DanceWeb Blog: Features

Google Maps on DanceWeb now include StreetView

2010-08-14T16:18:00.006+01:00

In the Spring of 2010, Google Streetview increased its coverage of the UK to cover around 95% of all public streets. So DanceWeb now has full support for StreetView! As an Editor you can now add a precise Streetview to a Google Venue map, that will show the Venue building to users, and help them to locate it. The DirMan application will usually offer a default usable Streetview, but you can refine this to locate the "Camera" on any nearby street, and adjust the pan (bearing) tilt and zoom to give the best possible view of the Venue.

When users of DanceWeb now view a Venue or Dance Event, they will see both the Google Map and (if available) a small inset Streetview window. They can then swap the windows, or even move the "Camera" around, and the "Camera" will still point at the Venue. In fact they have many of the features that are available on the Google Map website (including a direction route to the Venue).

Enjoy!

John Walton
DanceWeb Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk

DanceWeb Now Has Facebook Page

2010-02-28T15:41:00.012Z

DanceWeb now has a Facebook Page! If you are member of the Facebook community (and even if you currently are not), it is now easy to keep up-to-date with all new and updated entries on the DanceWeb site, by becoming a "fan" of the DanceWeb Facebook Page. This new page will automatically be updated daily to show entries for all new and updated Dance Classes, Dance Courses, Dance Events, Dance Products / Services and Dance Community News Items that have been added to the DanceWeb site.

Additionally, all Dance Events are posted as Events on the Facebook Page (use the Events tab to get to them). You can easily invite your friends on Facebook to attend an event with you, and use the other social networking features of Facebook.

To goto the DanceWeb Facebook Page, just click this link (and bookmark it):

DanceWeb Facebook Page

To goto the Facebook Event Sub-Page directly, just click this link:

DanceWeb Facebook Events Page

This is a new feature, and is still undergoing improvements, but is fully operational.

For Dance Club Organisers and Businesses

To get free promotion for your club, studio, school or business etc, just post your information on DanceWeb, and keep it up-to-date. The postings to Facebook are automatic; you don't need to do anything to benefit from this new feature!

John Walton
DanceWeb Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk

DanceWeb Search Box now supports search of Dance Organisations and Dance Venues

2010-01-18T09:35:00.009Z

The DanceWeb search box (on the home page, basic search page and most other pages) has now been enhanced to allow you to search entries for organisations and venues by name. You may key in an organisations name (title), web domain, email address, phone number or the surname of one of the contacts. Similarly dance venue searches can now also be made, using the name of the dance venue (dance location). There are some limitations for privacy and performance reasons, but in general you only need to key part of any of the above; the search uses "wild cards" automatically.

This feature is of low precedence, meaning that it is only activated if DanceWeb fails to find a result using the normal location and dance type or service search mechanism. The organisation search is higher precedence then the venue search. But you can force the new search by prefixing the search term with "org:" for an organisation search, or "ven:" (or "loc:") for a venue search.

Here are some working examples:

Search for the entries for pineapple dance studio organisation:

pineapple

Search for all entries for "Polish Centre" venues:

polish centre

Search for the "Arch 197" venue:

ven:arch 197

Search for organisation entries where ms Reis ian instructor:

org:reis

Try out the new feature on the DanceWeb home page.

John Walton
DanceWeb Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk

Urls in Community News Items Now Automatically Converted to Links

2009-06-07T11:15:00.007+01:00

When you add a Community News item to DanceWeb, the editor now automatically attempts to detect links to web pages, and email addresses, and converts them into active links. When a user views your Community News Item page, they only have to click on the link to visit the referenced website or web page, or send an email.

How Links Are Displayed

For brevity, links to page are displayed without the http:// or https:// prefixes, and without any optional querystring. However, when the user hovers over the link, the full link (url) is displayed in the tooltip.

Submitting a Community News Item

Any registered user may submit news items. See:

http://www.danceweb.co.uk/help/submitnews.aspx

John Walton
DanceWeb Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk

Community Bookmarking of DanceWeb Pages now Very Easy

2009-04-28T09:43:00.003+01:00

A new feature has been added to DanceWeb, allowing you to very easily bookmark almost any DanceWeb page on the most popular Community Bookmarking sites. Such sites allow you to maintain a portable bookmark file of your favourites websites and pages, and share those favourites with other web users.

