AustinDance.net was created in response to several people wanting to go dance to live bands.
Some complaints about the Austin dance scene was that every time someone went to a venue,
no dancers were seen. Eventually, these dancers quit
trying to go out and would just dance after classes. A few people started a list of people
that wanted to dance to live bands and would call each other before they went out.
I was one of those people that would call others. It became easier to just text message people
right before I left. More and more people became interested in coming out, and so I started
creating electronic invitations. At the same time, I started designing this site. The first
release of this site was October 3, 2007.
Johnny has been working as a software developer since Jan. 2006 with focus
on C# and since mid 2007 with ASP. Before becoming a software developer, he worked up the food chain
being a computer technician, systems administrator, IT Consultant, and QA Analyst.
Johnny enjoys mixing hobbies with professional skills in attempt to solve requests made
by the public. There are several other projects in the works, so be on the lookout!
September 6, 2009
As you can see, the site has had a massive upgrade. I would like to specially thank
Janine Moore and Sally Matsumae for giving me some design options and helping me along the
way. The site is much better now, but as always there is still much to do. One of the major changes
is that most of the general information is available to the public; we only require logins for
specific data.
Please edit your profile, there is now a feature to add which dance styles you like.
If you are looking at an event's details page and mouse over an attending or maybe attending
persons picture, a popup box will display the dance styles that person knows.
There is now an instruction section available. This is split up into two parts, teachers and studios.
The studios can be used as a generic way to describe an event or workshop and the teachers
can also be used to define in detail the instruction of an event. This new section also allows
new dancers some contact information for the people they want to learn from.
Cool new features include: mousing over your response on the events page to change your response
without having to view the event, in specific areas of the site mousing over a picture will
display the persons dance styles, and now there is a calendar view! If you mouse over the bold
dates in the calendar, it will display which events are taking place on that day.
--Johnny
December 12, 2008
The Best of Austin Dance results are now posted. Thank you
all for participating in the first Anniversary/Awards Dance. Look out for a video of the
event when it is done being edited; it will be posted on the Best of AD page when completed.
Fixed a few issues with editing events. Fixed the create like event so it now shows the
name of who is actually creating the event rather than who created the original event.
Also added one day to the past events section so you can now see the whole previous week.
--Johnny
November 16, 2008
Added a past event section. This will show you the past weeks events. If you click the "Create Like Event"
link, you will be taken to a event creation page pre-populated with information from the previous event. The
dates will automatically be updated by one week.
I have also changed the end of the week to be Sunday rather than Saturday (due to popular demand).
--Johnny
November 14, 2008
Voting is now open for the Best of Austin Dance! Just click
on the Best of AD menu item to put in your vote.
--Johnny
October 26, 2008
The First Austin Dance Anniversary and Awards Dance will take place on December 6th with The Swingsters.
There will be a beginner class before the dance and the awards will be given out during the band breaks.
For more information, click on the event in the Events section or visit our
Myspace Page
The awards will be determined by the users of Austin Dance. The nominations are currently open. Just click
on the Best of AD menu item to put in your vote.
--Johnny
September 28, 2008
A few more changes. I added warnings during the event creation process to eliminate
duplicate events. If a band or venue is already scheduled for something in the same time slot
as another event, a duplicate event warning will appear.
Another change is the "workshop" option on events. When editing an event, there is now a workshop/exchange
checkbox. If enabled, the event will be displayed across all locations (will make sense in the future), a light
blue marking is seen on the events page, and a small text label is seen on the event details page.
--Johnny
August 12, 2008
There are a lot of exciting updates in this release which are not really noticeable to
the end user; but were necessary. A few things that you will notice is the data on
this page will automatically update every minute. This feature allows you to see up to date
site activity. Another new feature is that there is now forum posts in the activity log;
which is looking pretty promising. As promised, I will start working on requests now that
I have taken care of general maintenance.
I would also like to thank all the members for making this site work. It is exciting for me
to see the dance community stay active and grow!
--Johnny
December 22, 2007
I have just finished moving the core application from my web host at 1and1 to GoDaddy. There
were a few problems with moving the database. Mainly this was because of security issues with
GoDaddy. As a result, the venue and band pictures will need to be re-done.
I had to move servers to take advantage of more complicated controls; 1and1 simply could not
offer the support I needed.
It will take about a week before the domain names are working 100%. Currently, the austindance.net
URL is being redirected to dance.onarres.com. This does not mean much to most people, but I wanted to
give a heads up if you saw a funky URL in the address bar.
--Johnny
December 11, 2007
It has taken a long time to implement, but the forum is finally
here! Check it out and tell me what you think.
The Events section of the forum displays the new message section that can be seen at the bottom
of an event's page. All events that were created before this upgrade will not work with the forum
system.
As of today, we are up to 73 active users out of 131 invited. It is exciting to see the site grow;
thank you all for the feedback.
--Johnny
October 9, 2007
Thank you for all the feedback. I have been fixing several issues dealing with
the site when reported. Several people requested that I add a members list; therefore,
I have. If some of you think this feature is a bad idea then speak up here.
I have mixed feelings about it.
Some more updates are coming soon!
Also, let me know if you are using IE 6. Currently, I am not supporting IE 6 and do
not plan to do so - unless several people are still using that particular browser.
Anyway, I will see you out dancing!
--Johnny
October 3, 2007
Beta has finally released!! If you have any problems with the site, please contact our support or
just tell me in person.
As I mentioned, this is just beta and improvments are coming!!!
To help you get started, use the menu to your left. Click the events button to see all the current
events. From there you can add a new event or respond to a current one. Anyone can edit the Band and Venue
data; simply click on the link and create or edit. To invite more friends into this community, simply click on the
invite link. Play nice!
--Johnny