CLASSICAL MUSIC COLLECTION VERSION 3.0
(for Windows 95) filedate 11 june 1998
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*BEFORE INSTALLING*
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To save server space and download time, some common Visual Basic runtime file are NOT INCLUDED.
These files are;

asycfilt.dll
comcat.dll
comdlg32.ocx
msvbvm50.dll
oleaut32.dll
olepro32.dll
stdole2.tlb

Please check if these files are on your computer. If not download the self-installing executable:
ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/win95/dll/vb5rtsp3.zip (1.2M)

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*INSTALLATION*
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-Unzip cmc30.zip to a temporary location
-run setup.exe

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*UNINSTALL*
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-open the Control Panel
-goto Add/Remove Programs
-select Classical Music Collection
-hit the remove button

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*GENERAL*
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Classical Music Collection is the program to keep track of your classical recordings. And why? It's not because it's a super complicated program. Nor can you download the names of complete albums from the Internet. So why use it? Well, because it's the only program, so far I know, that's written especially for classical music. And that shows in the way the information is organized. Not by albums, not by artists. No, classical recordings should be organized by composer and the title of the recorded piece. On what album it's located? Yes, that's nice to know so you are able to find it back, but it's most of times hardly relevant to the piece recorded. 

So how is the information organized? On the main screen of Classical Music Collection you can see it's organized is three sections. The first one is the information about the recorded piece itself. The composer, title, opus number and genre speak for itself. Beside this you can store info about which part is recorded, if applicable, and some comments, like 'sung in Hungarian" or whatever. 

The second block contains information about the performance. Every field is optional of course. In this block information is stored like who's conducting it, which orchestra and/or choir is performing, and last but very not least, who are the soloists.

The third and last block is only about the medium on which it is recorded, or if you like, the album. What you should fill in here are the type of medium (CD, LP etc.) and the caption (ie. title) of it. If you do not do this, the track list won't work. 

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*FEATURES*
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As told above, this program is a quite basic one. Why? As I think the features added are the ones people will use most. But, if you're missing features you really think that should be in a program like this please let me know. I'm always open for suggestions. 

First of all. This program stores allows you to create as many databases as you like. And store those where ever you like. As long as you keep in mind that it's always expecting to find the standard one in it's own directory! But normally people will only use one. This because you can use the selection feature to show only specified recordings. The program will completely ignore the rest of the information stored in the database. 

As the main screen offers a lot of information, but gives you no real overview of the selected recordings, there's the List View. This gives you an overview with only that information showed that you want it to show. You can select every field in the database to be shown in one of the columns. Besides for getting a bit of an overview of you database, this screen is also important for printing. I mean for printing lists. Because when you choose to print a list (opposed to one record) all information shown in list view will be printed. This gives some flexibility in printing don't you think? As only these two options for printing are available, there's the option to export information to an ordinary MS Access® database. This is for the people who want to control the layout as well. And for those who want to share the information with other programs. 

To avoid unwanted changes to the files, you can only edit them in the edit mode. Only when changing to this mode the menu with the edit options and the edit buttons appear. If you want so, you can even protect it with a password. Note that this password option is created to prevent accidentally changes by people you don't want to be able to like your children or guests. This option is very primitive and is no real security option! 

I'm not going to walk through all features. Please try the shareware version to meet them all!. This shareware version is fully operational and will never expire. However there is this one limitation; a database can only contain 40 entries. When more, you can open the database, but you can't change it. 

Z-Soft
Ralph van Zetten
zsoft@classical.demon.nl
http://www.classical.demon.nl/software

Notes:
* You can register and check for updates at the internet adres listed above
* Z-Soft doesn't take any responsability for any damage caused by this program

Warnings:
Do not delete st5unst.log and standard.cmc!