The feature is a new bar in the footer of most DanceWeb pages. Just click any of the links to bookmark the current DanceWeb page. If you are not known to that particular bookmarking site, you be asked to register (first time only). With most bookmarking sites you can add a comment to any bookmark.

The currently provided sites are the most popular on the web, namely:

Delicious, Digg, reddit, Facebook and StumbleUpon

A link to the browser's local "Favorites" file is also provided (works with Internet Explorer and Firefox).

John Walton
DanceWeb Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk

Calendars Now Show Dated Community News Items

2009-04-23T10:02:00.002+01:00

The home page and full page calendars have now been enhanced to show entries made in the Community News section, when those entries have a date associated with them. This means that such news items now function more like conventions "Events".

Calendar Page:

http://www.danceweb.co.uk/calendar

John Walton
DanceWeb Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk

DanceWeb Google Maps Substantially Enhanced

2009-04-16T16:18:00.008+01:00

The existing Google Maps, displayed at the bottom of the page for all individual Venue and Class / Events, have now been significantly improved:

1. "Get Directions" Added

There is now a direct link to Google's own map site, that allows you very easily to get directions to the venue, and plot a route, for a journey by car, walking or even public transport (if the data is available to Google).

2. Google Map Search Box Added

There is now a search box near the bottom of the maps. You can therefore search for businesses and map features that are approximately within the bounds of the displayed map. So you could key in "Inn" or "Restaurant" etc.

3. The Map Style Conforms to Google's Own Style

The "user interface" style now automatically tracks the style used by Google on their own map site. You can also use the standard interface: e.g. you can zoom just by rolling the mouse wheel.

John Walton
DanceWeb Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk

A-Z Catalogue of All Dance Organisations on DanceWeb

2009-03-31T17:32:00.003+01:00

This new feature allows you easily browse an A-Z catalogue of all the Dance Class and Event Organisers that have entries on DanceWeb, plus the Organisations that provide Dance Services or Products.

The Existing Directory Browse feature is similar but only lists names. The new Catalogue Browse additionally displays a summary of all the key information for each Organisation; this includes towns where they operate, dance styles they are involved with, and the services they provide.

The feature is here:

http://www.danceweb.co.uk/atoz

John H. Walton
DanceWeb Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk/

Full-Page Calendar of Events Now Available

2009-03-12T17:06:00.003Z

For some time DanceWeb has had a calendar feature on the Home page; the small calendar shows 6 weeks, with days having events highlighted with a contrasted background colour. When the mouse is moved over such a day, a drop-down appears with a summary of the Events for that day.

The additional new Full-Page Calendar shows similar information, but displayed on a dedicated whole page. The summary details of the Events are permanently displayed. Clicking on an Event title then takes you a page displaying all the details.

The new calendar is in the menu system under "browse", and also links from the title bar of the home-page calendar.

It can be viewed directly here:

http://www.danceweb.co.uk/calendar/

John Walton
WebMaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk/

DanceWeb is now on Twitter!

2009-03-03T12:46:00.005Z

Twitter is a "micro-blogging" service that lets you keep in touch through the exchange of quick, short messages - they are each limited to 140 characters! So if you would like to keep updated about all the new information being added to DanceWeb, but don't want to subscribe to any of the existing somewhat lengthy feeds and blogs, then following DanceWeb on Twitter is just what you need.

Every night, all the updates to dance classes, courses, events and services, along with updates to the community news, are condensed into individual "tweets" (Twitter messages), and posted to Twitter.

So by following DanceWeb on Twitter, you can easily keep updated without the information overload. The DanceWeb Twitter home page is:

http://twitter.com/DanceWeb.

Every entry contains a url (web address), that you can click to link directly to the full details on the DanceWeb site.

RSS Feed

If even the above is too much information, you can subscribe to the RSS feed of the same information.

John H. Walton
Webmaster
DanceWeb

DanceWeb now works with Google Earth

2009-02-12T11:11:00.006Z

We are pleased to announce a new feature on DanceWeb: the start of support for Google Earth (Google Earth lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings etc; it is a fun application!).

Features

Wherever you see the GE (Google Earth) icon on DanceWeb you can click to see the current information on GE.

Initially, two facilities are provided:

1. Venue links: the GE icon appears on all search / browse result pages, for all Venues which have been accurately geocoded (i.e. the editor has identified their location to within 100 metres). When you click the GE icon, GE will be loaded, and the Venue displayed as a pin on GE. Clicking the pin will then show a balloon with further summary information.

