Bluesdejour's Band Manager database is a bare bones application for muscians who manage their band's finances. Designed with freeware Open Office 2, it tracks Show & CD activities.

                 Requirements: OpenOffice 2 :: Sun java j2re1.4 :: msWindows??
                     [ The BandMan may run sluggishly on Pentium 2 level PCs.]
                                                   size: approx 220k
        Works with decent dispatch on Pentium III & likes to own about 50MB of RAM

    If You act as your band's manager and want a fairly simple database App, or You already have OpenOffice2 Base installed & want to look over a compact db design: Read On Below.

Although BandMan works well at all we ask of it, it remains to be considered if there may be some essential features which are lacking in the current design and which might require major structural changes. If you have any ideas for or interest in this project please contact our webmanager by using the email link at the top of this page.

:::Readme for Bdj BandMan OObase Musicians' Show & Album Tracker :::

OObase is organized into 4 functions for design & use: Tables, Queries, Forms, & Reports.
Once the design is complete, use is largely confined to Forms & Reports.

The Tables

The BandMan contains 4 Tables: Artists; Clubs; Albums & Shows. Artists & Clubs are simply for contact information. [ Other programs like address books or email clients like Eudora can access contact info much more quickly. ] The Albums & Shows tables are cross related and handle routine data tasks efficiently by means of well designed forms. The Forms input show data to the Shows Table & CD data to the Albums Table. The tables' relationship allows them to share information & eliminates the hassle of having to input a piece of data more than just once.

The Shows Table is simple. It uses the show date as its primary key so that all shows are automatically sorted by Date & therefore kept in an orderly fashion. When a CD activity is associated with a show, the Shows Table inputs the show date to the Albums table along with the CD data for the activity.

The Albums Table is more complicated. It employs extra Fields which are used to categorize & type the data.The Forms use Filters to organize the Table's data for display by category & type into tabular arrays (tabs) on the forms.

The Forms

1. Before showtime, Form [1] Add-Amend handles the ongoing input for the basic show starting info like Venue, date, & pay. An area is included for 2 promotional actions like Ads & Posters. There are also entry boxes for 4 musicians besides yourself who are likely for the show. They are typed by instrument. [ More categories can be added. ]

2. After the show you can complete your input into Form [1] Add-Amend by recording the distribution of pay to each of the musicians and all venue related CD info which is typed as sales, consignments, or demos. Show data goes to the Shows table. Cd info goes to the Albums table. If you think your databasing of the show is done you can click the "Amend" box so [1] Add-Amend won't bring the Show up anymore. The "Amend" option alows you to keep only those shows in "WIP" status available to the Form [1].

3. Form [2] Edit All Show is an expanded version of Form [1] which allows you to cycle through a history of all shows and edit or add to any of them. It also includes summary Tabs which display show related data in an organized fashion.
          Tab 1
                 Detail of show related cd activities - sales, demos & consignments
          Tab 2
                 Detail of show $Income & $Distributions to musicians & promotions
          Tab 3,4,5
                 Summations of show $Income & $Distributions to musicians & promotions

4. Form [3] Cd Activity is used to record all non-show Cd activities like production, distribution and non-show types of sales. It allows you to cycle through a history of all activities and edit or add to any of them. It also includes summary Tabs which display CD related data in an organized fashion.
          Tab 1
                 Detail of all cd sales activities - $sales, $distribution & $net
          Tab 2
                 Detail of cd production & packaging costs
          Tab 3
                 Summation of CD unit costs & income
          Tab 4
                 Summation of CD income vs production cost
          Tab 5
                 CD distribution & inventory
          Tab 6
                 Detail of all cd sales & disribution activities (expanded version of Tab1)

5. In the "Reports" section of the application are 2 report generators for each instrument which compile the data applicable to each musician. One 'report' generates a shows history, the other a wage total & average wage. The 2 data bundles generated can then be pasted into templates and distributed to band members.

6. In the "Queries" section of the application are a series of SQL queries which produce most of the tabs included within the Forms & half the generators for the Reports.

Notes

1. Radio Buttons were selected as a convenient means of 'Categorizing' & 'Typing' data.
When, for example, a button in front of the word "sales" is selected: the word "sales" is input into the database table without the possibility for typographical error. & It's preferable to have a complete word like "sales" echoed back to the forms for easy interpretation of the data. Radio Buttons also allow the possiabilty of "mutual exclusion": A data entry may have only one category & only one type.

Unfortunately Radio Buttons remain inaccessable (to us at least) by means of the keyboard Tab function. This seems the case even when they are placed together in a Group Box where a selection could be made from the group by use of the Arrow Keys.

At this stage of design then, one can type & tab one's way through the form adding text to the relevant entry boxes but the mouse must be used before, after, or during the tab thru to engage a radio button selection. The ability to use the keyboard exclusively for all selections would perhaps reduce the chance of an error by omission and make the application more desireable & "faultless".

Screen Shot Tour