News

This page lists recent changes that may be or interest to logged in users who can edit or contribute information to the MDDB.

MDDB Welcomes Sharon Hutchings

5 June 2025

Sharon Hutchings has agreed to take over the administration of the Morris Dance Database. Initially she and Colin Andrews will be working together dealing with enquiries and promoting the database. Colin intends to remain active for some time but eventually will take a back seat.

Sharon is a musician with Enigma Border Morris and was formerly with Wayzgoose.

Tunes and media links included in team variations for a dance

22 August 2020

The team-specific variations for a dance often include the use of different tunes. The database now handles this properly, also has a place for team-specific documentation and media references, which is an ideal place to put a YouTube link. The navigation between team dance editor, dance details and tunes has been improved, and the dance details page is the home page for showing and adding team-based variations.

If you search for a dance or team and your search comes up with exactly one match, the display of a "list" containing one item is skipped and you go straight to the dance or team details page.

This news page was previously only visible to logged in users: now anyone can read it.

Better Facilities for Describing Variations on a Dance

19 July 2020

It often happens (especially in the Cotswold traditions) that a team has its own variations to a dance from another tradition. Until now, the only way to document that is in the dance notes or team notes. Now, any team editor can edit the description of a dance to add details of variations as performed specifically their team. We have extra 'held in hands' and 'set size' fields, a 'source' field for where or how their team learned the dance, and a new 'notes' field for anything else.

When a team's details are listed, the dance list repertoire will indicate where such variations exist. Clicking on the dance name will show the dance details with notes about team varations. If you are a team editor, showing the details for any dance will, by default, show your own teams's variations.

Over the next few weeks we will be manually transferring the contents of existing dance notes, where relevant, to team variation info in the new format.

Please Contact Colin Andrews if not clear about how this works.

Security and Style Updates

25 May 2020

Further security hardening (for the technically minded, "Content Security Policy") has added further protection from damage or abuse.

There have been some style changes (mostly background colors) in forms and buttons, and the layout of some pages has been improved.

Team Photos and Other Changes

15 May, 2020

Teams may now have up to three photos incuded in their details.

An archive links page has been introduced. Unlike the other links page, certain users will be allowed to log in to edit the archive links.

"Hamburger" menu icon for small screens, because the number of navigation buttons has increased.

The contact page is easier to use, with clearer options and four contact forms tailored for purpose.

A security vulnerability has been fixed, and styling (including layout and typeface choice) has been changed.

Errors when adding dances

17 Jan 2020

A software upgrade introduced an incompatibility which made adding new dances fail silently. This problem has been identified and fixed.

Tunes for Dances

25 Nov 2019

A new page, Tunes has appeared, and the database can now store much more information about the tunes for each dance.

To see or edit the tunes information for a dance, go to the Dances pages, search for the dance and click on the dance name in the table to show the Dance details. If you are an authorised team editor, you'll be able to edit the tune details associated with dances performed by your team.

Team editors can also reach the dance details page and (and hence tunes for a dance) from the team's list of dance repertoire.

Notable feaures:

• On the Tunes page, you can search for a Tune by name.
• Tune information has fields for notition, composer, comments, and links to notation, audio and video (e.g. YouTube.)
• Any number of tunes can be added for a dance, if appropriate.
• Where the same tune (title) is used for many dances, each tune record is separate, so contain specific data about the tune as used for that dance.

We think the tunes facility is functional, but there is doubtless room for improvement - please contact us if you have questions, requests or suggestions.