2. Full results links: the GE icon appears on some search / browse results pages, near the top center, with the words "Display this Results Page on Google Earth". When you click the GE icon, GE will be loaded, and all the Venues will be displayed as pins on GE. Clicking any pin in GE will then show a balloon containing a summary of the Dance Classes held at the Venue. Clicking the various links in the balloon will show more details of the organiser, the venue and the class.

Google Earth Installation

The above features require that you install version 5 of Google Earth (or later), which was released in early February 2009. You can download from here: Download Free Google Earth

Google Earth should run on most PCs and Macs manufactured in the last 5 years or so, providing it has a 3D-capable graphics card (nearly all do). System Requirement Details

Demonstration

After you have Google Earth installed, you can see how the new DanceWeb feature works with this link: London Ballet Classes

John Walton
Webmaster
DanceWeb

New Feature: Add your own Dance News Items

2009-01-14T12:23:00.003Z

DanceWeb now allows all registered users to very easily add their own News Items! The steps to add a basic news item are only slightly more complicated than posting an email; you just need a to provide a title, and paste in your news copy text. And for more advanced users, you can add dozens of other useful fields, including pre-defined and user-defined tags, as well as links to images, multi-media links and website links.

Once an item is posted, it will appear on several pages on the DanceWeb site, in an RSS feed, and also be posted in a nightly summary to the DanceWeb News Blog on Blogger. So your news item will be heavily publicised!

To start posting your own news items, read the Help page here:
News Submission Help Page

The summary of news headlines is displayed near the top right of the DanceWeb home page: DanceWeb Home Page

The current RSS Feed of News Items is here: RSS Feed

The Blog of News Items is here: Blog

John Walton
Webmaster
DanceWeb

Browse By Venue Name Added to DanceWeb

2008-10-19T13:21:00.002+01:00

DanceWeb now allows you to browse the directory of Venues stored in the database. So if you want to see all dance classes, dance socials or dance lessons held at a specific venue, such as 'Village Hall, My Village', you can now browse the A-Z directory. You can also browse for shop and other retailer names. You can omit any "The" prefix; the browse feature adds this as necessary.

Start here: Browse Venues

John Walton
Webmaster
DanceWeb

Event Calendar Added to DanceWeb Home Page

2008-07-14T11:49:00.006+01:00

DanceWeb has supported dated Dance Events for many years; we have now added to the home page a simple to use Calendar of events for the next six weeks. If you are in a subsite (Linedance or Salsa etc) then only the events for that genre are displayed. A yellow cell is visible if there are any events on a specific day; just run your mouse over the cell, and a drop-list list appears, with a summary of each event. Click on any item in the list, and the full details are shown in a new window. The initial display is of the events for the next six weeks, but by clicking on the >> symbols in the header, you can page through to the next six-week block.

Note to Event Organisers: When you add an event to DanceWeb, it is not just displayed in the new home page Calendar! It is also shown in:

1. The home page block of "New Dance Events".
2. The News Page of "New Dance Events".
3. The RSS Feed of "New Dance Events".
4. The Blog of New Content.
5. The DanceWeb Mapplet
6. Any search that is relevant to event dance activity.

John Walton
Webmaster
DanceWeb

DanceWeb Application on Facebook now available

2008-06-17T09:30:00.005+01:00

DanceWeb has now been integrated with Facebook, and a beta "DanceWeb Application" is now available to add to any Facebook account. It enables sharing of "where you dance" with your Facebook friends.

Initially, the application provides two main features:

1) While on the DanceWeb site, and viewing any search / browse results page, you will now see a Facebook icon at the end of every venue and class entry. If you click on the icon, a database stored within Facebook will register that you dance at that venue or class.

2) For your friends on Facebook, after they have installed the "DanceWeb on Facebook" application, it will show to them where you dance, with links to DanceWeb for the full details.

Please give it a try and encourage your dancing friends to do the same. When in Facebook, you can find DanceWeb in the Applications Catalogue. You can also find it directly here:

http://apps.facebook.com/danceweb/

Help File:
http://www.danceweb.co.uk/help/facebook.htm

Best Regards, John
http://www.danceweb.co.uk

Search with New Location can now be started from Results Page

2008-04-09T11:12:00.003+01:00

If you perform a normal location-based search on DanceWeb for a dance class or dance service etc, the results are displayed in detail below a map with pins to indicate the venues. A new feature has been added such that if you click on the map (other than on a pin), a new search will be started, centred at the point that you clicked. All other filtering will remain unchanged. You can first scroll the map (with mouse drag) if you need to change the location significantly.

