Introduction
Welcome to the online method database at methods.ringing.org, a collection of methods for change ringing. If you don’t know what change ringing is, you’ll find plenty of information on the Change Ringing Resources website.
What is here?
The point of this web site is to give access to a database. The
database lives on methods.ringing.org
and users can get to
it through these pages. Computer programs can also access the database
directly. In the database are methods; currently, we have all the
methods rung, as listed in the
Central Council Methods
Library. In the future we may also add collections of unrung
methods.
So why do we need a new database?
This website was created in 2002. At this time, the Central Council had already made the methods library available online, so why did we bother setting up another web site to give access to the same information?
There were two main reasons why a site like with was needed to provide additional functionality.
- First, the methods here are not stored in a set of flat files which you can download in their entirety, as was originally the case for the methods library. Instead, they are stored here in a relational database. This means that you can search for methods by name, class, place notation and many other criteria. You can search for methods which were rung before a particular year. You can search for methods whose entry has been updated since last time you looked. In the future, we hope to offer further abilities to search by symmetry type, to look for rotations of a given place notation, and other options.
- Secondly, this database can be queried by other computer programs. For example, suppose that you are a ringer who is developing a web page which rings methods, or searches for compositions, or prints blue lines. You do not have to repeatedly download and keep copies of method collections. You simply write your program to ask this database whenever it needs to look up a method. On the other hand, suppose that you are writing a program that people will use at home while not permanently connected to the Internet. In that case, you can easily supply a short program which the user can run to connect to the database and download any new methods which have been added since last time they checked.
Over the subsequent two decades, the Central Council’s methods library has also been converted into a relational database and the need for this site is reduced. However, people are still using it and using software which queries this site for infomation on methods. We want to continue supporting these users, so in 2024, we completely rewrote the site to run on a more modern hosting platform. Hopefully very little functionality will have changed as part of this rewrite.
To search the database, go to the search page. For information on how to use the database from your own computer programs, see the section entitled For Programmers.