Caller's Compendium

Glossary

Plain-language definitions of the words used across these guides and in the app. The other guides link here the first time they use a term, so you can always check a meaning without losing your place. Terms are listed alphabetically.

Alt

Short for alternate. An alt is a backup dance attached to a slot in a program — a second choice you can swap in on the night if the planned dance isn't the right fit for the crowd or the moment.

Backup and restore

A backup saves everything in the app — your whole collection, your programs, custom fields, dialects, themes, and settings — to a single file. Restore loads such a file back in, replacing what's currently in the app. Together they're how you keep a safety copy and move your data between devices.

Beats

The unit a contra dance is counted in. Each figure takes a number of beats, and the app adds them up as you build a dance so you can see the total against what the dance's phrase structure expects.

Bundle

A single file holding a program together with every dance it uses, and its venue — made with Share (program + dances), and saved as a .ccshare file (or a JSON file with the same content). Handing someone a bundle gives them the whole evening, not just a list of titles. Opening one takes you to the import review screen, so nothing is added until you confirm. See Share, print & export.

The Caller's Box

A community archive of contra dances (by Chris Page and Michael Dyck) that the app can import from, either by searching it online or by pasting a dance's link or ID number.

Caller's Companion

Another app for organizing contra dances. If you are moving from it, Caller's Compendium can import your library from its export files — a .USR file brings dances, figures, and past programs across in one pass — and can turn its call buttons into shorthands. See Imports & migration.

Caller's Compendium

The full name of the app — a free, open-source organizer for contra-dance callers that keeps your library on your own device. "The app" is a fine shorthand once you know what it means.

Calling history

The list, on each dance, of the programs that include it, most recent first — so you can see when you last called it. A setting decides whether every program counts or only slots you have marked performed. See Programs & matrix.

Canonical wording

The plain, shared wording the app stores every dance in, underneath your dialect. Because every dance is stored this way, switching dialects never rewrites a dance, and search finds a dance whatever words you use. You can also pick Canonical as your dialect, or peek at a dance's canonical wording without switching — see Dialect.

Choreographer

The person who wrote a dance. In the app a choreographer is a shared record rather than a line of text, so the details you add — their website and notes — follow every dance credited to them. Their email, location, and deceased mark are private: they are never included in anything you share with someone else, though your own backups keep them.

Collection

Your whole library of dances — everything you've typed in or brought in from elsewhere, all in one place to browse, search, and organize.

ContraDB

An online database of contra dances that the app can import from, either by searching it online or by pasting a dance's link or ID number.

Custom field

An extra piece of information you define yourself and attach to dances — beyond the built-in fields — so you can record and search on whatever matters to you. Each custom field has an Include in sharing setting that decides whether its values go along when you share a dance with someone else.

Dance

A single dance transcription in your collection: its title, figures, notes, and the other details that let you call it.

Device Sync

An optional, experimental feature that keeps your library in step across your own devices. It is off until you turn it on in Settings › Experimental, and while it is off the app sends nothing anywhere. Your devices connect using a private sync phrase that only you should know. Sync is not a backup — keep making backups too.

Dialect

Your personal choice of role names and wording — for example Larks/Robins or Leads/Follows — applied everywhere the app shows text. It's your words, your way, not a fixed technical mapping. See Dialect.

Discouraged term

A word you would rather not use, such as an older gendered role name. Each dialect keeps its own list; the dance editor strikes these words through when you type them so you can reconsider, but never blocks or changes your text. See Dialect.

Figure

A single action within a dance, such as "neighbors balance and swing." "Figure" refers to the entry as it appears in a dance; the underlying named action is a move.

Formation

How the dancers are arranged — for example duple improper or Becket. It's a plain contra term, used here the way callers already use it.

Import

Bringing dances into your collection from another source — The Caller's Box, ContraDB, Caller's Companion, or a Caller's Compendium file. Imports add dances alongside what you already have, and you review everything before it is added. See Imports & migration.

JSON file

A plain-text file format that almost any device can open. Caller's Compendium uses it for backups and offers it as an alternative to a .ccshare file when you share a dance or program — handy for someone who hasn't installed the app yet. See Share, print & export.

Matrix

The figures-by-dances grid inside a program. It shows which moves appear in which dances at a glance, so you can check the variety of an evening.

Meanwhile

Two or more figures that happen at the same time, danced by different people — for example, ones circle left while twos swing. In the dance editor these are grouped as a Meanwhile, with one side per simultaneous figure, sharing a single beat count instead of adding up. See Write & edit dances.

Mixer

A dance in which you change partners each time through, so over the course of the dance you dance with many different people rather than staying with one partner. It's a property you can set on any dance in the editor, kept separate from the formation: a mixer can be danced in many shapes, and not every circle dance is a mixer.

Move

The underlying named action behind a figure — for example a swing, a hey, or an allemande. The same move can appear as a figure in many dances.

Perform mode

The large-print, high-contrast, stage-ready view you call from. It's built to be read at arm's length in dim light, one-handed, while you're on the floor.

Phrase structure

How a dance's beats are grouped — the familiar A1 A2 B1 B2 of most contras, or something else. The app assumes the standard structure unless you write your own in the dance editor, and it uses whatever you set to tell you whether a dance's beats add up.

Program

An ordered set list for one event — a Saturday dance, a weekend, or a one-off gig. Its individual entries are slots, and a backup choice on a slot is an alt.

Progression

How dancers move on to the next couple as a dance repeats. Like formation, it's a plain contra term used here in the usual way.

Shorthand

A short token you type during free-text figure entry that expands into one or more whole figures you have set up in advance. Shorthands are yours to define in Settings › Dialect › Dance details & shorthands, and an import from Caller's Companion can offer to create them from your old call buttons. See Write & edit dances.

Slot

A single position in a program — usually one dance, but it can also hold free text (a break, an announcement) or carry an alt as a backup choice.

Snippet

A saved sentence describing how you teach one particular figure. Write one while editing a dance and the app remembers it, so Fill from snippets can pre-fill a walkthrough for any dance using that figure. Your saved snippets live under Walkthrough snippets in Settings › Dialect › Dance details & shorthands. See Write & edit dances.

Venue

Where a program is held. A venue can be a simple free-text label, or a reusable venue record that many programs can share and you edit in one place. A venue record holds a name, address, contacts, schedule, sponsor, website, price, and notes. Turn on Use reusable venue records in Settings to link programs to saved venues; switching this on or off never discards your free-text label or a linked record. When you share a program, a venue's address is left out and its contact details are included only if you choose — see What stays private.

Walkthrough

The teaching pass — how you talk a hall through a dance before the music starts. A dance can carry its own walkthrough text, which you can write yourself or pre-fill from your saved snippets, and show as an overlay in Perform mode.

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