The DanceMaster Porter
The Porter is an optional
tool for dealing with Dance
Modules.
In DanceMaster, a dance consists of some music, some cues, information
about that dance (phase, rhythm, choreographer, etc.) maybe a voice
cue file, and perhaps a full cue card too. When you want to move
a dance from one computer to another you can do it by copying each
of those files from the correct folder on one machine to the correct
folder on the other (and re-entering the dance information) or
you can use a Dance Module.
A Dance Module contains
one or more complete dances - all
the files and data - in one file, which the DanceMaster
can import into your computer and have ready to play in a few seconds.
The Player can create
and import Dance Modules
that contain one complete dance.
What the Porter does
differently is to let you easily select a bunch of dances and put
them into one Module. There is no practical limit that I know of
to how many dances you can put into a module, except maybe the amount
of memory in your computer, the space on your disk, and time you
have to devote to it. My computer can bundle 100 dances in about
4-5 minutes.
The Porter also lets
you choose which components of the
dance(s) to include in the module. If you don’t want to include
the voice file or the karaoke timing, that’s fine. If you
don’t want to include the information about the record, and
where you store it, just un-check that box. Not a problem.
By the same token, when you open a Dance
Module with the Porter,
you will get a menu of the dances inside that module, and the option
of choosing which dances and which components to import into your
database. You checkmark the ones you want, tell it whether to include
the voice files and other components, and click “Go”.
Poof! The new dances are in your database and ready to play.
The Porter can, of course,
read Dance Modules that
you created in the Player. If you use the Porter
to create a module with several dances in it, the Player
will still be able to read it, but it will only be able to see (and
extract) the first dance in the module.
The Porter isn’t
free – it costs $50, and it will work only if you have a registered
copy of DanceMaster.
It doesn’t matter whether you have the Basic or the Advanced
edition, as long as it is registered.
You can get the DanceMaster
Porter here.
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