the target or within the target.
As shown below, here is the default option for searching a song name. Searching for “The Birth of the Blues” you would enter “the bi”, and get the selection list as shown below.
But, there are many cases where a song title might be entered in the database using a different spelling. Often, “The Birth of the Blues” is spelled without the leading “The”. In that case, you could toggle the search to find “birth of the blues” from anywhere within the title, not just the beginning. Right-click on the lookup field (or press the Ctrl key and click) to activate the contextual menu to select the option for searching.
You can see below how the search for “The Birth of the Blues” is rendered if searching from within.
Selecting “search within” will stay in force while the window is open or the toggle is changed manually back to “search from start.” The search option defaults to “search from start” anytime a window is opened.