INTERACT FORUM

More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: edbro on June 18, 2005, 09:21:30 am

Title: Generate reports
Post by: edbro on June 18, 2005, 09:21:30 am

Is there a way to generate reports from within MC? I see that I can export to XML but there is no way to filter/customize. And, I don't know what to do with an XML document. I would love to be able to generate custom reports using the database. Heck, the data is all there. Is there another way to tap into the database and pull out select data?

Title: Re: Generate reports
Post by: dcwebman on June 18, 2005, 11:20:24 am

Excel will open an XML document and then you can work with it just like any other spreadsheet.

Title: Re: Generate reports
Post by: edbro on June 18, 2005, 11:30:24 am

Thanks, I tried that but Excel failed to import it. It said "XML parse error", whatever that it. I'm using Excel from Office 2003. It says there is an invalid character in line 33357. My "MC Library.xml" came out to be 12.4MB, I don't know if that is causing the problem. I tried deleting the file and regenerating it from MC but it gave the same error.

I still think it would be nice if we could customize the output. For example; print out only album titles with their songs. I don't really need this large of a file with lyrics, etc.

Title: Re: Generate reports
Post by: IlPadrino on June 19, 2005, 08:19:14 am

edbro,

I think you'll find the plugin "MC XML Export" can do whatever you're imagining.  Take a look at http://pages.sbcglobal.net/scottraymond/Presets.htm for an idea of what can be done. 

The thread http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=24875.0 also has some news about the plugin itself.

If you have any questions on how to make this work for you, I'd be happy to explain - assuming I'm available.  XML and XSLT can be hard to grasp, so read the primer available from the first URL.