Where to find it, access it or change it

A short guide to: which section of the many Dance Gypsy pages is for what purposes:

Finding data

Most visitors to these pages are attempting to find information about dancing. The primary pages for this purpose are the ones under the search menu.

For finding dances and festivals, use: search›› Events

On the Find Event page check dances for finding repeating/recurring/regularly-scheduled dances. Typically, this means dances that occurred weekly or monthly. But it also includes variations such as dances that meet every other week or several times a year. The essential criteria is multiple meeting each year.

Select find festivals to find any festival or special event, which means any dance that occurs only once (ever) or occurs annually. It doesn't matter if it is a whole week or a single evening. The criteria is that it is no more frequent than annual.

Search Performers for finding about bands, musicians, callers, leaders, instructors, etc.

Search Venues to find locations where dances are held. This is mostly useful to dance organizers, as it does not actually find events, just the venues

Adding data

Users of the Dance Gypsy can now add or update information in the Dance Gypsy data base ... Note that the interface for updating is distinct from the interface for finding information — all updating is done in the user update section and all updatable items are accessible through the Update Menu. Note that the term update includes: modify, add, create, delete, etc.

Updating information requires that you log in, which in turn requires that you register.

You may add update or modify information about:

• regularly occurring dances (several times a year) (use update > monthly dances … even if the dance is weekly — including performers, times, prices, contact information, etc.
• festivals and special events (use update >festivals )
• Bands (use update > bands)
• Performers (includes individual musicians, callers, instructors, etc) (use update > performers ) At present, only the actual performers can update his/her own information and only members of a band can update the band information. this may change in the future)
• Venues — this is seldom needed unless you are updating an event for which you need a new venue. It is best to access the venue update section directly from the event you are updating. that is update the event and alter the venue as part of the event updating process.

News

Dancers may read news and also write news. For example if you have a last minute announcement, you may place it in the news and it will appear on the Dance Gypsy home page. The most recent news items are always listed in a box on the home page

Services

It is a “closely held secret”, but in addition to dance listings, the DG also offers services of special interest to dancers: home pages (with automatic updating of events), forwardable email (good for groups that change membership), and advertisements

Store

The Dance Gypsy “Dance Junque” has been suspended due to lack of business. It did store offer a variety of dance apparel and dance related items. A portion of the proceeds went to help support the Dance Gypsy

Support

If you want to help the Dance Gypsy financially, this is where you can do it (you can also see a list of those who already help)

Contact

A list of ways you can reach us

Strange Results

No dances found

If the system insists that there are no dances matching your query, but you are pretty sure there are dances, well, it is possible there are none, but look at these things:

• Default item selected. Particularly in the advanced section, they can easily slip by unnoticed. Try resetting the form (removing all settings) then try your request again.
• If you used any text first, double check the spelling. The DG tries to guess spelling on things like performer names but it is likely to miss.

A shortcut to solving your problem

Occasionally users find that the Dance Gypsy web pages do not seem to be working correctly for them. The following paragraphs are designed to help you get the most out of the Dance Gypsy. They will be updated as new problems are discovered.

Error messages

If you are receiving error messages (not incorrect results, but actual messages that say “error”) the problem is most likely at our end. Let us know and we will try to fix the problem. The more you can tell us about the problem the easier it will be to find the solution. If possible let us know what web page you were looking at, what the error message said, what command or button you had pressed and what type of computer and web browser you are using. If you have the ability to take a snapshot of the window, that really helps too. there is a special help form for this purpose

Unavailable menus or links

This problem takes at least two forms:

• No links to monthly dance lists.

When you ask to see dance or festival lists, you should be given several choices including finding dances by style, location and/ or date. If the controls (radio buttons, check boxes menus, etc) are not there or do not work, the problem is probably that Javascript is not enabled on your machine.

In fact. we have just checked this for you:

If you see this sentence, your Javascript is working!

You can double check this: the next two observed problems have the same underlying cause, so if Javascript is not enabled, you will almost certainly experience all of these problems.

Solution:

• Turn Javascript on. This is done in the Browser preferences panel.
  • In Internet Explorer, this is at Explorer Menu > preferences> web content.
  • In FireFox, this is at FireFox > preferences
  • In Safari, this is at: Safari menu> preferences> security

If JavaScript is enabled and you still get this problem, check to see if you have a filter such as WebWasher installed on your machine. These filters are usually intended to prevent the annoying features such as pop up windows that occur at some web sites. Unfortunately these filters can be overzealous and remove too much.

• Try turning off Webwasher.
• Note that using your browser settings to inhibit pop up windows will not cause this problem (but it will mean that you will miss special time-sensitive announcements from the Dance Gypsy.