This page lists recent changes that may be or interest to
logged in users who can edit or contribute information to the MDDB.
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.
Second Site Move
25 Nov 2019
A second migration to a new server happened in November this year, because
of problems with the site management software, combined with an opportunity to
revert to a newer (and under active development) version of the system I had
used previously.
Web Site Migrated to New Server
30 May 2019
The MDDB web site is now hosted on a new server. I am moving all my web sites:
for reasons see
2019 Migration on my own web site.
Downtime and Web Hosting
10 May 2019
Apologies for unscheduled "Error 500" downtime on afternoon of May 9th and
morning of May 10th: this was an error in the move to new hosting. The problem
was quickly fixed once Colin had notified me of it.
Dance Notes
10 May 2019
The separate notes fields attached to dance information have now been included in the dance record itself as three free-text fields:
- Variations: where indivual teams perform the dance in some way different from the listed 'standard' version
- Media and Dcoumentation links: for written dance notation, music or video material elsewhere on the web
- Other notes: Anything that doesn't fit in the above categories
Dance team editors can edit these notes for any dance which is performed by their team, even if they can't edit other dance details.
The old -style notes are being phased out, and copied to the new system as time permits.
Links in Dance Notes (again)
19 December 2018
URLs in dance notes will again render correctly as links (see 10 October below) as long as they include "http://" or "https://" at the start. Additionally, email addresses will render correctly as mailto: links.
This release of the site software also included several improvements to dance listings, including a 'source' column, and a 'Notes' columns which show how many dance notes entries are attached to the dance record.
Team representatives can now add dance notes for any dance performed by their team.
Anyone entitled to add dance notes can also edit or remove any notes field that they created or last edited.
New handling for dance traditions
23 October 2018
When entering or editing dance information, instead of needing a three-letter code for dance tradition, you now have a drop-down list of tradition names. It's quite a long list, but (on most browsers) if you type the first letter of the tradition name you can skip to those that begin with that letter, and they are presented in alphabetical order.
If you are entering new dances invented by your own team, you will still have to contact Colin Andrews to get a new "tradition" added to the system if it's not there yet.
There will be further changes in the future to reflect better the way in which dances are devised based on existing traditions. We are working on the details now.
Links in dance notes
10 October 2018
The facility for converting URLs to live links in dance notes has been suspended. It was getting confused by email addresses. If I can get it to work better, I'll re-instate it. You can still include URLs, but they won't be clickable links.
Anahata (webmaster)
New "notes" fields for dances
10 September 2018
Each dance entry may now have several associated 'notes' fields. These can be added by any team representative if their team does that dance, and is intended to document local variations, e.g. if they have a different set size, tune or figures from the 'standard' one.
Where several notes are added about a dance, the MDDB administrators (who have greater editing power) may later amalgamate them for tidiness.