If you wish to start a totally new search, you can still use the search box at the top of the page.

John H. Walton
Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk

New Dancewear and Fashion Stores added to DanceWeb Shopping Mall

2008-04-06T12:43:00.005+01:00

Be Cool on and off the Dance floor with fashions from new DanceWeb stores:

Visit Designer Pitstop for Urban Designer Clothing for Men & Women: Clubwear, Dancewear, Jackets, Shirts, Swimwear, Tops, Tees, Skirts, Trousers, Jewellery & Accessories.

Visit Goddiva Celebrity Fashion for Celebrity Fashions, Corsets, Dancewear, Day Dresses, Holidaywear, Maxi Dresses, NewStar, Party & Prom, Sale Items and Tops.

While shopping, why not visit existing related stores:

EBay for bargains in Dancewear, Danceshoes, Dance Footwear, Costumes and Dance Accessories.

HQ Hair & Beauty for Haircare, Skincare, Makeup, Fragrance, For Men, Bath, Body, Accessories & Hair Electricals.

All other DanceWeb stores are listed here.

John H. Walton
Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk/

Search now Available from Most DanceWeb Pages

2008-04-02T15:03:00.004+01:00

A simple search box has now been added to the standard DanceWeb page header block, so that you can now search directly from most pages. This includes the search results page, so you can easily start a new search.

We have also added "active crumb trail", so on most pages you can now see the menu hierarchy above the current page, and easily go back up the hierarchy to a less specific page.

The standard page header block has been simplified, and a larger font used, with longer page titles, making the page content clearer.

The search has been made more forgiving, only requiring a minimum of a location, dance type or product/service to be keyed.

John H. Walton
Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk/

Glossary of Dance Styles added, with Videos

2008-02-28T12:24:00.004Z

With assistance from Wikipedia, the DanceWeb library has now been significantly extended with the addition of pages describing popular dance styles, and their history. In addition each page has a video bar allowing you to very easily view examples of the dance style. You can also link directly to the DanceWeb video page, to search for even more examples, or the most popular or latest dance videos.

Start here for the index of dance styles:

http://www.danceweb.co.uk/sitemap/?menuitem=6.2

John Walton
Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk/

New: DanceWeb Content Blogs Created

2008-02-13T08:41:00.003Z

Visit the new DanceWeb Content Blogs for a diary and archive of all new and updated entries on DanceWeb, including Dance Classes, Events, Courses and Services. The posts to the Blogs are fully automatic and made at he end of each day. They are extensively labelled (tagged), so you can browse the Blogs by Event Date (year / month), Event Type (Workshop, Festival etc), Dance Types, County / State / Province, or Service Type. There are separate Blogs for each country supported, currently as follows:

Canada: http://dancewebcanada.blogspot.com/
Ireland: http://dancewebireland.blogspot.com/
UK: http://dancewebuk.blogspot.com/
USA: http://dancewebusa.blogspot.com/

John Walton
Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk/

Free Dance Class Video on DanceWeb Videos Page

2008-01-24T11:33:00.002Z

DanceWeb now displays a free instructional dance video on the Videos page, near the top right. This video will normally be related to the content of the page, or the dance subsite (Ballet, Ballroom, Cool, Irish, Jive, Line, Oriental, Salsa, Stage, Tango or Tap). The videos are supplied by YouTube.

The videos page is here:

http://www.danceweb.co.uk/videos/

John Walton
Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk/

DanceWeb now displays Dance Videos and allows searching of Dance Videos

2007-12-05T14:53:00.000Z

Dance now supports Dance Videos from Youtube.

