Playlist file queries

[kck]

I note the very useful addition that playlists now include all the details of a song so that if you transfer them to another computer that doesn't have all the songs in the list they are still available and can be imported if necessary. (This could have been particularly useful to me this morning if I had engaged my brain early enough!)

So, a couple of questions . . .

1. Can you publish the details (schema?) of the playlist files? (I could reverse-engineer them but original information is better).

2. Is there a limit to the number of songs that can go into a playlist? Would this be a reasonable way to import a large number of songs at once?

Thanks,
Steve

[Jonathan Hills]

There's already an import function, why not just use that??

[kck]

There's already an import function, why not just use that??

Because unless I've missed something it's for importing from a database that is already in the Zionworx (i.e. TurboDB) format.
(It's possible I have missed something. I haven't had a lot of time to investigate but that's the way it looks to me).

Steve

[Jonathan Hills]

You talked about using a playlist on 2 computers. For this to work, they must both have zionworx, so why not just use the import function?
Or am I missing something?

[ChrisClark]

The thought is that being able to construct an XML file of songs in the correct format would allow someone to import a (large) number of songs into ZionWorx from another format. ie If you had an Access database of songs - you could export these into an xml format an just open as a play list in ZW to load into the database

I think the original inspiration was that he was transferring from one ZW system to another and hadn't realised this feature was there - and now knowing it is Steve sounds like he is definitely thinking outside the box with how it could be used.

The full playlist xml has a lot of additional information such as styles that isn't required for just importing songs - so we will look at what the minimum requirements are for the playlist xml file and look at making it available on the website.

[kck]

Thanks Chris; that's exactly what I was wondering.

I have a number of possibilities in mind, not least a solution to the perennial Song of Fellowship question that is acceptable to all parties (including Kingsway).

I have done various experiments to import lots of data in one go, including the now-superceded Bible idea in V2.5.
Although the TurboDB tool allows for data importing it doesn't make it user-friendly. When I saw this new facility I was very optimistic.

Looking forward in anticipation,
Steve

[kck]

Without wishing to pre-empt the official information (which I'd still be very keen to see) I think I am close to success with this.
I've got a PHP page that I can upload the Songs of Fellowship 4 SongPro format data and return a playlist file that Zionworx 2.6 seems to import OK.
I still need to do some further work and some more checking but it looks good so far.
This means if you've got the SoF4 CD-ROM then there is a good possibility of being able to easily load the songs into Zionworx.

Since it is simply data conversion there shouldn't be any copyright complaints. It also means that if you have other SongPro format data you should be able to import it into Zionworx.

I'm still investigating other solutions for SoF1-3 which didn't come with the data in SongPro format.

Watch this space!
Steve

[davepartridge]

That would be grand if you do get this sorted!

[kck]

OK. There are still a few things I'd like to work on to improve this but I think it's worth offering it for beta testing at least.

I strongly recommend backing up your database before using it. That's just common sense before any kind of bulk update but even more so for something experimental.

If you're still interested go to http://www.steveprior.plus.com/zionworx/index.htm

Please post comments, observations, etc. here.

Cheers,
Steve

[davepartridge]

Just had a very quick go with this and it appears to have worked. I like to have the song numbers etc. in the song titles for convenience for us musicians, but I can go through and add those manually.

I tend to have Song title (Number) as the main title and then Number Song Title as the alternative title so that we can search by either.

Thanks for this great tool - it has saved a significant number of man-hours!

[kck]

Glad you like it!

The options you describe are the kind of things I'd still like to get around to, possibly allowing the user to choose from a range of options. I'm still new to PHP though so I didn't want to do too much at once. And this seemed useful as it was.
I'm particularly keen to check the title against the first line and put the latter in the alternative title if it is different. But I need to make sure it's not just different because of text case, punctuation or the like. (And it may never be different at all - I haven't looked closely at the SongPro data).

Watch this space!

Thanks,
Steve

[kck]

Found a bug.

If you upload the RTF file from SoF4 instead of the SongPro one it doesn't complain but just creates a file with no song data in it.
I thought I'd put some checking in that would catch this but if I have it's obviously inadequate.

Just to re-iterate - you need to upload a SongPro format file. It won't convert an RTF file. That is a much more involved process if it's possible at all. (Believe me, I've tried - lots of manual editing always seems to be necessary).

Steve

[brainier]

We style our songs as "SoF XXXX Title In Title Case" as was the style of the SoF macro on this site for a number of years.

I managed to get something similar by opening the XML file I got from using the above application (amazing - thanks so much) in Microsoft Access and adding a new column (Title2) which contained the alternative title (as does the Title column) and modifying Title1 to show "SoF xxxx " at the start (which I exported the data to Excel to do this). Back to Access to convert back to XML. And then a little find replace in Notepad to add in the missing XML (</TPlayListNode></PlayListNodes> or something like that which is missing at the end of each song) and he presto - a working Songs of Fellowship 4!

Now to delete the import of SoF4 I did from before Christmas from my database without removing other songs!

[mark thompson]

many thanks, works a treat

[kck]

OK, I've added the option to have an alternative title that is preceded by the book and song number (as listed in the SongPro file).
I've also title-cased both this alternative and the ordinary title.

It turns out that the SongPro files don't include any alternative titles so my investigations in that direction haven't produced anything.

And it should now complain if the file you upload is an RTF instead of one in SongPro format.

Steve