News from the SCD Community

Anselm Lingnau

Eric's cribs are now imported correctly (some were missed because of a change in the source data format, instead being made part of the preceding crib). On top of that we now distinguish between »checked by Eric himself« and »checked by somebody else too«.

This is in the aftermath of the dance-intensity debate as per this thread on the Strathspey list, which introduced »per-turn« dance intensity in addition to Eric's »per-dance« dance intensity.

· Posted by Anselm Lingnau · 1 May 2014 1:28

Anselm Lingnau

Version Q of Eric's SCD Cribs has now been imported into the database (thanks Eric!). I'll see what I can do about the EPUB and Kindle e-book versions but don't hold your breath.

· Posted by Anselm Lingnau · 24 April 2014 14:17

Anselm Lingnau

I just posted a rough to-do list for the database. As the list itself says, there are no guarantees that any of the items of the list will actually ever be tackled, nor should the position of items within the list be construed as any kind of priority ordering.

· Posted by Anselm Lingnau · 24 April 2014 14:15 (last edited on 24 April 2014 14:18)

Anselm Lingnau

The dances in the user-rated ranking list now display the usual dance type, set shape, and source information. This was a five-line hack that I just added, prompted by a query in the SCD teachers' Facebook group where somebody asked for the »top 20 Drewry dances«. It is now easy to find these according to the user ratings (or indeed the top 20 dances for any dance author) simply by putting the author's name into the »filter« box at the top right of the table. (Although to be sure this will also catch dances where the search term occurs in the title, like Tribute to John Drewry, so if any of these are popular enough you will need to exclude them yourself.)

For our more technical-minded readers, the reason why this hasn't been added before is that the rating system implementation is generic and supports ratings of any database object (not just dances). It can generate links to the detail pages for all of these objects but so far didn't include supplementary info. On the other hand, adding that info is important for dances (a) to enable tricks like the one mentioned above, and (b) because some dance names have been used more than once, and it would be inconvenient to have to check the details page to see which dance was actually meant. So a special case is warranted here.

· Posted by Anselm Lingnau · 23 April 2014 12:21

Roderick Johnston

I play accordion for RSCDS classes, SCD dances and ceilidhs. I can provide solo accordion and up to a full band depending on requirements. Although based in the Highlands of Scotland I travel the UK and the Continent for SCD workshops and dances. Contact on 01397 700595

Will be playing with my band for the Leicester RSCDS dance on 12 April and for the Meaudre Reel weekend SCD workshop 25th-28th April in Meaudre, (Grenoble. Fr)

· Posted by Roderick Johnston · 20 March 2014 13:05 (last edited on 20 March 2014 13:18)

Anselm Lingnau

just released an optical make-over for »crib sheets«, both on the »Cribs« tab of a dance list and in the corresponding PDF output. This should look a lot less ragged, and the weird issue with the descriptions of a crib showing up before a page break and the bar numbers after should also be fixed.

In the PDF output, it is now possible to select whether all items should be numbered, none, or whether just dances should be numbered and non-dance items, like »Interval«, not (in which case extras are numbered separately, as in »16, 17, E1, E2, 18«).

· Posted by Anselm Lingnau · 12 March 2014 17:45 (last edited on 13 March 2014 0:04)

Anselm Lingnau

fixed the state-saving issue for dance list detail pages (and others). This is the problem where one would enter something into the search box on the big dance lists overview screen, and the same search term would then be used to filter the list of dances on a dance list's detail page.

· Posted by Anselm Lingnau · 6 March 2014 19:27

Anselm Lingnau

added support for displaying dance lists from the database on foreign (non-Strathspey) web sites. By means of a very small JavaScript program, administrators of these sites can include »dynamic« dance lists to their sites, for social functions, workshops, and so on. All dances, publications, etc. are linked to their corresponding entries in the database, and there are convenience links to download a crib sheet or diagram sheet or to view videos for the dances on the list (or those that actually have videos, anyway).

I have written a more in-depth article about this, with more details and examples. Do check this out and let me know how you get on!

· Posted by Anselm Lingnau · 28 February 2014 1:13

Anselm Lingnau

just added »tags« to status updates on my.strathspey.

When you post (or edit) a status update, there is now another field called »Tags« that lets you enter one or more tags to be associated with the update. For example, I have now retroactively added the »database« tag to all my status updates that deal with changes to the Strathspey SCD Database. This makes it easy to retrieve just those status updates using the URL, http://my.strathspey.org/s/anselm/database/.

You can add multiple tags if you separate them with spaces or commas. If you want a tag with a space in it, put it in "double quotes".

I'm deliberately using this »out-of-band« version because it is more versatile and easier to program. If you want Twitter-style »hashtags« you know where to get those.

· Posted by Anselm Lingnau · 14 February 2014 13:03 (last edited on 14 February 2014 13:19)

Anselm Lingnau

launched the new club-neutral web site for the Rhein-Main mini socials (German only, for now), a cooperative project between the dance groups in the Rhine-Main area where once a month we visit one of the groups to dance a short programme of dances (with a walk-through but no explicit instruction). Part of the programme is replaced every month. We've been doing this for half a year now and it is quite successful if I say so myself.

· Posted by Anselm Lingnau · 11 February 2014 11:14