For users, DanceSchool is simply a Web 2 application that runs Javascript in the user’s browser and communicates with a backend to process database data. Phone users still run the app in their browser – the CSS provides a usable experience on small or large screens.
At the backend, DanceSchool runs on a Linux server system. You can either subscribe to our hosted system or host your own.
If you use our hosted system, everything administrative runs in the browser. We set up a basic school for you with an admin account, and you do the rest. There are no limits on the size of the school.
If you want to host it yourself, you will need to set up at least one hosted Linux server with the following components installed:
- MySQL database
- Nginx webserver
- Node Package Manager (npm)
- NodeJS installation
- Angular CLI
- The DanceSchool software itself, usually as a zipfile.
DanceSchool is hosted on GitHub. The tarball includes all documention linked on this site, plus an installation guide that tells you which versions of the above items you need.
For installations with heavier usage you can install the webserver, backend and database on separate servers if you wish. Since the database is 99.5% of the system load when running, it’s practical in most cases to run them all on the same server, unless there are security or routing reasons for doing so.
You will need to upgrade the components periodically. You also need to manage diskspace and back up the database. DanceSchool is updated a few times per year (more often if security issues arise.)