Version 4.0 wishlist

[freegoo]

With OS5 support finally done, what would you like to see added, changed, or fixed most with PDACookbook?

Few things for me:

Workaround for the memo 4k limit with memopad. I plan recipes a month at a time and often get my shopping list truncated due to the insane memo pad limit even after going through and removing ingrediants that are on hand or combining common ingrediants. Even worse, PDACookbook does not display a warning when memo limit has been exceeded, Have to find out about it by going into memo pad and looking at last ingredient. Best solution to this would be to span ingredients across multiple memo's.

Progress bar when exporting shopping list to memopad.

Being able to add comments or alternative ingredients for ingredient items in a recipe and exported to the memopad as a note.

Recipe ratings. (I currently get around this by using categories: 5*, 4*, etc.)

So what you guys got? :)

[liann]

Yes, the memopad length does pose some frustrations.

Here are some other items I hope would be included in future versions:-

1) the ability to use the keyboard to select recipe in the PDACookbook Desktop
What happens now is that I can only key in one letter for it to go to the first recipe beginning with that letter. It really doesn't serve a purpose when I have a lot of recipes and I still have to resort to using the scroll. It would be efficient if I can for example key in C-H-I-C to go directly to the recipes starting with that first 4 letters.

2) one good addition would be to add a place to store the source of the recipe, with so many recipe groups and cookbooks, I tend to lose the source of them

liann

[breadguy]

Suggestion 1 :
When changing the recipe scale it would be better if the screen automatically reverts to the ingredients tab instead of remaining at the Misc tab.

Suggestion 2 :
Is it possible to have the fractions as 1/16 for pounds instead of 1/8, or 2/3 or 1/3. Reason being 1/16 represents the ounces
i.e 2 5/16 lb (translation = 2 lbs and 5 ounces)

[pmbrady]

Just wondering if you have given any thought to
the ability to open different (named) cookbooks
instead of the default. Which limits you to one.

It would be nice to be able to open say a pastry
cookbook, or a cuisine cookbook or dessert cook-
book .....well you get the idea.

Thanks
Patrick

PS. It would also be nice if they were on a memory
card (I know you're working on the card..just
thought I'd mention it though). Although not
necessary.

[Support]

When we are able to add memory card support, we will look seriously at being able to do multiple cookbooks.

Thanks for the input!

[mashby]

1. Notes
I'd love to see a notes section added. There's plenty of little tidbits that I like to add to my recipes but there's no place for them currently

2. Style Category
It would be great if there was an additional category option for the style of cooking this is, such as Oriental, American, TexMex, etc.

I could add these styles into the category field, but I'd prefer it if it were in a separate field, that way it would be easier to sort and possibly search through.

Wouldn't it be great if you could do a search for just French? Or what if when you're planning a meal, you could easily pull up other recepies that were similar based on the style of meal you were planning?

3. Updated Icons
This is a minor thing at best, but with most devices now using Hi-Res, it'd be nice if the icons were updated. :)

4. Better Print Templates
For the Windows Desktop application, the printing template should be updated to something more professional. Right now what's there is not much better than a simple text file.

I'd like to see maybe an Icon in the upper left corner, the title of the recipe in bold large print and centered. Maybe a line about "From the kitchen of..." and the name of the user. Lastly each section should be broken out with headers of what each section is.

5. Link Feature
This may be impossible to do, but I'm coming across a lot of recipes that are coming bundled as a menu. For example this recipe, Caraway and Fennel Crusted Loin of Lamb with Mustard Sauce (http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_16379,00.html) actually contains three recipes. One for the lamb, one for Braised Napa Cabbage with Red Wine Vinegar and Mint and one for the Yukon Gold Mashed Potatoes with Green Garlic Butter.

Right now my only option is to either include everything as one recipe, or to enter each one, save it as a Menu and hope that I remember it. What I'd rather do is link to the other recipes as an individual.

The reason is that the Yukon Gold Mashed Potatoes with Green Garlic Butter is a great recipe that can be used with many other dishes, so lumping it in all as one recipe would not be good. So if I break out each recipe into it's own entry, then I have nothing to rely on but my memory that all three of these dishes went together - and we all know how unreliable our memories can be. :)

For the time being, I'm adding this to the top of the "Instructions" section under the heading of notes, but links would be MUCH better. :D

[mashby]

6. Spell Checker
On the desktop, it would be great if there was a spell checking feature. Having just entered a bunch of recipes for the South Beach Diet and then posting them to the forum here (http://www.wakefieldsoft.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=299) and here (http://www.wakefieldsoft.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=304), it would have been a GREAT help to have a spell checker go over everything I typed.