Home Page

On the home page, in the top right margin, you will now see a selection strip of thumbnails for popular Dance Videos, appropriate to the current subsite. Click on a thumbnail, and the related video will be displayed on the page, to the left of the strip. There is also a list of preset searches, for more specific sub-genres of the current dance subsite:

http://www.danceweb.co.uk/

Find Popular Videos

Under the "Find" menu you will see "Dance Videos"; this shows a table of popular Dance Videos, with full details to the right of the thumbnails. If you click on a thumbnail the related Video will be shown in a window, which you can re-size; if the Video is too pixelated, just reduce the window size. At the top of the DancWeb page is a search box; to the left is a list of preset searches. To the right is a set of radio buttons, that allow you to show results in order of Relevance, Date Uploaded, User Rating or User Viewcount:

http://www.danceweb.co.uk/videos/

Latest Videos

Under the "News" menu you will see "New Dance Videos"; this is very similar to the Find menu page, but by default displays the very latest uploaded videos rather than the most popular.

http://www.danceweb.co.uk/videos/?orderby=updated&menuid=8.11

Url Based Search

You can also conduct a search by using a url with the search terms at the end. As an example, if your interest is line dancing, use the dance name and choreographer's name, replacing spaces with the "+" sign; e.g.:

http://www.danceweb.co.uk/videos/?q=blusher+kate+sala

John Walton
Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk/

Submitting new Locations (Venues) and Geo-coding them now made easier

2007-12-03T11:45:00.001Z

Submitting new locations to DanceWeb using the DirMan system has been substantially improved. The application now allows Editors to see the position of an existing venue on a map within the same page. The position can then be corrected or refined just by scrolling the map and clicking. For new and existing locations the address information can be converted to a geo-location (Latitude and Longitude) using either the full address (including post/zip code), or just using the post/zip code. This choice allows Editors to choose the method that is most accurate and appropriate, and is useful because the accuracy of the full address geo-coding provided by our agent (Google) varies from country to country, as does the accuracy of the post/zip code geo-coding.

John Walton
Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk/

Buy Dancewear and Dance Accessory Bargains from Ebay

2007-11-09T13:27:00.001Z

We have now added an Ebay shop to the DanceWeb virtual shopping mall. You can now see the latest dance bargains about to be auctioned, as well as search the whole of the Ebay website. You will find lycra dancewear, tap shoes, Irish dance dresses, dance costumes, jazz pants, pointe and ballet shoes, Irish and Scottish jig and clog shoes, character shoes, dance sneakers, dance poles, ballroom and Latin dance shoes, belly dance outfits, tutus, ball-gowns and a lot more. This latest shop joins the existing Amazon shops (for Dance DVDs, CDs, Videos and Books), Dance Holidays, HQHair for hair and beauty, Makeup Direct for makeup at discount prices, Pineapple for Pineapple Dance Studio inspired clothing and accessories, Expedia for all your travel tickets, and Ticketmaster for show tickets.

John Walton
Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk/

Sitemap added to DanceWeb

2007-11-07T09:56:00.001Z

We have now added a Sitemap page to DanceWeb, so that you can more easily see and browse for all the major starting pages, and most variations, on the site.

The page is here:

http://www.danceweb.co.uk/help/sitemap.aspx

John Walton
Webmaster
DanceWeb
http://www.danceweb.co.uk/

DanceWeb Google Mapplet

2007-11-04T13:12:00.001Z

The DanceWeb Mapplet is a "gadget" that you can use in conjunction with the standard Google Map website. It has been approved for inclusion in the Google Mapplet Directory, so go to:

http://maps.google.com/
->My Maps
->Browse the Directory
enter "Dance" in search box

Alternatively, just go to this url shortcut:

http://tinyurl.com/yrotq6

To use the Mapplet, either key an outline address into the search box, or just scroll / zoom the map. Markers for all dance venues found will appear. You can even scroll around the country if you have the time! There is a filter that allows you to only show (e.g.) salsa or linedance classes. You can run other Mapplets at the same time, so you can find (e.g.) restaurants as well as the local dance venues nearby.

John Walton
DanceWeb Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk/

DanceWeb for Mobiles

2007-11-04T13:09:00.001Z

DanceWeb was a pioneer with a mobile website in late 2002, but the phone networks and phones were not very capable at that time, and "WAP 1" was rather a failure! But with improved phones, and better networks, including wi-fi on mobiles, it is now a lot more useful (and cheaper), so DanceWeb for mobiles has re-launched at this url:

http://danceweb.mobi

The above should work on any phone that supports any wap technology (wml, chtml or xhtml-mp).

John Walton
DanceWeb Webmaster

Introduction

2007-11-04T13:02:00.000Z

This Blog will be used to announce changed and new features on the DanceWeb site. DanceWeb is a leading international portal for all stuff dance-related, including Dance News, a Directory of Dance Classes and Dance Events, and suppliers of all Dance Services and Products. It covers all dance styles and genres.

John Walton
Webmaster
http://www.danceweb.co.uk/