Supported Database File Formats

This is the recommended format for normal, everyday use. It was designed to contain all of the information supported by the VisiTrax user interface, plus a number of additional types of information envisioned for support in future versions of VisiTrax. It also was designed to be saved and loaded very quickly.

CAUTION: This is a special binary format – do not try to edit one of these files with other software!

This file format, described in more detail on our web site (www.synapsa.com/vtfispec.htm), facilitates exporting and importing data to or from other applications. You can create and edit files of this format with an ordinary text editor. (Note that if you have a spreadsheet program, copy and paste might be a simpler alternative to generating an importable text file.)

Text files generally take significantly more time to read than the .trx format; however, VisiTrax can merge formatted text files into an existing library. If you open a text file to be read in, and existing library data is already loaded, you will be asked if the text file data should be merged with the existing data. If you respond "Yes", the data will be merged; otherwise, any currently open library will first be closed. Note that the merged data is not saved to a file until you tell VisiTrax to do so.

Saving your data as a text file takes about the same amount of time as saving any other format – which is to say, almost no time at all.

This format is essentially a very limited subset of the .trx format. It is provided primarily for back-compatibility with Playlist 4.0x, a DOS-based precursor to VisiTrax that has been in use since 1993. If you have an existing .ldb file created by Playlist 4.0x, you can import it into VisiTrax with no loss of data.

If you wish to export an existing VisiTrax library to the .ldb file format, only the subset of information supported by the .ldb format and Playlist 4.0x will be exported. Things to look out for in this regard include:

•	Extended volume locators such as "CD0123.1" will be exported without the decimalized digits (e.g. "CD0123").

•	Track numbers will be limited to 1-99 only. Side A/B information will not be included.

•	Invisible CD disc identifiers used to associate CDs with their volumes will not be included.

•	BPM, intro times, track filenames, and volume pathnames will not be included.

•	Playlist-compatible .ldb files require generic ASCII (7-bit) text sorting. VisiTrax automatically ensures that .ldb file data is sorted this way whenever an existing .ldb file is opened. [Other file types are opened using a multinational form of ANSI (8-bit) sorting that depends on locale.]

VisiTrax playlists are saved as ordinary text files, but using a ".vxp" filename extension. A playlist file contains the playlist's descriptive title on the first line, followed by a set of track identifiers, one line per track. Each track identifier line consists of an optional volume/track index (e.g. CD0123.1-4), and/or a hexadecimal CRC (checksum) based on the track's most essential data fields, such as artist and title. When VisiTrax opens a .vxp playlist file, it looks up tracks based on the CRC, if available, or failing that, the volume/track index. (Playlists saved by older versions of VisiTrax do not contain CRCs.)

VisiTrax also supports exporting data to some externally-defined file formats. For more information, see Exporting and Importing Data.