7. Better Shopping List
The current shopping list feature on my Tungsten C is almost worthless since there is no way to "check" an item once it's made it into your basket. The only way to get rid of it is to delete it.

On the T|C I found that some items would get selected and when I'd select a different item and both would be highlighted. With this confusion, I deleted items that had not been placed in my shopping basket and didn't know I forgot something until I got home and it was too late.

There's no need to use SplashShopper, or HandyShopper if PDACookbook used a similar check style interface.

8. Health Database
As long as I'm dreaming... :p

It'd be awsome if there was a way to include a health database. I would imagine it would have to be done by ingredient, but if you could click a button to calculate the nutrition information, that would be awesome. Granted, this would be huge project and probably beyond the scope of the software, but it would be cool. :cool:

Somewhere there has to be a health information for most basic items. If there was a database of those items in the "Ingredients" section, then when you build a recipe, you could easily calculate the total basic nutritional information.

Even if a pre-built database wasn't available, it would be nice if the feature was there so that those of us that were so inclined to go to that level could do it ourselves. :)

[mashby]

9. Meal Planner
The menu is ok, but since going on the South Beach diet, I'm having a hard time keeping up with the Meal Plans. How does a meal plan differ from a menu? Well, I see the menu as being for a specific meal, where as a Meal Plan covers the whole day.

The other hurdle with a Meal Plan is that it contains things that may not be in a recipe. For example, here is my meal plan for today:

Phase 1 - Day 11

=======================
Breakfast
=======================
6oz Tomato Juice
Cheesy Frittata [recipe]
Coffee

=======================
Snack
=======================
1-2 Turkey Roll-Ups [recipe]
2Tbsp Cilantro Mayonnaise (optional) [recipe]

=======================
Lunch
=======================
Gazpacho [recipe]
Grilled sirloin hamburger steak (no bun)
Tossed salad (mixed greens, cucumbers, green peppers, cherry tomatoes)
Oilive oil and vinegar to taste or 2 Tbsp low-sugar prepared dressing

=======================
Snack
=======================
Fresh Mozzarella cheese balls

=======================
Dinner
=======================
Gingered Chicken Breast [recipe]
Steamed snow peas
Oriental Cabbage Salad [recipe]

=======================
Dessert
=======================
Almond Ricotta Crème [recipe]

As you can see there are quite a few items that are not in a recipe, but if I'm going to the grocery store, I need to account for those items as well. As of right now, it's making it somewhat cumbersome to keep up with two shopping lists, one in PDACookbook (for recipes) and one in SplashShopper (for other items). I know I can import, into Splash Shopper, but I still have two shopping lists as I go through the Meal Plan.

I don't know if the items in the Meal Plan should be in a separate list from the Ingredients list, but I would prefer it, if this item ever gets considered. :)

[KathyLa55]

The feature I would like to see is the ability to show the menus in Datebk5. Just another way to be more organized at the touch of a finger. PDACookbook is much eaiser to use than PocketCook, I like it so much I purchased it even though I had already purchased Pocketcook.

[yerrago]

I've use PocketRecipe, didn't like it, found PDA Cookbook and started to like it and bought it.

The problem starts when I start importing recipes. Because of the links on WakefieldSoft's website, and because PDACookbook does a fairly good job importing from different formats, I now have so many recipes I don't what to do with. :D

In referencing a reply given by Shawn about support for external memory cards, which would allow for different cookbooks, I thought about a feature of PocketRecipes called "MyRecipes."

It essentially lets me choose which recipes I could really use, and puts in in this separate database. Now, if PocketRecipe was able to do this without external memory card support, I wonder if Wakefield could put just one similar database. Is that possible?

Secondly, I could use just one other database (or cookbook file) when importing recipes. This database could be a temporary database for use in importing recipes and minnowing it, so that what is left after reviewing it is something I could really use. Thereafter, I could import thise database into the main database.
This way, I could keep my main cookbook free from unwanted (for lack of a more perjorative term :p ) recipes.

With these features added, I can definitely maximize the use of PDACookbook, since I will now be more focused with planning meals and shopping lists. Right now, I am overwhelmed with so many recipes that I don't need.

Like I said, the links to recipes are a blessing, but it can turn into a curse when it becomes information overload. I wonder if I could launch two instances of PDACookbook on the same computer and have one of them serve the minnowing function. Or I could install in on another computer for that function.

[paqtoque]

Following is what I would like to see implemented:

1. HiRes+ support for 320x480 screens (Garmin iQue), also, a general, a more hi res look (icons, tabs) would be nice
2. Possibility to have recipe instruction checked off. I create my recipes step by step (or modify them to appear like that), and it would be helpful to check off completed steps as I am cooking along, with an option to either show the checked off items, or to omit them. This would significantly help to keep the overview while cooking longer recipes.
3. Source Field as mentioned in an earlier post (--> to show in the miscellaneous tab?). Right now I just add the source at the end of my recipe instructions.
4. Integration of the Pocket PC and Palm Version My wife owns a Pocket PC and I own a Palm, and we both have a licence for PDA Cookbook. Right now we have the Palm version permanently installed, because it syncs. If I want to pass on the recipes to my wife's Pocket PC, I need to uninstall the Palm version, install the Pocket PC version, copy the recipes to her Pocket PC, and the reinstall the Palm version. Wouldn't it be possible to make the export to Pocket PC available in the Palm Version of the desktop?
5. Style Category as mentioned in an earlier post also, would be nice as a second sort criteria. Not so important though, because I can assign more than one category to an item.
6. Memory Card Support
7. "Folder Interface" It would be nice, to be able to structure the recipe list by categories, and then to make the contents of each folder visible (ok, ok, I admit, I checked out the trial of your competition, and it's really a nice feature ...)

While I would REALLY like to see 1-4 implemented soon, 5-7 are more like a wish list

[raquel]

Hi, I really like PDACookbook and use it so much now I don't know how I survived without it before. However, the following additions would be much appreciated!

1. Better shopping list - wish we could categorize ingredients in the shopping list by recipe so that I'll know which ingredient is for what recipe without having the added click on the ingredient and then View. Hopefully, being able to categorize the ingredients by recipe could also mean that we could just click on the recipe and delete from the shopping list every ingredient associated with that recipe.

2. Ability to track recipe source, as mentioned by other users before. And also the ability to search by recipe source.

3. Ability to input prep times, cooking times and being able to filter by those fields. Would be specially helpful for people like me who'd want to go through recipes and pick the ones that are the easiest to prepare specially on busy days.

4. Default nutritional info units. Say I pick Dietary Fiber as the category, it would be nice to have the unit default to grams instead of having to select it from the drop down.

[NoriOdoi]

PDACookbook has become one of my most used software products on my Treo 600. I have pointed out to my husband that it has saved me (us) time and money since its menu function helps me to make sure that I use my groceries in a timely manner (very important with fresh fish and meat!)

It would be nice if menus could be sorted in either ascending or descending order at the user's choice -- sometimes I want to see the end of my planning period.

Also I really like mashby's idea of having a menu planner. Right now, all my items for my meals of the day are all jumbled together.

It would be handy to assign items to "breakfast", "morning snack", "lunch", "afternoon snack", "dinner", "evening snack". (I'm on the South Beach Diet too. And my cholesterol and weight have declined accordingly!).

It would be nice of course to allow the users to name their meals according to their custom, but even having "meal 1", meal 2", etc. would be very helpful for looking at menus.

[dianatw]

I like the idea of grouping recipes like it was mentioned above, and for sorting menus in reverse order. Even better, I would like to name menus rather than (or in addition to) dating them, like "Thanksgiving 2004" or "Old Farts Dinner Party" or "Cinqo de Mayo."

Thanks for your consideration! Outstanding product!!!!!!!

[aMacFan]

I would like to add my vote for:

1) Support for memory cards!
2) High Res support - especially 320x480 screen sizing!

Thanks!

[jcrandall99]

My wish list includes:
1. Support for the Treo 600 DPAD or whatever the directional doodad is called.
2. Named menus. I would like to combine recipes for a menu and have the menu display make the grouping clear AND be able to total the nutrional information for the whole menu (tricky but not impossible).
3. I haven't figured out how to add new units to the nutrition information list.

[Support]

Let us know what nutritional units you would like to see. I can add them to our suggestion list.

Thanks.

[jcrandall99]

Thanks for your speedy response. The main nutritional unit that I would like to add is exchange. I use the American Diabetic Association exchange lists to track my diet so in addition to regular nutritional info I add items like: 1 exchange lean meat, 1 1/2 exchange starch.

Thanks,
Jim Crandall

[Support]

Version 4.0 has now been released.

Registered users have been sent an email with upgrade info.

If you do not receive the email, please let us know and we can provide the upgrade information.

The upgrade is only $9.99.

For a list of new features, please scroll down the page here:
http://www.wakefieldsoft.com/pdacookbook/download.html